Informix Error -117

Reasons / Common Causes

-117 is different from everything else covered so far: the official text says plainly that no current IBM Informix product generates this message. It's a legacy code, not an active failure mode — worth understanding why it exists rather than treating it like the other codes in this range.

1. A retired mechanism. Early ISAM/Informix versions supported "custom collating sequences" — a user-supplied definition of a non-default character sort order, used when comparing values in an index. -117 was what the ISAM processor reported when that definition was malformed or otherwise unusable.
2. Superseded by GLS. Modern Informix versions handle locale-specific and non-default collation through GLS (Global Language Support), not the older custom-collating-sequence mechanism this code refers to. The code path that could produce -117 isn't exercised by current products at all.
3. An occurrence on a current, supported version is itself the anomaly. Because the mechanism behind -117 isn't part of what current versions do, actually seeing it isn't a condition to diagnose from established patterns the way the rest of this range's errors are — it's a signal that something unusual is happening, worth treating as such rather than assuming a routine cause.

Solutions / Resolution

1. If you see -117 on a current, supported Informix version, treat it as an anomaly, not a routine error. Capture the exact version, the operation being performed, and any legacy files or collation definitions involved, and contact IBM Informix Technical Support per the official guidance — this isn't a condition with an established, common fix to reach for.
2. If you're genuinely working with old C-ISAM code or data that predates GLS, and a custom collating-sequence definition file is actually part of that environment, check that the file is intact and correctly formatted — but recognize this is a very old code path, unlikely to be relevant to anything running on a current deployment.
3. If your actual goal is a non-default or locale-specific sort order, use GLS — the current mechanism for this, and unrelated to whatever produced -117 historically. Don't look for a fix to -117 itself when the real need is just "I want different collation behavior."

Examples

There isn't a representative "common failure" example to give here the way there is for most of this range — the official documentation's own position is that this shouldn't occur on current products. The closest thing to useful context is recognizing when you might be looking at genuinely legacy territory:

$ onstat -                       # confirm the actual server version in use
IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version X.XX...

If the version is current and supported, -117 is unexpected enough to escalate directly rather than search for a known-cause/known-fix pairing — there isn't an established one for a message current products don't generate.

Diagnostic Checks

1. Confirm the actual product and version in use — this alone determines whether -117 is a meaningful signal or a genuine anomaly worth escalating immediately.
2. Check whether any legacy custom-collating-sequence file is present or referenced in the environment, if the system in question predates GLS.
3. Prioritize capturing exact reproduction circumstances over self-diagnosis — per the official guidance, an unexplained recurrence should go to IBM Informix Technical Support with full details, rather than being treated as something to work around independently.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -100 — "ISAM error: duplicate value for a record with unique key." The other foundational ISAM-level error in this family, though unrelated in cause — grouped here as background on how this error class is organized.

If you're looking for how to configure non-default collation on a current version, look at GLS directly rather than anything connected to this code — -117 describes a mechanism GLS replaced, not one still in active use.