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Informix Error -1170

-1170 The type of your terminal is unknown to the system.

Check the setting of your TERM environment variable and the setting of your TERMCAP or TERMINFO environment variable. Check with your system administrator if you need help with this action.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-1170 fires when the system can't recognize the terminal type in use — per the official guidance, this points to the TERM environment variable and the TERMCAP/TERMINFO settings backing it.

  1. TERM set to a value with no corresponding termcap/terminfo entry, per the official guidance — the direct, common cause.
  2. A TERMCAP/TERMINFO configuration missing the entry for the terminal type actually in use, per the official guidance, even if TERM itself is spelled correctly.
Solutions / Resolution
  1. Verify your TERM environment variable setting, per the official guidance.
  2. Check the TERMCAP or TERMINFO environment variables, per the official guidance, for whether they actually contain an entry for that terminal type.
  3. System administrator assistance may be needed, per the official guidance, to resolve the underlying configuration issue.
Examples
Checking the terminal configuration
$ echo "$TERM"
$ infocmp "$TERM" 2>&1 | head -1
Diagnostic Checks
  1. Check TERM's value, and confirm a matching entry exists in the active TERMCAP/ TERMINFO source.
Related Errors / Related Topics
  • -1005 — "Your specified termcap file cannot be read." A related terminal-configuration error, about the TERMCAP file itself being inaccessible.
  • -1007 — "Invalid value for the INFORMIXTERM environment variable." A related terminal- configuration error, about the facility selector rather than the terminal type itself.

The terminal type named by TERM has no matching termcap/terminfo entry — verify TERM and the active TERMCAP/TERMINFO source; may need administrator help.