Informix Error -333

Reasons / Common Causes

-333 fires when attempting to start a new audit trail while an existing one (under a different name) is still configured — Informix only supports one active audit trail configuration at a time, and starting a new one requires explicitly clearing the old one first.

1. Attempting to start a new audit trail without dropping the previous one — the direct, only cause.
2. A previous audit-trail setup attempt left a stale configuration behind, forgotten before trying to set up a new one.
3. Confusion about audit-trail naming/rotation — assuming a new name would simply supersede the old one, rather than requiring an explicit DROP AUDIT first.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Drop the existing audit trail with DROP AUDIT before starting a new one, per the official guidance — this is the required sequence, not optional.
2. Confirm the currently configured audit trail's name before attempting to start a differently-named one, so the drop step targets the right configuration.

Examples

Dropping the old audit trail before starting a new one

DROP AUDIT;
START AUDIT USING 'new_audit_trail_name';

The disallowed direct attempt

START AUDIT USING 'new_audit_trail_name';
-- -333: an audit trail under a different name is already configured

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check the currently configured audit trail's name (via the appropriate audit-configuration query/tooling for the server version in use).
2. Confirm DROP AUDIT was actually issued before attempting to start a new one.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -332 — "Cannot access audit trail name information." Another audit-trail infrastructure error, in the same general auditing-subsystem family.
• -318 — "File with the same name as specified log file already exists." A conceptually similar "explicit cleanup required before starting fresh" restriction, in the transaction-log setup context instead.

Only one audit trail configuration can be active at a time — DROP AUDIT is always required before starting a differently-named one.