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Informix Error -490

-490 Database was created without NLS functionality.

You created a database that lacked NLS functionality.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-490 fires when an operation requiring National Language Support (NLS) — locale-aware collation, character-set handling, and similar functionality — is attempted against a database that was created without NLS enabled.

  1. A database created before NLS was configured on the server, or created explicitly without NLS, later needing an NLS-dependent feature (a specific collation, locale-aware sorting, and similar).
  2. An application assuming NLS is universally available, without checking whether the specific target database was actually created with it.
  3. A schema/application ported from an NLS-enabled database to one that wasn't created with NLS support.
Solutions / Resolution
  1. Confirm whether the target database was created with NLS support before relying on NLS-dependent features against it.
  2. If NLS functionality is genuinely required, the database needs to be recreated with NLS enabled — this isn't something that can be added to an existing non-NLS database in place.
  3. If NLS isn't actually required, avoid the specific statement/feature that depends on it (e.g. a SET COLLATION to a locale-specific collation) against this database.
Examples
Checking whether NLS-dependent functionality is actually needed
-- If SET COLLATION or similar NLS-dependent functionality is
-- attempted against a non-NLS database, review whether it's
-- genuinely required or can be avoided for this database.
Diagnostic Checks
  1. Confirm whether the target database was created with NLS support enabled.
  2. Identify the specific NLS-dependent feature or statement that triggered the error.
Related Errors / Related Topics
  • -445 — "The length of the collation name in the SET COLLATION statement exceeds 32 bytes." A related collation/NLS-adjacent restriction, about naming format rather than whether NLS is enabled at all.

NLS support is established at database-creation time and can't be added afterward — if it's genuinely needed, the database has to be recreated with NLS enabled from the start.