Informix Error -708

-708 Optical cluster cluster-name already exists.

You have attempted to create a new optical cluster with the name of an existing cluster. You must either drop the existing cluster or re-execute your statement using a different cluster name.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-708 fires when CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER names a cluster that already exists — per the official guidance, cluster names must be unique.

A cluster name reused for a new CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER statement — the direct, only cause.
A deployment/migration script re-run without checking whether the cluster was already created, attempting to create it a second time under the same name.

Solutions / Resolution

Drop the existing cluster first, per the official guidance, if the new definition is meant to replace it:
```
DROP OPTICAL CLUSTER doc_cluster;
CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER doc_cluster FOR content ...;
```
Or re-execute the statement using a different cluster name, per the official guidance, if the existing cluster should remain as-is.

Examples

The disallowed duplicate name

CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER doc_cluster FOR content_a ...;
-- run a second time:
CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER doc_cluster FOR content_b ...;
-- -708: doc_cluster already exists

Corrected — a different name

CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER doc_cluster_2 FOR content_b ...;

Diagnostic Checks

Check whether an optical cluster of the intended name already exists before attempting to create it, via whatever catalog/administrative view the Optical Subsystem exposes for clusters.

Related Errors / Related Topics

-709 — "TEXT and BYTE column column-name is already clustered." A related optical-cluster restriction, about a column already belonging to a different cluster, rather than the new cluster's own name colliding.

Drop the existing cluster first, or pick a different name for the new one.