Informix Error -723: Cannot disable logging in an ANSI-compliant database.

Reasons / Common Causes

-723 fires when START DATABASE database WITH NO LOG is attempted against an SE database that's ANSI-compliant — per the official guidance, ANSI compliance requires logging, so it can't be turned off this way on this kind of database.

1. START DATABASE ... WITH NO LOG issued against a MODE ANSI database, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
2. A maintenance/administrative script disabling logging uniformly across a set of databases without excluding the ANSI-compliant ones.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Don't attempt to disable logging on an ANSI-compliant database — per the official guidance, this is a fixed requirement of ANSI compliance, not a configurable trade-off (the same underlying principle as -573's buffered-logging restriction).
2. Check a database's ANSI-compliance status before attempting to change its logging mode:

   SELECT name, is_ansi FROM sysmaster:sysdatabases WHERE name = 'target_db';
   

3. If logging genuinely needs to be disabled for this database, reconsider whether it needs to be ANSI-compliant at all — a non-ANSI database doesn't carry this restriction.

Examples

The disallowed attempt

$ dbaccess - <<'EOF'
START DATABASE stores7_ansi WITH NO LOG;
EOF
-- -723: stores7_ansi was created WITH LOG MODE ANSI

Checking ANSI status first

SELECT name, is_ansi FROM sysmaster:sysdatabases WHERE name = 'stores7_ansi';

Diagnostic Checks

1. Query sysmaster:sysdatabases for is_ansi on the target database before attempting to disable its logging.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -573 — "Cannot set log to buffered in a mode ANSI database." The same underlying ANSI-compliance-requires-logging principle, applied to switching to buffered logging rather than disabling logging outright.

Same underlying rule as -573 — ANSI compliance requires logging; it's a fixed requirement, not a configurable option.