Informix Error -819: There are no menu items in the menu.

Reasons / Common Causes

-819 fires when a selected menu (successfully found, unlike -818) has no items defined on it — per the official guidance, the menu itself exists but is empty.

1. A menu defined but never populated with items, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
2. All items removed from a menu that previously had them, leaving it empty.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Choose a different menu, per the official guidance, if this empty one wasn't actually intended.
2. Modify the current menu to add items, per the official guidance, if this menu is the right one but simply hasn't been populated yet.
3. Check the contents of the sysmenuitems table in the current database, per the official guidance, if items were expected but don't appear to be there:

   SELECT colname FROM syscolumns
   WHERE tabid = (SELECT tabid FROM systables WHERE tabname = 'sysmenuitems');
   
   SELECT * FROM sysmenuitems;
   

Examples

Checking sysmenuitems

SELECT * FROM sysmenuitems;

Compare against the specific menu's expected items to confirm whether they were ever actually added.

Diagnostic Checks

1. Query sysmenuitems to check whether the menu genuinely has no items defined, or whether something else (a filtering condition, a different menu name) explains the empty result.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -818 — "Specified user menu not found." A related menu error, about the menu itself not being found at all, rather than being found but empty.

The menu was found but has no items — check sysmenuitems, then either populate the menu or choose a different one.