Informix Error -1147: You cannot CLOSE, CLEAR or make CURRENT an unopened window.

Reasons / Common Causes

-1147 fires when CLOSE WINDOW, CLEAR WINDOW, or CURRENT WINDOW IS references a window that hasn't been opened yet, or that was already closed — per the official guidance, these three operations all require the window to actually be open.

1. A window referenced before its OPEN WINDOW statement has run, per the official guidance — an ordering problem.
2. A window referenced after it was already closed, per the official guidance — a stale reference to a window no longer active.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Review the program logic to prevent references to unopened windows, per the official guidance, except during the OPEN WINDOW operation itself.
2. Track which windows are currently open in the program's control flow, so CLOSE/CLEAR/ CURRENT WINDOW are only issued against ones actually open at that point.

Examples

Referencing a window before opening it

CLEAR WINDOW w1
-- -1147: w1 has not been opened yet
OPEN WINDOW w1 AT 1, 1 WITH FORM "order_entry"

Diagnostic Checks

1. Trace the program flow to confirm the window was opened, and not already closed, at the point of the failing CLOSE/CLEAR/CURRENT WINDOW statement.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -1143 — "Window is already open." The mirror-image restriction: OPEN WINDOW fails when a window is already open, while this error fires when other operations target one that isn't.

CLOSE/CLEAR/CURRENT WINDOW all require the window to actually be open — check the program's open/close ordering.