Informix Error -162

Reasons / Common Causes

-162 is the blobspace-specific counterpart to -130: same two-branch structure — an everyday naming mismatch (by far the more common case) versus rarer root dbspace corruption or exhaustion.

The ordinary case — a blobspace name that doesn't exist:

1. A CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement defining a BYTE/TEXT column with an IN blobspace_name clause referencing a blobspace that was never defined — the most likely cause, per the official text.
2. A typo in the blobspace name.
3. A blobspace that was dropped, or never created in this specific environment, while schema or scripts assume it exists — the same environment-drift pattern -130 describes, applied here to blobspaces specifically.

The rarer, more serious cases:

4. If the name is spelled correctly and should exist, the official text names corruption of a reserved page in the root dbspace as a possible cause — the same class of root-dbspace integrity concern as -135.
5. If the statement doesn't reference TEXT/BYTE columns at all, the root dbspace itself might be full or corrupted — a broader problem than blobspace naming, surfacing through this specific code.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Verify the blobspace name is correct and that it actually exists:

   onstat -d
   

   This resolves the overwhelming majority of -162 reports — the same first step as -130's own guidance.
2. If the blobspace genuinely doesn't exist and is needed, have the database administrator create it.
3. If the name is correct (or the blobspace should exist) and onstat -d doesn't resolve the confusion, check for root dbspace corruption:

   oncheck -cr
   

   (or tbcheck -cr/onutil per the version in use.)
4. If the failing statement doesn't reference TEXT/BYTE columns at all, treat this as a potential root dbspace fullness or corruption issue rather than a blobspace-naming problem, and contact the database server administrator directly.
5. For environment drift, ensure blobspace definitions are consistently replicated across environments as part of standard schema/environment parity checks, the same discipline -130 recommends for dbspaces generally.

Examples

The ordinary typo

CREATE TABLE documents
(
    id       INTEGER,
    content  TEXT IN blobspac1
);
-- -162: "blobspac1" doesn't exist — the intended name is "blobspace1"

onstat -d
-- confirms blobspace1 exists; blobspac1 does not

Environment missing a blobspace

A schema deployed correctly in production, where blobspace1 was created as part of initial provisioning, fails with -162 the first time it runs in a staging environment that never had that blobspace created — the fix is environment parity, not a schema change.

When the statement doesn't even reference TEXT/BYTE

CREATE TABLE regular_table (id INTEGER, name VARCHAR(50));
-- -162, with no TEXT/BYTE column in sight

This pattern points at root dbspace trouble (fullness or corruption) rather than blobspace naming — escalate to the database server administrator directly rather than searching the statement for a blobspace reference that isn't there.

Diagnostic Checks

1. List current dbspaces and blobspaces:

   onstat -d
   

2. Review the exact statement for a blobspace-name typo.
3. If the name appears correct or absent, and no TEXT/BYTE column is involved, check for root dbspace corruption or exhaustion:

   oncheck -cr
   

4. Compare environment configuration if the failure is specific to one environment and not others running the same schema.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -130 — "ISAM error: no such dbspace." The direct structural sibling — same two-branch diagnosis (naming mismatch vs. root dbspace corruption), applied to dbspaces generally rather than blobspaces specifically.
• -135 — "ISAM error: tblspace does not exist." Similar severity for the rarer, more serious branch — both point at potential root dbspace corruption requiring the same check utilities.

Run onstat -d before anything else, exactly as with -130 — it resolves the ordinary case immediately and its failure to resolve the confusion is itself the signal to move to the corruption/exhaustion investigation instead.