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Informix Error -341

-341 Could not read a row from audit trail file.

The database server encountered an unexpected error while it was reading the audit trail for this table. Likely causes of the error include file-permission problems and hardware errors. Look for operating-system error messages that might give more information.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-341 is a read-time failure against an already-open audit-trail file — distinct from -340 (failing to open the file at all), this happens partway through reading its contents.

  1. File permission problems that allow opening the file but not reading specific portions of it.
  2. Hardware errors on the disk hosting the audit-trail file, causing read failures on specific blocks.
  3. A partially corrupted audit-trail file, where some rows are unreadable even though the file itself opened successfully.
  4. Concurrent external modification of the file outside Informix's own tooling, leaving its internal structure inconsistent.
Solutions / Resolution
  1. Check operating-system error messages around the same time, per the official guidance, for the specific underlying reason.
  2. Check filesystem permissions on the audit-trail file.
  3. Check for underlying hardware/disk problems, especially if the failure is intermittent or tied to specific file offsets.
  4. If corruption is suspected, treat it the same way as -332's guidance: drop and restart the audit trail rather than trying to repair the existing file in place.
Examples
Checking OS-level errors and file health
dmesg | tail -50
-- look for disk I/O errors around the time of the failure
ls -la /informix/audit/audit_trail_1
-- confirm permissions and expected file size
Dropping and restarting a corrupted audit trail
DROP AUDIT;
CREATE AUDIT USING '/informix/audit/audit_trail_new';
Diagnostic Checks
  1. Check operating-system error messages logged around the same timestamp.
  2. Check filesystem permissions on the audit-trail file.
  3. Check for disk/hardware-level problems, particularly if the failure recurs on specific parts of the file.
Related Errors / Related Topics
  • -340 — "Cannot open audit trail file." The open-time counterpart of this read-time failure.
  • -332 — "Cannot access audit trail name information." Another audit-trail read failure, in this case at the level of name/metadata access rather than row data.

If corruption is confirmed, drop and restart the audit trail rather than attempting to repair the existing file — Informix doesn't provide an in-place repair path for it.