Informix Error -414

Reasons / Common Causes

-414 is the insert-cursor counterpart of -401: a PUT statement specifies a cursor whose underlying data structure is invalid, rather than simply unopened.

1. The cursor was explicitly freed with FREE, and a PUT was attempted against it afterward.
2. An automatic re-prepare failed while opening the cursor, leaving the cursor's internal structure unavailable even though the code believes it succeeded.
3. The cursor data structure was overwritten in memory — a more serious client-side memory bug, potentially in embedded SQL/ESQL-C code managing cursor handles directly.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Check whether the cursor was freed (FREE) before the PUT — don't attempt to use a cursor after freeing it.
2. Check for an automatic re-prepare failure around the OPEN step.
3. If memory corruption is suspected, review the application's own memory management around cursor handles in embedded SQL/ESQL-C client code, since this can point to a client-side bug rather than a server-side one.

Examples

Confirming the cursor wasn't freed before a PUT

DECLARE curs1 CURSOR FOR INSERT INTO orders (order_id, customer_id) VALUES (?, ?);
OPEN curs1;
PUT curs1 (1001, 42);
FREE curs1;
PUT curs1 (1002, 43);
-- -414: curs1 was freed before this PUT

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check for a FREE statement on the cursor before the failing PUT.
2. Review embedded SQL/ESQL client code for memory-management issues around cursor handles if corruption is suspected.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -401 — "Fetch attempted on NULL cursor." The closest sibling — the same underlying invalid- cursor-structure condition, applied to FETCH instead of PUT.
• -413 — "Insert attempted on unopen cursor." A related, less severe insert-cursor error — a cursor simply not currently open, versus this error's invalid/corrupted structure.

Same underlying causes as -401 — a freed cursor, a failed re-prepare, or (rarer) client-side memory corruption — applied here to PUT instead of FETCH.