Informix Error -482

-482 Invalid operation on a non-SCROLL cursor.

You cannot issue a FETCH PRIOR, FETCH FIRST, FETCH LAST, FETCH CURRENT, FETCH RELATIVE n, or FETCH ABSOLUTE n statement with a non-scroll cursor. To do so, you must first declare the cursor as a scroll cursor.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-482 fires when a FETCH operation requiring bidirectional or positional movement (PRIOR, FIRST, LAST, CURRENT, RELATIVE n, or ABSOLUTE n) is attempted on a cursor that wasn't declared with SCROLL — an ordinary (non-scroll) cursor only supports moving forward one row at a time via plain FETCH/FETCH NEXT.

A cursor declared without SCROLL, later used with FETCH PRIOR/FIRST/LAST/ RELATIVE/ABSOLUTE — the direct, only cause.
Code copied from a context using scroll cursors, applied to a cursor that wasn't declared with that capability.
Assuming all cursors support bidirectional movement by default, when it actually requires an explicit declaration.

Solutions / Resolution

Declare the cursor as a scroll cursor, per the official guidance, before executing these fetch variants:
```
DECLARE curs1 SCROLL CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM orders;
```
If only forward-only, sequential access is actually needed, use plain FETCH/FETCH NEXT instead, and skip the SCROLL declaration (which does carry some overhead) entirely.

Examples

Declaring a scroll cursor for bidirectional access

DECLARE curs1 SCROLL CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM orders;
OPEN curs1;
FETCH FIRST curs1;
FETCH LAST curs1;
FETCH PRIOR curs1;

The disallowed attempt on a non-scroll cursor

DECLARE curs1 CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM orders;
OPEN curs1;
FETCH FIRST curs1;
-- -482: curs1 wasn't declared with SCROLL

Diagnostic Checks

Check the cursor's DECLARE statement for the SCROLL keyword.
Confirm the specific FETCH variant being used actually requires scroll capability (PRIOR, FIRST, LAST, CURRENT, RELATIVE, ABSOLUTE do; plain FETCH/FETCH NEXT don't).

Related Errors / Related Topics

-423 — "A FETCH CURRENT was attempted with no current row." A related FETCH-variant error, about row-positioning state rather than the cursor's scroll capability.
-400 — "Fetch attempted on unopen cursor." A related cursor-lifecycle error, about open/closed state rather than scroll capability.

Declare SCROLL explicitly on any cursor that needs PRIOR/FIRST/LAST/RELATIVE/ ABSOLUTE fetches — it isn't the default, and carries overhead worth reserving for cursors that genuinely need bidirectional access.