Informix Error -582: Database does not have logging.

Reasons / Common Causes

-582 fires when ROLLFORWARD DATABASE is attempted against a database that was never created with transaction logging — per the official guidance, rollforward uses the transaction log as its input, and with no logging, there's nothing to roll forward from.

1. ROLLFORWARD DATABASE attempted on an unlogged database, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
2. A recovery procedure applied uniformly across a mix of logged and unlogged databases, without checking each one's logging status first.
3. A database's logging status misremembered or assumed — expecting logging to be on when the database was actually created without it (or had logging turned off since).

Solutions / Resolution

1. Confirm the database's logging status before attempting a rollforward, per the official guidance's underlying requirement:

   SELECT name, is_logging FROM sysmaster:sysdatabases WHERE name = 'target_db';
   

2. Recognize that rollforward simply isn't applicable to an unlogged database, per the official guidance — there is no fix that makes it work retroactively, since the transactions that would be rolled forward were never logged in the first place.
3. If ongoing rollforward capability is needed going forward, recreate the database with logging enabled, and treat any data since the last backup of the unlogged database as unrecoverable via rollforward.

Examples

Hitting the restriction

$ cd /path/containing/target_db.dbs
$ dbaccess - <<'EOF'
ROLLFORWARD DATABASE target_db;
EOF
-- -582: target_db was never created with logging

Checking logging status first

SELECT name, is_logging FROM sysmaster:sysdatabases WHERE name = 'target_db';

Diagnostic Checks

1. Query sysmaster:sysdatabases for is_logging on the target database before attempting ROLLFORWARD DATABASE.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -547 — "Must rollforward database in the directory where the database is." A related ROLLFORWARD error, about the working-directory requirement rather than the database lacking logging altogether.

Rollforward has nothing to work from on an unlogged database — check is_logging in sysmaster:sysdatabases before attempting it.