Informix Error -700: Statement is invalid within a global transaction.

Reasons / Common Causes

-700 fires when BEGIN WORK, COMMIT WORK, or ROLLBACK WORK is issued while a global (distributed/XA) transaction is already in progress — per the official guidance, transaction boundary control belongs to the external transaction manager in this environment, not to ordinary SQL statements.

1. Application code issuing BEGIN WORK/COMMIT WORK/ROLLBACK WORK inside a global transaction, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
2. Code written for standalone (non-XA) use, reused inside an XA-managed connection without removing its own transaction-boundary statements, since the external transaction manager already controls those boundaries in this environment.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Remove BEGIN WORK/COMMIT WORK/ROLLBACK WORK from code that runs inside a global transaction, per the official guidance — let the external transaction manager (via xa_start/xa_end/xa_commit/xa_rollback) control the transaction boundary instead.
2. Audit code paths that might run either standalone or inside an XA-managed connection, ensuring the transaction-boundary statements are only issued in the standalone case.

Examples

The disallowed attempt

-- Inside an XA global transaction:
BEGIN WORK;
-- -700: transaction boundaries are controlled by the XA transaction manager here

Corrected — no explicit transaction-boundary statement

/* The XA transaction manager already opened the global transaction
   via xa_start(); just run the work, then let it call xa_end()/xa_commit(). */
UPDATE orders SET status = 'shipped' WHERE order_id = 42;

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check whether the connection is currently inside an XA global transaction, and remove any BEGIN WORK/COMMIT WORK/ROLLBACK WORK from code paths that run there.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -701 — "Statement is invalid within the XA environment." A related restriction, naming a broader list of statements (including CREATE DATABASE, SAVEPOINT, and others) disallowed in the XA environment.
• -702 — "Cannot open database in exclusive mode." A related XA-environment restriction, on a specific database-open mode.

Transaction boundaries in an XA global transaction are controlled by the external transaction manager — remove BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK WORK from code running inside one.