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Informix Error -713

-713 Cannot decode encoded BLOB descriptor.

The decoding of a blob descriptor prior to its insertion into a data row has failed. See the error from the optical subsystem (an error in the -7000 to -7199 range) for more information.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-713 fires when decoding a BLOB descriptor fails before it can be inserted into a data row — per the official guidance, the specific reason is carried by an accompanying error from the optical subsystem itself, in the -7000 to -7199 range, the same separate numeric range referenced by -645/-646.

  1. A malformed or corrupted encoded descriptor value, per the official guidance's pointer to the accompanying -7000..-7199 error — the descriptor string passed to DESCR() (or produced by a prior FAMILY()/VOLUME()/DESCR() read) doesn't decode successfully.
  2. An Optical Subsystem-level condition underlying the decode failure, carried by the accompanying error.
Solutions / Resolution
  1. Check the accompanying optical-subsystem error (in the -7000 to -7199 range), per the official guidance — that error carries the specific reason the decode failed.
  2. Confirm the descriptor value being decoded is well-formed, if it was constructed or modified by application code rather than read directly from FAMILY()/VOLUME()/DESCR().
Examples
Checking the accompanying optical-subsystem error
-- A -713 failure is accompanied by a second error in the -7000..-7199
-- range -- that error identifies the specific subsystem-level reason
-- (this errata set doesn't currently cover that separate numeric range).
Diagnostic Checks
  1. Identify and look up the accompanying -7000..-7199 optical-subsystem error code — the documented path to the specific cause, per the official guidance.
  2. Check whether the descriptor value was constructed/modified by application code, versus read directly from a server function, as a plausible source of malformation.
Related Errors / Related Topics
  • -711 — "Cannot insert encoded BLOB descriptor." A related DESCR() failure, at the insert stage rather than decode.
  • -712 — "Cannot insert encoded BLOB descriptor in non-optical BLOB columns." A related, more specific insert-stage failure.
  • -714 — "Cannot encode BLOB descriptor." The mirror-image failure, at the encode stage.

The specific cause lives in a separate accompanying error (-7000..-7199), the same range used by -645/-646.