Informix Error -807

Reasons / Common Causes

-807 fires when the interactive tool's Save option can't create the specified file — per the official guidance, three possibilities: no write permission in the current directory, a read-only file of the same name already existing, or a full disk.

1. No write permission in the current directory, per the official guidance — the account lacks the OS-level permission needed to create a new file there.
2. A read-only file of the same name already present, per the official guidance — saving under the same name would need to overwrite it, which fails if it's read-only.
3. A full disk, per the official guidance.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Check write permission in the current directory, per the official guidance:

   ls -ld .
   

2. Try saving under a different name, per the official guidance, to rule out a read-only file of the same name blocking the save.
3. Check disk space, per the official guidance:

   df -h .
   

4. Check for OS-level error messages that might give more detail, per the official guidance.

Examples

Ruling out a read-only same-name file

$ ls -l existing_file.sql
-r--r--r--  1 someuser someuser  ...  existing_file.sql

A read-only existing file of the same name explains the failure — save under a different name, or fix its permissions if overwriting it is genuinely intended.

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check current-directory write permission, a same-name read-only file, and disk space — the three specific possibilities named by the official guidance, in that order.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -810 — "Cannot open file for save." A closely related file-save error, in a slightly different interactive-tool context.
• -808 — "Cannot open file for choose." A related file-access error, for reading (Choose) rather than writing (Save/output).

Three specific named causes — no write permission, a read-only same-name file, or a full disk.