The database server has detected an impending deadlock between your request and other, concurrent user requests. Each user request is waiting for a resource (a row or disk page) that is held by another request in the chain; if your requested operation went forward, the chain would be closed and all requests would be deadlocked. In the short term, treat this error the same as -107 (record is locked). Roll back the current transaction, and re-execute it after a delay. To prevent recurrence, review the design of the applications that use the same tables and execute concurrently. Various design strategies can minimize the probability of deadlock.
When Informix STAR is active, and your application is using tables in both this system and another system, deadlock detection is no longer deterministic but probabilistic, based on the duration of a delay waiting for resources in another system. The database server administrator can set the length of the delay after which deadlock is assumed.