please help! eror 252

[Oscar Goldes]

Can you explain this?
(Online 7.2)

dbschema stops with error code -252, ISAM code -113:

It happens very often, sometimes it finishes without errors
The explanation of the codes is

-252 Cannot get system information for table.

The database server is unable to read from one or more of
the system catalog tables. ......

-113 ISAM error: the file is locked.

The file (table) that was requested has been opened in
exclusive mode by another user request. In systems that use
files for locking, a tablename.lok file exists. Possibly such a
file is residual, left behind when another program
terminated abnormally. If you can be sure that is the case,
you can release the lock by emptying that file. Lock files are
not used in many systems, and are never used with the
INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server.

C-ISAM programs: Rerun the program after the file has been
unlocked. SQL products: Tables are locked explicitly using
the LOCK TABLE statement, and implicitly during the
execution of the CREATE INDEX and ALTER TABLE
commands. Rerun the program or query when the table has
been unlocked.

Who locks the system tables? neither create index nor alter table are being executed by any user.
There are no lock table statements on system tables.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[David Williams]

In article <5mcjrj$b...@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, Oscar Goldes
<ogo...@impsat1.com.ar> writes

>Can you explain this?
>(Online 7.2)
>
>dbschema stops with error code -252, ISAM code -113:
>
>It happens very often, sometimes it finishes without errors
>The explanation of the codes is
>
>-252 Cannot get system information for table.
>

>Who locks the system tables? neither create index nor alter table are being
>executed by any user.
>There are no lock table statements on system tables.
>
>Thanks for any help you can give me.

Update statistics?

--
David Williams

[Jorge Torralba]

Oscar Goldes wrote:
>
> Can you explain this?
> (Online 7.2)
>
> dbschema stops with error code -252, ISAM code -113:
>
> It happens very often, sometimes it finishes without errors
> The explanation of the codes is
>
> -252 Cannot get system information for table.
>

> The database server is unable to read from one or more of
> the system catalog tables. ......
>
> -113 ISAM error: the file is locked.
>
> The file (table) that was requested has been opened in
> exclusive mode by another user request. In systems that use
> files for locking, a tablename.lok file exists. Possibly such a
> file is residual, left behind when another program
> terminated abnormally. If you can be sure that is the case,
> you can release the lock by emptying that file. Lock files are
> not used in many systems, and are never used with the
> INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server.
>
> C-ISAM programs: Rerun the program after the file has been
> unlocked. SQL products: Tables are locked explicitly using
> the LOCK TABLE statement, and implicitly during the
> execution of the CREATE INDEX and ALTER TABLE
> commands. Rerun the program or query when the table has
> been unlocked.
>
>

> Who locks the system tables? neither create index nor alter table are being executed by any user.
> There are no lock table statements on system tables.
>
> Thanks for any help you can give me.

It means exactly what you see in the error statement. The table is
locked and you cannot access system catalog tables for that specific
table.

Try running this script and then specify the table in question.

clear
if [ $# -lt 1 ]
then
echo "Usage: wholocked tablename"
echo " wholocked ?"
echo
exit 0
fi

if [ $1 = "?" ]
then
echo
echo "Usage: wholocked tablename"
echo
echo "wholocked displays who currently is holding a lock against"
echo "the specified table, who is waiting for the lock to be rel"
echo "eased and the sql data on the statement locking the table."
echo
exit 0
fi

x=`echo "select owner, waiter from syslocks where tabname =\""$1\
"\" and dbsname != 'sysmaster' " \
| dbaccess sysmaster - 2> /dev/null | sed "1,4d"`

zzz=`echo $x | wc -w`

if [ $zzz -eq 1 ]
then
wl=`echo $x | cut -f1 -d" "`
else
wl=`echo $x | cut -f1 -d" "`
ww=`echo $x | cut -f2 -d" "`
fi

if [ x$wl = "x" ]
then
echo
echo "No locks on '"$1"'"
echo
exit
fi

wholocked=`onstat -g ses | grep $wl | cut -c10-17`

if [ x$ww = "x" ]
then
whowaits="NOBODY"
else
whowaits=`onstat -g ses | grep $ww | cut -c10-17`
fi

echo
echo "User '"$wholocked "' has lock on '"$1"'"
echo "'"$whowaits"' waiting for table."

onstat -g sql $wl | grep -v "INFORMIX-OnLine"

--
Jorge Torralba Intel
Information Technology HF2-71
(503)696-4587 5200 NE Elam Young Parkwa
jorge_t...@ccm2.hf.intel.com Hillsboro, Or 97124
=============================================================
Any views or opinions expressed by me do not reflect those of
Intel Corp.

[Stefanie Vario]

Jorge Torralba wrote:
>
> Oscar Goldes wrote:
> >
> > Can you explain this?
> > (Online 7.2)
> >
> > dbschema stops with error code -252, ISAM code -113:
> >
> > It happens very often, sometimes it finishes without errors
> > The explanation of the codes is
> >
> > -252 Cannot get system information for table.
> >

We ran into this situation all the time on most of our very active
tables (very heavy inserts and updates). We could never get a full
schema of the entire database because of this. We finally created a
script that would do a dbschema of each individual table. The script
would check for that particular error above and would loop until it got
the schema. We tried about 10 times to get the schema and then exited
out. We were able to get the schema most of time with this method. We
ran this script during off-hours so that there would be a better chance
of getting the schemas. We would then have to get the other parts of
the schema (stored procedures, permissions, triggers, etc) separately.

Stefanie Vario
ZenaComp Incorporated
sva...@zenacomp.com