IBM Support

Error "-908: Attempt to connect to database server (<dbservername>) failed. Bad file number" when connecting to the database after restart of the instance.

Troubleshooting


Problem

After restarting the database instance, connection attempts to the database server return error -908 Bad file.

Cause

The database engine is not able to create a file in the /INFORMIXTMP directory during start-up.

Diagnosing The Problem

  1. Use the following to determine if the issue is caused by an issue with /INFORMIXTMP:
  2. The connection attempt will return the -908 error to the user.
  3. The following error will also be written to the online.log:

    listener-thread: err = -27006: oserr = 67: errstr = : Network driver cannot establish listen endpoint.   System error = 67.
  4. If the engine is off-line, check for any files in /INFORMIXTMP that contain the services name of the <dbservername> from the sqlhosts file.
  5. If the engine is on-line, check the dates of the files that contain the services name of the <dbservername> from the sqlhosts file
  6. Attempt to touch a file in /INFORMIXTMP. If this fails check the reason for the failure.

Resolving The Problem

Depending on what is causing the engine to fail when trying to create the file take the following actions:

  • If a file remains in /INFORMIXTMP, bring the engine off-line and remove the file from /INFORMIXTMP.
  • If the root file system is full free up some space or expand the filesystem

Once the issue is resolved, restarting the engine will recreate the files and the connection failures will be resolved.

For more information on /INFORMIXTMP see the Related information section.

Related Information

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Document Information

Modified date:
16 June 2018

UID

swg21616009