Independent actions
An independent action in the context of two-phase commit is an action that occurs independently of the two-phase commit protocol. Independent actions might or might not be in opposition to the actions that the two-phase commit protocol specifies. If the action is in opposition to the two-phase commit protocol, the action results in an error or a heuristic decision. Heuristic decisions can result in an inconsistent database and require manual two-phase commit recovery. Manual recovery is an extremely complicated administrative procedure that you must try to avoid. (For an explanation of the manual-recovery process, see Manually recovering from failed two-phase commit.)