Independent actions that result in an error condition

If you, as administrator at the coordinator database server, run either onmode -z (stop the coordinator thread) or onmode -Z (stop the global transaction) after the coordinator issues its final commit decision, you are removing all knowledge of the transaction from shared memory at the coordinator database server.

This action is not considered a heuristic decision because it does not interfere with the two-phase protocol; it is either acceptable, or it interferes with participant recovery and causes an error.

The action is acceptable any time that all participants are able to commit the transaction without difficulty. In this case, your action to end the transaction forcibly is superfluous. The indication that you ran onmode -Z reaches the coordinator only when the coordinator is preparing to terminate the transaction.

In practice, however, you would probably consider running onmode -z or onmode -Z at the coordinator database server only if you were attempting to hasten the conclusion of a global transaction that has remained open for an unusually long period. In this scenario, the source of the problem is probably a failure at some participant database server. The coordinator has not received acknowledgment that the participant committed its piece of work, and the coordinator is attempting to establish communication with the participant to investigate.

If you run either onmode -z or onmode -Z while the coordinator is actively trying to reestablish communication, the coordinating thread obeys your instruction to die, but not before it writes error -716 into the database server message log. The action is considered an error because the two-phase commit protocol was forcibly broken, preventing the coordinator from determining whether the database is consistent.

Stopping a global transaction at a coordinator database server is not considered a heuristic decision, but it can result in an inconsistent database. For example, if the participant eventually comes back online and does not find the global transaction in the coordinator shared memory, it rolls back its piece of work, thereby causing a database inconsistency.