Turning the Option OFF During a Transaction

If you set the RETAIN UPDATE LOCKS option to OFF after a transaction has begun, but before the transaction has been committed or rolled back, several update locks might still exist.

Switching OFF the feature does not directly release any update lock. When you turn this option off, the database server reverts to normal behavior for the three isolation levels. That is, a FETCH statement releases the update lock placed on a row by the immediately preceding FETCH statement, and a closed cursor releases the update lock on the current row.

Update locks placed by earlier FETCH statements are not released unless multiple update cursors are present within the same transaction. In this case, a subsequent FETCH could also release older update locks of other cursors.