1. A machine readable storage medium containing executable computer program instructions which when executed by a digital processing system cause the system to perform a method, comprising: responsive to receiving a first request via a user interface for an application, starting to execute a query operation on a database; monitoring for an indication of cancellation during execution of the query operation on the database; responsive to receiving the indication of cancellation, determining whether the database accepts cancel query instructions during execution of the query operation on the database; in response to a determination that the database does not accept a cancel query instruction during execution of the query operation on the database, determining whether the indication of cancellation is a closing of a communication connection between the application and the database, and in response to the determining that the indication of cancellation is the closing of the communication connection between the application and the database, stopping the query operation, and re-establishing the communication connection; and in response to a determination that the database does accept the cancel query instruction during the execution of the query operation on the database, sending at least one cancellation instruction to the database to stop the execution of the query operation on the database.