>Terry
>thanks for your response. I am scattering and gathering to the same table (.dbf, not a cursor) because I am doing an "addLike". I changed the append blank to:
>

>append blank in poitems && alias() = poitems
>

>
>I used the alias name rather than alias(), but the code still fails on the append blank
>Vince

Wait a minute. You're doing:
SCATTER MEMVAR memo
APPEND BLANK in poitems
TABLEUPDATE(1,.t.,alias())
GATHER MEMVAR memo

Shouldn't it be:

SCATTER MEMVAR memo
Select poitems && just using belts and suspenders here - maybe it'll help
APPEND BLANK in poitems
GATHER MEMVAR memo
TABLEUPDATE(.t.) && no need alias as in correct table

You're committing the append before saving data in the new rec. Not saying this is why you get the error though.

Mi's well give it a go?

Terry