>>>>There are other tables open with buffering set to 3. Since this is an insert and not an edit I assumed buffering is not needed for this table. Plus we want the code to work whether the table is previously opened or not. Hence the syntax that includes the dbc.
>>>
>>>Which is all fine, it's the error message that really shouldn't happen. Is there a tableupdate() implied somewhere (via trigger maybe)?
>>
>>The code in question is contained in a stored procedure which is called via update trigger. And yes, the trigger is firing when it shouldn't. I'm trying to track that down too. However, that doesn't explain to me why the error.
>
>Are we sure that we know which table is this about? It may be trying to do something with some other table, which may need buffering.

That's a good question. The command is

insert into tiplog (tip_id,employee,changedate,changetable,changefield,oldvalue,newvalue) values ;
(lnTIP_ID,employee,time(),tcAlias,lcFieldName,alltrim(transform(oldval(lcFieldName))),alltrim(transform(evaluate(lcFieldName))))

tiplog is a plain vanilla dbf living in the dbc. There are no triggers in it or other relations, or relational integrity. So how could there be another table involved? Does multilocks on mandate buffering be enabled?