>>however, I also think that the the error has to do with the loading of the targeted chunk of the exe.

I think you're right. Our experience was that the culprit stand alone dbf wasn't corrupt, it just wasn't in correct state during a tick when VFP needed it. Who knows whether multiple cores allow some clever OS process to be in the throes of declaring completion in the exact tick when the VFP thread accesses it. An intermittently affected table in an exe that clearly can't be corrupted without editing the exe while it runs, could be the same phenomenon or a red herring.