>>Is rv_nextkey a view? why not REQUERY() whether or not it was already open?
>
>I tried your suggestion, unfortunately it's not working either. I think the problem may be in my startup environment. For some reason, the following statement is doing nothing:
>
>USE "eis!rv_NextKey" IN 0
>
>It doesn't open the rv_NextKey table, it doesn't return any values.


USEing a table doesn't do anything but open it. It doesn't return a value, it doesn't set _TALLY, and it doesn't locate a record.

_TALLY is only set by SQL statements (or views, which use SQL behind the scenes).

To get a value from the table, you first have to locate your record, and then assign the value of a field to a variable.