Thanks to everybody for suggestions and helpful hints. Here's what is still happening:

This is in VFP 5 (although, Larry, I'm still stuck in the 3.0b world! :))
No table buffering is called, or needed, as no changes to the table are made. The table is called to populate a listbox on a form. The record source type for the listbox is "fields", referring to the table open in work area C. When the form is closed (THISFORM.RELEASE()), the form seems to go away, but the listbox remains active, preventing the table from closing. Would this have caused an unknown data session? or left an open transaction?

We have tried (as Mike H. suggested) CLOSE ALL, and CLOSE DATA, and several other avenues. Still looking for that magic solution! Thanks again.

Kim