Probably, but if i knew what they were, i'd be a bit closer to solving the mystery. So you're suggesting that i check the NEAR and EXACT "settings"?

I didn't mention that VFP works correctly on ..\data1\pub and ..\data3\pub, but not the ..\data2\pub file. That's the biggest reason we started thinking of file index problems (specific to a single file, affects seek() and relations)

thanks for your insight

Cindy asked:
Are there any differences in any of the settings between the two versions?

>Use Pub index PubX1 in 0
>Use TmpScrpt
>Set Relation to iif(substr(mailkey,3,1)="_", left(mailkey,2),left(mailkey,3) into Pub
>
>Brow for !eof("Pub")
>
>Using Fox26, i see every record related properly
>Using VFP6, i see no records at all
>
>After explaning this to my boss, he claimed to have tried to use a Seek() into the Pub table (from VFP6) which didn't work, even though the records appeared to be ordered by the PubX1 index. He eventually gave up using Seek() and used Locate (which worked) I'm stuck with the broken relationship. Any ideas?
>
>We're guessing that the index is somehow messed up, but exclusive access to the pub table must wait until off-hours.
>
>More importantly, what is different about VFP that it can't properly use the index that Fox26 is happily relating through. ..and how can we be relatively sure that this won't continue to haunt automated/unattended code?