Gunnar,

>now can you explain that?! So it has to do with the datasession - i don't get it. i ensured nothing is open in any of the tests, no other datasessions are created/open/active. no programs/tools are loaded/running.
>
>i do not know why it would run in 1 ds but not in the other. maybe it's not the ds, maybe it's 1 of the associated 'set' commands, which gets reset on a new ds?!

That was the point of running it in a private DS form. That environment has a well defined SET environment, look at the SET DATASESSION topic in the help file for everything that is scoped to the data session and these items all have the VFP default value.

Use DISP STATUS to look for the differences between your default datasession where the select fails and your private datasession.

I don't know of anything in particular that might cause this to fail. Check ANSI, COLLATE and NULL