Hi Tracy,
>I was just curious when you notice that the alias() is empty or the cursor is not available. Is it immediately following the select statement or later on in code?

use (m.tcPathedName) again alias (m.tcAliasAlsoSpecified)
tlReturn = .f.   && Return shows if alias was already open
select (m.tcAliasAlsoSpecified)

gives you a nice "alias not found" <g>.

> I ask simply because I noticed this happening too if _vfp.autoyield is set to .f. for some reason (possible set for an activex control but not reset to .t.) and the following code is run:

You might be onto something. I'll check _vfp.autoyield ASAP, but there are some activeX (dynazip, some dbi... Treeview, Listview, Acrobat Reader) in the app.

>*In this example, periodically vfp closes the cursor before the report finishes
Well, in my case the table was closed before after heavy writing - a "flush force" attempt from FPW-days... I don't want to add doevents to table opening, but might time _vfp.autoyield. The time spent for checking now is trivial, and I can also work with try ... catch, since this is supposed to be fast in executing the "normal" path and in the 1 in 10 million errors I can spare a few nanosecs.

thx for adding

thomas