Err -254: Related to locking?

Hi all, I'm having an ongoing encounter with an error that I have not yet been able to resolve. The error itself is -254, which is "Too many or too few host varibles given". The error text goes onto explain that this problem occurs when using question marks as variable place-holders for sql statements to be prepared. The puzzling part is that this error occurs on an INSERT that is done directly with no preparing!?! I take this to mean that there is some other problem and that internally informix is confused about what that problem is (in otherwords, an informix bug). Has anyone else run across this or similar problems? The only clue I have to date relates to table locking... When a user is updating a specific record, we first lock only that record (at least we try to lock just that record...indiviual record locking is another matter where we have had only limited success...somtimes the entire table ends up locked). It appears that this error (-254) happens when the table becomes locked by another user. Not every time, just sometimes... Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, Chris S.