Interference among instances

AIX Release 3 OnLine 7.13.UC3 Hi family, I'm having a nasty situation on a client machine. I have an instance, known my INFORMIXSERVER=bcbgshm. I created a new instance named bctestshm with an alias of bctestsoc. I have taken great care to avoid any kind of conflict. I created separate devices with different [symbolic] links, carefully avoiding the dreaded consistency check errors. Yet, when I start up my bctest OnLine server, the production server goes bananas. I tested this by running both environments in separate windows. In the bcbg production window I ran dbaccess and connected to the database. Then I exited. In the bctest environment window, I started up my bctestshm server, then switched back to the bcbg production window. Now, when I started dbaccess <database> I got error: -761 INFORMIXSERVER does not match either DBSERVERNAME or DBSERVERALIASES. This is a lie! If it had mismatched I could not have gotten in previously. OK, so the test system is somehow interfering with the production system. Bad enough. But when I shut down the bctest instance and try to get into the production side's dbaccess again, I now get error: -25588 The appl process cannot connect to OnLine server server-name. Why the *^%$%! NOT? What is interfering now? What makes this worse that I am unable to completely shut down the production instance to start it up again. One of the shared memory segments won't quite go away. The ipcs -m shows a lingering line: IPC status from /dev/mem as of Mon Nov 10 16:11:41 PST 1997 T ID KEY MODE OWNER GROUP Shared Memory: m 4100 00000000 D-rw-rw-rw- root informix I got them back up by editing the $ONCONFIG file and changing the server number from 2 to 3. The fact that they come back up on-line without a hitch indicates that my disk parameters are perfectly in order. Here is a checklist of what I have definitely avoided conflict: +--------------------+--------------------+ | Production Server | Test Server | +--------------------+--------------------+ INFORMIXDIR |/informix |/informix | ONCONFIG |onconfig.bdbg |onconfig.bctest | INFORMIXSERVER |bcbgshm |bctestshm | DBSERVERNUM |2 |4 | DBSERVERNAME |bcbgshm |bctestshm |DBSERVERALIAS |bcbgsoc |bctestsoc | TCP Service Name |bsoc |bctest_svc | TCP Service # |2500 |2501 | +--------------------+--------------------+ Thanks for any ideas, solutions, known bugs, workarounds etc. -- -- Jake (Never yelled "CROWDED THEATER!" during a fire) +------------------------------------------------------------+ | The expedient performance of a task with excessive concern | | regarding its duration-to-completion engenders a virtual | | certainty of diminished benefit therefrom. | | -- Benjamin Franklin (but he said it in 3 words) | +------------------------------------------------------------+