Wierd SE/Transaction errors-What's happening?

Having just added transactions to an SE (5.0?) with 4gl (4.11) engine running on SCO UNIX 3.2v4.1, I am now getting error messages. After taking out the transaction BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK WORK statements, all works fine, with the obvious exception that I don't have transaction support anymore. Error 1: Program stopped at "arpost.4gl", line number 321. SQL statement error number -211. Cannot read system catalog (sysdepend) . SYSTEM error number -24. Too many open files Hit any key to Continue Error 2: Program stopped at "arpost.4gl", line number 284. SQL statement error number -271. Could not insert new row into the table. SYSTEM error number -121. ISAM error: cannot write log record. Both of these errors happen after a number of records have already been inserted and updated, with not particularly evident number of records being modified before it gives an error. In the kernel, NFILES is at 600, NOFILES is at 60, and according to a `sar -v` these limits are not even close to being reached. The logfile has 777 permissions (nice insecure system) and transactions have worked before. There has been at lease 13MB available on the smallest filesystem when these were executed. In addition, the database applied these changes, even though the program crashed out and no COMMIT WORK statement was ever executed. I was under the impression that a program that crashes or otherwise exits without COMMITting the work automatically does a ROLLBACK. Is this wrong? I'm at a loss. Any help from the gurus? (guri?) Thanks Muchly, - Brian G. -- Sometimes you're the bug, sometimes you're the windshield.