tbconfig error

Ok here's the sit. For months we've had a couple of engines up and running on a development platform. Yesterday we needed to turn off logging - no prob. When it came time to turn it back on Online requested an Archive. Again no prob. It's a development machine so I changed tape param. to /dev/null and hit ESC, at which point: Operating system error: 2. Cannot access configuration file. Error #2 is can't find the file. permissions are all ok. (on tbconfig and dirs) permissions on /dev/null and other tape drives are ok. (i know - not related) TBCONFIG is set correctly. INFORMIXDIR is set correctly. tbconfig does exist, but it's name is 22 char long, change it to 8 char long - no joy. manually fix TAPEDEV in TBCONFIG - reboot the engine - the new value is there! Try it on the second instance - same problem. Called Informix (still working with them) they've never heard of such a thing. Tech (very polite fellow) suggests i create a new instance and try that one. I create a new instance - same problem. Change TBCONFIG to some outrageous value. tbmonitor comes up, but if you try to change the tape params, it won't DISPLAY them claiming that it can't find the config file. The obvious answer is that $INFORMIXDIR is wrong - but it isn't. OnLine is finding the config file to read, boot and shutdown from, but it won't do any modifications to it. It's worked for months - what has changed? new DBA has modified profile. I moved it to a different file and tried again - manually setting environment variables. - no work. sysadmin changed our tape device to a new device by editing TBCONFIG. What has that got to do with the price of eggs? Has anybody out there run into something like this before? Thanks in advance puzzled in Boise j. _____________________________________________________________________________ Jack Parker - Contractor | Hewlett Packard, BSMC Boise, Idaho, USA| If I had all the answers I jparker@hpbs2651.boi.hp.com | wouldn't be here! (208) 323-5388 (W) (208) 384-1623 (H) | _____________________________________________________________________________