I’ve tried both dbcc opentran and sp_who2 tricks listed in that post.  There were no open transactions and no blocked by processes.  It was a good thought though.

I've also tried...

I just ran sp_updatestats - no change.

A mystery indeed!  Also, the same when running local on the server which is the first sign of trouble on the server.  Still doesn’t explain...

Yes, it’s scary how many problems are magically solved by upgrading MDAC!

The server is currently...

The column in question is varchar(127).  The remaining columns are all varchar 10, 10, 20, 10.  Also 2 int columns and 1 char(1) column.

Ah, good question.  And that brings up another clue.  When I show the execution plan for any query over 23 records, it returns the connection...

Thanks Ian.  That makes sense although it's a bummer that you can't encapsulate all that logic in one IF block.

Have a great day!

What about using replication as a sort of real time backup?

Crystal Reports (8.5) has a feature called Crystal Dictionaries that may help. 

Note that Crystal was purchased by Business Objects earlier this year.  I'm not sure if they plan to...