I tried to access an existing database delivered with Interbase 6
and got the following error when introspecting the columns:

[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07
10:34:42,Error]:org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBSQLException: GDS Exception.
Dynamic SQL Error
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]:SQL error
code = -206
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]:Column
unknown
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07
10:34:42,Error]:F.RDB$FIELD_PRECISION
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]: at
org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBPreparedStatement.<init>
(FBPreparedStatement.java:81)
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]: at
org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBConnection.prepareStatement
(FBConnection.java:223)
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]: at
org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBConnection.getStatement
(FBConnection.java:1153)
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]: at
org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBConnection.doQuery(FBConnection.java:1178)
[system.out,AWT-EventQueue-0,2003/05/07 10:34:42,Error]: at
org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBDatabaseMetaData.getColumns
(FBDatabaseMetaData.java:2526)

Is that related to the Interbase database? Does Firebird handle the
metadata tables differently?

That's annoying as we have existing IB databases and want to move to
FireBird.

Phil.