> It doesn't look like a write permission issue because I can't even
> connect to the database to begin with.

On my Debian it behaves exactly like this when no write permission is
granted.

> Is there a developer snapshot of the JDBC driver I could try?

The JayBird 1.5 RC4 is almost the most recent code. It has all debug
information. Current CVS contains some fixes, but they should not be
relevant for your case.

Roman