At 01:03 PM 28/07/2004 +0000, you wrote:

>Helen,
>
>Win 2K server is back up and running. Many thanks.
>
>It looks like the problem came from stopping and starting the service.
>
>The reason I wanted to stop and start the service was that I was
>running a metadata update routine, which failed because a stored
>procedure was "in use", even though no-one was logged in.
>
>With Classic is there a correct way to shut down a database, or re-
>initialise the service?

Shutting down a database isn't the same thing as stopping a server.
Shutdown is something you do to a database in order to get exclusive
access. See the doc for gfix -shut -{switch-option} n in the
OpGuide. Once you have exclusive access, you can log in (or stay logged
in) as sysdba or owner (one but not both) and do your thing. When you're
done, run gfix -online to make the database available to clients again.

"Stopping" a Classic server instance is dead easy. Just log out. The
process dies when the connection ends.

Perhaps you're not aware that SELECT runs in a transaction? If you're using
a tool like EMS Manager, shut down all the windows that query the database.
End any transactions left uncommitted. Active transactions involving the
tables will cause those "in use" errors.

/heLen