Hi Geoff,
I fully agree with your analysis.

> The difference in the engine, and the fact that the forced writes
> status is stored in the database, could explain why backup/restore
> resolves the problem - presumably synchronising the stored value with
> the expected value.

backup/restore does not solve the problem for me (I have yet to try
backing up with FW disabled and restoring with FW enabled, though).
Thanks for the comments.
--
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_/\/ando