Thomas, thank you for your prompt response.

In actual fact I did try to add to my post, but because it was not visible due to me being a newbie on the board, I could not even view it.  So now I have the opportunity to recount my stupidity:-

I am new to IB_Objects (that's my excuse!) and I had forgotten that I was pointing IB_Connection to a locally-held test database due to an outage at the remote site where the production database is located.  In my program I have a means to select which database the user connects to, but at design-time IB_Objects looks at what's hard-wired into the component.  This drop-off now explains a couple of other head-scratching error messages I've been getting.

I have a warning in my code which pops up when command parameters are active, I'm going to add in another for this scenario too.

(If there's a better way, please let me know).