I have encountered the following problem ... siteroot-A-B-C-..... | | | Q | +-D- ... Where A, B, C, etc are folders. A query called out in DTML as Q.foo actually got found although it appears that sometimes, in a slightly different context, it would find as Q.foo in the D subtree. The database connection is located in C. I have no idea how this worked... It was an unintended artifact of a massive site reorganization.