The error description for SQLCODE -84 does not tell much. As you are using SQL Anywhere and have tagged with "advantage database server": Could it be you are trying to use SQL Anywhere to connect to resp. start an Advangage Database Server database? Both products are owned by SAP (formery Sybase) but are totally different DBMSes...

If you really are using ADS, I would recommend to ask questions in a different place, namely the SAP ADS Community.

Hi Vokler:

When I submit a question, specifying a tag is must, but I cannot create a new tag, so I randomly choose an existing tag (which I know it does not apply to my case). Thanks.

In most cases, this would suggest that there is a corruption with the database. The next course of action would generally be to go to your recovery plan. Do you have a backup of this database?

I would suggest that getting more details about the problem with the database if you are looking for help in the absence of a recovery plan. Can you start a copy of the database at the command line i,e,

dbeng17 -o console.log <database>

and/or run a database validation i.e. (replacing *** with correct values),

dbvalid -c "eng=dbvalid;dbf=<database>;uid=***;pwd=***"

How do you know the file is actually a "SQL Anywhere database" file and not some other kind of file?

Does it even have the *.db extension?

What command did you use, when you got the error message?