Are you sure that you use $Dir() and not Dir$()?

I tested Dir$ (FILE_PATH, ATTR_NORMAL) where FILE_PATH is "c:\temp\*.* and "S:\somedirectory\*.*" (Servershare) on FP4 and FP8 with Database on Server and Local.

All results are ok.

What upgrades?

Generally a Dir$() won't scan folders it doesn't have access to.

Was ND9 or its service installed under a particular account?

How about the underlying OS. Was the underlying OS upgraded or modified so that the directories are configured with different accesses?

If Domino is still running as SYSTEM, it should have access to directories granting access to SYSTEM.

Thanks for the replies.  

I had always run Domino as a foreground program.  After upgrading to FP8, I decided to run it as a service.  I made sure it was running under the right user account which had access to the network drives.  It didn't dawn on me till a week of trying to troubleshoot this the run it, again, as a foreground process.  That fixed it.  Turned out that the service process didn't have access to the network drives!  Dumb admin error!

thanks again.

clem

Yeah, network drives are a bear. If you can, sometimes you can get the network stuff connected through your own account; and then set the service to run on something other than SYSTEM.

This also works, but it's also a little dicey. I'm not a huge fan of the way network drives work on Windows, though, so maybe you can tolerate it where it just spins me up.