Lightweight Databases

`GDBM`

I sent a detailed bug report to the GNU folks, offering to do whatever I could to help
The reply said:

        I have heard of this happening before.  I was not able to
        find out why.  Do you have a backup of earlier versions so
        you can get most of your keys out?  If so, you might try to
        recover by moving to DB-2.? routines.  They are still being
        updated an developed.  gdbm has not had any active
        development in years.

So I restored what I could from the backup tapes
I switched to Berkeley DB
I have not used GDBM since