I'm developing a data transfer application using Visual Studio 6 that detects 
the arrival of data files on a server, processes them and inserts the result 
into an Oracle Database.
For this app, I've developed a COM component in C++ to detect the arrival of 
certain files and queue them for processing, a file processing out-of-process 
component in VB that uses msxml 4.0, and the main application to handle all 
the components and provide a user-interface, also done in VB. There can be up 
to 5 file-processing components running simultaneously, each in it's own 
process (the public class is single-use), each using a global copy of 
freethreadedDOMDocument40 to temporarily store and process the files, which 
are different for every file processor.
The storing of the resulting data is done in a different private sub, using 
the global DOM document. A number of tests of the type "if 
IsNull(IXMLDOMElement.getAttribute("Date")) Then..." are done initially to 
ensure that no loss of global data occurs in the msxml objects between 
function calls. The problem is that it DOES ocurr! Most of the time it works 
fine, but ocasionally the attribute variable which should contain date 
information is missing.
Sorry about the long post, but this is a weird one to describe, especially 
because it pops up randomly.


Thanks in advance,
Dario.