in reply to Re^2: automating loadrunner start
in thread automating loadrunner start

cannot find the file specified in gui.pl line 4 ret=256

$? being 256 simply means the program exited with a return code of 1 (i.e. $? >> 8) — see system for the details.

Whatever that means... hopefully you can find more about the circumstances under which this happens in the LoadRunner docs.