I can use the DBI connection to Sybase alone with no problem. The problem is when using the DBIx-XML_RDB module the passing parameters to DBI are not set correctly. The user and password are missing from the error output. my $dbx = DBIx::XML_RDB->new($dsn, "Sybase", $userid, $password) will create this error message: DBI->connect(DBI:Sybase:webitmstest) failed. at P:/perl/site/lib/DBIx/XML_RDB.pm line 46