It looks like it may have been a problem with opportunistic locking. My workstation is Win98 using the generic MS Client for Netware Networks. We tried on a different workstation running the 3.31 Novell Client(opportunistic locking off by default) and check clearing from the outstanding list completed normally.

I did run the CHKSYS.EXE as suggested and it returned no comments about opportunistic locking possibly because of the older MS Client for Netware.

Renaming EZSEMTAB.dat had no impact on my machine, that is the problem did not go away.

I just wanted to thank you both for your advice.