The usual reason for this is that you are using a version of the unixODBC Driver Manager prior to 2.2.2, which had some UNICODE problems. All versions of XML-ODBC contain at least unixODBC 2.2.2. However, you may have chosen to use an existing unixODBC installation, instead of the one distributed with XML-ODBC. If this is the case, re-run the XML-ODBC installation, and select to install unixODBC. Then make sure your dynamic linker picks up this version before your existing version.