[CentOS] Odd failure of smbd to start from init.d - CentOS 5.4

Finally, a clue!

Upgraded from the stock smbd version from the 5.4 iso to 3.0.33-3.28.el5,
and now an error message makes it into /var/log/messages:

May 24 15:29:12 xyz smbd[2674]: [2010/05/24 15:29:12, 0] lib/messages.c:message_init(132) 
May 24 15:29:12 xyz smbd[2674]:   ERROR: Failed to initialise messages database 

Anyone know what that's about? It's only from the invocation attempts that
dependably fail (like "service smb start"), not from those (like "smbd -D")
that dependably work.

Regards,
Whit