I woke early with my head full of stuff… anyway, I think I have solved my problem by the simple addition of application:ensure_all_started, making my new working init_per_suite like so:

    application:ensure_all_started(scofblog),  
    {ok, Dbms} = application:get_env(scofblog, dbms),

    {ok, C} =
        epgsql:connect(
          ?prop(server, Dbms),
          ?prop(username, Dbms),
          ?prop(password, Dbms),
          #{database=> "scofblog_test"}
         ),
    [{conn, C}].

I found some code written by a work buddy from my current job, we use Erlang for talking to and from RabbitMQ and also to provide a common library that the Elixir applications use to “get on the bus”…lucky for me there was a -single- SUITE test that had that line in it, kind of obvious once you see it but not yesterday!

So, Robert, thanks for the nudges… a tad gutted I didn’t solve it myself but hell, at least I am moving forwards again, thanks again to everybody that helped a sometimes overly woud-up aging hacker…

I am still looking for a “solid” and “reliable” way to drop/recreate a test database, currently I create it manually and just truncate the tables to save some time…

Sean Charles.