It was able to reproduce this. The database doesn't like the relative path.
"bitcoind -datadir=./subdir getinfo" works against a running daemon, but trying to start the daemon as "bitcoind -datadir=./subdir" gets that exception.
I guess we should resolve the full path before passing it to the database.
It looks like you were the first one to ever use -datadir with a relative path.
BitcoinTalk
Re: Having problems specifing -datadir
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Having problems specifing -datadir
Date: