Novell-zmd fails to start

From /var/log/messages:
Dec 16 15:14:27 test3 zmd: Daemon (ERROR): Unhandled Exception \
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: < 0 Parameter name: length

Steps taken so far:
reboot does not help
removal of /var/lib/zmd/zmd.db does not help
I tried to register the machine at Novell but also that fails because of
the above error.
Any hints on how to handle the situation and repair the installation?

Günther