That error is usually caused by some window service. We seen it with the ActiveIdentity as one such service. Disabling the service that is causing the issue will usually solve the problem.
You could also manually edit the datawindow. For example:
updatewhere=1 updatekeyinplace=no arguments=(("arg1", string), ("arg2", string)) )
There is a KBA, 1960715 - PowerBuilder: Adding retrieval argument causes "Column 2
has an invalid name and/or length " error, but you need a support agreement to see it. The above is the gist of the article describing and working around the problem.
HTH
Ted Zimmerman