restore spfile from autobackup does not work

[william_1066]

I have controlfile autobackup on and RMAN jobs are creating controlfile autobackups.

I can restore the control file from the backup when using
restore spfile from 'c-38644005-20091104-01'

The backup handle name was retrieved from the internal database.

When I try to use
restore spfile from autobackup

The rman prompt does not progress beyond the first line which looks something like

channel dev_0: looking for autobackup on day: 20091104

and if I tail the sbtio log it produces a line similar to the following every 50 seconds or so

SBT-23788 (?) 11/04/09 20:59:18 Exiting with (-1), msg: Cannot find requested element, ob2error=1245: Object not found.

I am using SDP version 6 on SuSE Linux

Any advice appreciated.