Try this patch: <ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/pierangelo-masarati-2010-04-29-chain.1.pa... It removes the offending check. I don't quite remember the reason (it dates 4.5 years ago). However, I've checked and all tests pass fine, including the one you pointed out. To reproduce, I modified test022 to write the configuration on disk (-F option to consumer slapd); at the end of the test, I tried slapd on the resulting database. Fails with 2.4.22/HEAD, succeeds with this patch. Please test and report. p.