erl -name XXX problem

[Joe Armstrong]

   If I do erl -name joe

   My system bails out with a horrendous error message - the start of which is

{error_logger,{{2002,10,25},{12,6,18}},
	'Can\'t set long node name!\nPlease check your configuration\n',[]}

   What do I have to do to fix this??

   (Additional info

    R9B-0 + RedHat 7.2 "out of the box"

    erl -sname joe works fine)

/Joe