Getting "DSO" failed to load when trying to access a DBM password file

[Tom Browder <tom.browder@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm using locally built Apache 2.4.43 with Apr 1.7.0 and Apr-util 1.6.1 on Debian Buster. I'm trying to use DBM password files I built with an earlier version (approx 2.4.30ish) which worked fine. 

I got a complaint from a user he couldn't log in and I saw in the error logs that the password file couldn't be read. I discovered some gdbm dev packages missing, installed them, and rebuilt apr, apr-util, and httpd. I also discovered neither htdbm nor dbmmanage could not connect to a password file named x.y.dbm! I renamed them x.y.dat and dbmmanage can read it but htdbm cannot.

My current error logs still show the following error:

  DSO load failed: [client 1.2.3.4:56931] AH01754: could not open dbm (type DB) auth file:

    /opt/data/passwords/examplecom.dat, referer: https://example.com/

I'm out of airspeed and ideas.

Thanks.

-Tom