You were absolutely correct @Al Brookbanks Yesterday - I tried to fix this by reinstalling 1.9.6 and got the same errors but 1.9.7 from today has solved it!
Many thanks. Really helpful
This issue will be resolved with an upgrade to the latest version.
I'd recommend using the latest build:
https://github.com/cubecart/v6/archive/refs/heads/v6.5-master.zip