Problem building a slotted metal pcell

Hi, I am trying to make a pcell that will create a big piece of metal with slots chopped out of it (for mechanical stress relief). I started with a prototype SKILL code that will create the slotted metal as an instance, and it worked ("prototype.il"). When put into pcell form, the pcell code compiles successfully. But the pcell instance can only have 14 slots max and fails otherwise. Warnings are always generated whether there is pcellEvalFailed or not. (I've appended the warnings generated to the end of "slot_pcell.il"). It seems that the database ID of the metal object becomes nil after being accessed repeatedly, so leChopShape stops working. (1) Could anyone help to point out what's wrong with the code/method? (2) I used leChopShape in the pcell, which is not a recommended function for pcells. Is there another way to make slots in layers? (3) In SKILL, is there a way to exit a loop prematurely, or skip some of the iterations (next/last functions) ? Thanks in advance :) KK