MAX function broken in $DB class?

Hi, I’ve come across troubles using the MAX function in the exp:query tag in the past. But now I’ve come across similar weirdness using the $DB class directly. I had a query like so in an extension:

SELECT MAX(entry_date) FROM mytable...

The query itself was working, as . But it would spit out a MySQL 1064 error regardless, where the entire erroneous query output for debugging was an enigmatic ‘1’. And because of this it would interrupt another extension (SAEF Redirect) after so the whole process just died. (FYI, I did indeed play with the priority settings for each).

Is there some kind of return happening deep and dark inside the class itself when MAX is called? I’ve had to rejig my query to suit and it’s kind of ugly now.