Hi John,
Yes, I agree that you are doing much more with the looping variable VAR_2, but it should have gone inside the loop for the first time at least.
If it went inside the loop then it should have been able to print the VAR_2 at least once.
Let us know if the upgrade made this piece of code work. Until the upgrade can you try declaring the variable as INTEGER and running the loop..not sure whether it would work or not.
Again can you try writing a similar display statement such as
SELECT 5 FROM DUMMY;
put this statement outside the loop and check whether it gives an output while running the procedure.
--
Shreepad