PHP sybase_connect from nagios script

Question

Has anyone had problems connecting to a sybase database using sybase_connect in PHP running as a nagios plugin?

My script runs perfectly under the same nagios user on the command line but if I run it via nagios it can never connect to the database, sybase_connect always returns a false connector and sybase_get_last_message is empty.

I've checked the environment settings and even though I'm doing, putenv the only thing I can see is the SYBASE variable may not be set

putenv ("SYBPLATFORM=linux");
putenv ("LC_ALL=default");
putenv ("DSQUERY=SYBASE");
putenv ("SYBASE=/usr/local/freetds");
putenv ("LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/freetds/lib");
putenv ('PATH=/usr/local/freetds/bin');  // With this on or off makes no difference

$connector = sybase_connect ( "HOST-IN-FREETDS", "USER", "PASSWORD" );
if ($connector === false) {
         // Always falls into here if run via nagios, works if run as the same user from the command line
}

I've compared the settings by running:

$return = `set`;
trigger_error ($return, E_USER_NOTICE);

And checked the php error log, I've also pushed phpinfo to a file and done a diff when running it manually and via nagios.

Environment - Ubuntu LTS 14.04, Nagios Core 4.0

Any ideas anyone? Thanks in advance