If you do the following with xemacs 21.5b27 (with latest packages): Run m-x grep, and use a for a string that appears in a bunch of files. Hit enter (or whatever you use to activate the line) on one of the output lines so it jumps to the file/line with the string. Kill the buffer containing the file it just jumped to. Try hitting enter again on one of the grep output lines for that file, and it won't reopen the file, it will just skip to the next file. In fact, there seems to be no way to force it to reopen the file and jump to the right place. This also happens with compiler error messages (so it's a problem in the underlying generic code) On the other hand, if you perform this test with fsfmacs, it will simply reopen the file if it's not open, and again jump to the right place in the file.