Martin> Yes, always_gc set to 1 slows down XEmacs enormously. But if you have Martin> a likely suspect, then that may be the best way to find a Martin> _reproducible_ crash, at which point it can be dissected, analysed and Martin> maybe even fixed. If you can't reproduce the crash, you never know Martin> whether you've fixed it. [recipe deleted] Unfortunately, it's been really rather intermittent. The worst part about it is that, on some occasions, the crash leaves me with an empty file, and without the autosave file. Fortunately, the ~ backup file is still there, but sometimes that's way old. :-( If it starts happening often, I'll try the recipe you've given. Ray