Per Abrahamsen <abraham(a)dina.kvl.dk&gt; writes: Note you need an extra C-x 5 b RET and C-x b RET. The problem happens only on the _second_ tty frame. (custom-initialize-frame (selected-frame)) does nothing but (initialize-custom-faces (selected-frame)) cures the problem. given this... (defun custom-initialize-frame (frame) "Initialize frame-local custom faces for FRAME if necessary." (unless (equal (get-custom-frame-properties) (get-custom-frame-properties frame)) (initialize-custom-faces frame))) this would seem that get-custom-frame-properties somehow does something different in 21.0. In 21.0 on the second tty frame (get-custom-frame-properties) -> (type tty class mono background dark) (Note that this is on an xterm with a white background!) In 20.4 it was (get-custom-frame-properties) -> (type x class color background light) Looks in faces.el: (defun get-custom-frame-properties (&optional frame) "Return a plist with the frame properties of FRAME used by custom. If FRAME is nil, return the default frame properties." (cond (frame ;; Try to get from cache. (let ((cache (frame-property frame 'custom-properties))) (unless cache ;; Oh well, get it then. (setq cache (extract-custom-frame-properties frame)) ;; and cache it... (set-frame-property frame 'custom-properties cache)) cache)) 20.4: (default-custom-frame-properties) 21.0: ;; We avoid this cache, because various frame and device 21.0: ;; properties can change. 21.0: ;;(default-custom-frame-properties) (t (setq default-custom-frame-properties (extract-custom-frame-properties (selected-frame)))))) I think the problem is obvious. However I am not sure whether the 21.0 is more correct and there should be another way to fix this. Also I cannot find where these functions are called and/or how the initial frame on the new device gets the correct faces. The most suspect changelog entry seems to be 1998-03-27 Kyle Jones <kyle_jones(a)wonderworks.com&gt; * faces.el: Separated face intializations based on device classes into device type specific (tag set, instantiator) pairs. Kyle, what did you do there?