Ok, in trying to trace this down ... I installed the AOL IM client that includes it's own java tree. In this case the main window comes up, flashes twice and then disapears. However the client program still thinks the window is there and remains running. So it's not the program crashing out as far as I can tell. environment variables CLASSPATH=/usr/local/java/lib ( java is a symbolic link to /usr/local/jdk1.1.6 ) JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java DYN_JAVA= ( this is a blank environment variable so I can turn the dynamic liked java on and off) Now that I think of the DYN_JAVA variable - when I tried it it tried to load /usr/local/java/bin/java/java_dyn The problem is there is no ../bin/java dir - since ../bin/java is the java executable. I thought about fixing it with a symbolic link - but since java is already there I cant make a dir and link a java_dyn back to the actual file. Sounds like an internal path problem. I have lesstif running rather than motif, but that shouldn't be affecting the path java is trying to run should it? -- --- =========================================================== James Michael Keller | [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.radix.net/~jmkeller ----------------------------------------------------------- Contents (c)1998 James Michael Keller. All rights reserved ===========================================================