If I start Emacs withouth specifying a font or fontset, Emacs choses -outline-Courier New-normal-normal-normal-mono-13-*-*-*-m-*-iso10646-1 If I then do C-h h, Emacs looks as shown in the attached image (that's etc/HELLO). Afterwards Emacs is not able to recover and I have to exit it. Not sure it is of any help, but I've attached also the font log. Juanma