Hi, an application of mine just suddenly crashed before entering 'main', with the following stacktrace: #5 0xb7eb7106 in __cxa_throw () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 #6 0xb7e6ccb0 in std::__throw_runtime_error () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 #7 0xb7eb5c8e in std::locale::facet::_S_create_c_locale () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 #8 0xb7e96554 in std::locale::_Impl::_Impl () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 #9 0xb7e768e9 in std::locale::locale () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 #10 0xb78f6922 in __static_initialization_and_destruction_0 (__initialize_p=1, __priority=65535) at /space/NM/boost/libs/filesystem/src/path.cpp:29 And the line in question contains just: 29 std::locale loc(""); This is CVS as of today. The problem was that I incorrectly set the LC_MESSAGES environment variable. However, I think that exception from static object is not so good idea. I can't catch it, so the error reporting just reads "Aborted". Maybe, this can be converted into a function with static variable, so that the static variable is only initialized on the first call? TIA, Volodya