I have no explanation as to why, but xemacs suddenly stopped working for X.
xemacs -nw still works.  Here is what it displays on the controlling
terminal:

$ xemacs
Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion
Warning: Unable to load any usable fontset

Fatal error (11).

Your files have been auto-saved.
Use 
-x recover-session' to recover them.

If you have access to the PROBLEMS file that came with your
version of XEmacs, please check to see if your crash is described
there, as there may be a workaround available.
Otherwise, please report this bug by running the send-pr
script included with XEmacs, or selecting end Bug Report'
from the help menu.
As a last resort send ordinary email to rashes@xemacs.org'.
*MAKE SURE* to include the information in the command
M-x describe-installation.

If at all possible, *please* try to obtain a C stack backtrace;
it will help us immensely in determining what went wrong.
To do this, locate the core file that was produced as a result
of this crash (it's usually called ore' and is located in the
directory in which you started the editor, or maybe in your home
directory), and type

  gdb /usr/bin/xemacs core

then type here' when the debugger prompt comes up.
(If you don't have GDB on your system, you might have DBX,
or XDB, or SDB.  A similar procedure should work for all of
these.  Ask your system administrator if you need more help.)

Lisp backtrace follows:

  # bind (frame-being-created)
  make-frame(nil #<x-device on ":0.0" 0x25cb>)
  frame-initialize()
  # bind (debugger debug-on-error command-line-args-left)
  command-line()
  # (condition-case ... . ((t (byte-code "      Â" ... 1))))
  # bind (error-data)
  normal-top-level()
  # (condition-case ... . error)
  # (catch top-level ...)
Segmentation fault

 John> Package: xemacs21 Version: 21.4.8-1 Severity: important

 John> I have no explanation as to why, but xemacs suddenly stopped
 John> working for X. xemacs -nw still works.  Here is what it
 John> displays on the controlling terminal:

 John> $ xemacs Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet
 John> conversion Warning: Unable to load any usable fontset

hrm.  Install/Uninstall any fonts recently?  xfs go bugaboo?  upgrade
to X 4.2?

Jim

Yes, X was recently upgraded and I removed xfonts-artwiz and xfonts-gimpers.
xfs still seems OK, and all other applications on the system have no
particular font-related problems.

I have encountered this bug, as well.  It happened after an
	apt-get update
	apt-get dist-upgrade
on a testing system.  But I'm not sure what day, because I only saw
the problem when I had to restart the desktop.

I see the problem when displaying on a Cygwin/XFree86 server from
sometime last autumn.  This server gets fonts from xfs running on the
debian machine.  Nothing has changed in the Cygwn config, so I suspect
the change was in the debian system.

The font deb packages installed on this system, are:

~$ dpkg -l | grep fonts
ii  console-data   1999.08.29-24  Keymaps, fonts, charset maps, fallback table
ii  gsfonts        6.0-2          Fonts for the ghostscript interpreter
ii  gsfonts-x11    0.16           Make Ghostscript fonts available to X11.
ii  msttcorefonts  1.1.0          Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts
ii  xfonts-100dpi- 4.1.0-17       100 dpi fonts for X (transcoded from ISO 106
ii  xfonts-base    4.1.0-17       standard fonts for X
rc  xfonts-cjk     3.3.6-2        basic Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts fo
ii  xfonts-cyrilli 4.1.0-17       Cyrillic fonts for X
ii  xfonts-intl-ar 1.2-2.1        International fonts for X -- Arabic.
ii  xfonts-intl-as 1.2-2.1        International fonts for X -- Asian.
ii  xfonts-pex     4.1.0-17       fonts for minimal PEX support in X
ii  xfonts-scalabl 4.1.0-17       scalable fonts for X
ii  xfonts-thai    20001108       Thai fonts for X
ii  xfonts-thai-et 20001108-4     Thai etl fonts for X
ii  xfonts-thai-ma 20001108-3     Thai Manop fonts for X
ii  xfonts-thai-ne 20000526-3     Thai fixed fonts for X from Nectec

The fonts installed on my home system where XEmacs is still running
(also running debian testing, but not upgraded when I saw the problem
here at work):

~$ dpkg -l | grep fonts
ii  console-data   1999.08.29-24  Keymaps, fonts, charset maps, fallback table
ii  gsfonts        6.0-2          Fonts for the ghostscript interpreter
ii  gsfonts-x11    0.16           Make Ghostscript fonts available to X11.
ii  msttcorefonts  1.0.1          Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts
ii  xfonts-base    4.1.0-17       standard fonts for X
ii  xfonts-pex     4.1.0-17       fonts for minimal PEX support in X
ii  xfonts-scalabl 4.1.0-17       scalable fonts for X
ii  xfonts-scalabl 4.2.0-2        non-free Type1 and TrueType fonts from XFree

Note that the problem system has a different version of
msttcorefonts.  I thought that MS had yanked the downloadable fonts.
Perhaps the upgrade destroyed my already installed fonts?  How would I
go about finding out?

I also include the stack trace from gdb:

(gdb) where
#0  0x403e0581 in kill () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1  0x080a7709 in fatal_error_signal ()
#2  0x403e0518 in sigaction () from /lib/libc.so.6
#3  0x0819208a in xaw_create_label ()
#4  0x0819213f in xaw_create_label ()
#5  0x4014b46b in XtInitializeWidgetClass () from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6
#6  0x4014b93a in XtInitializeWidgetClass () from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6
#7  0x4014bdf5 in _XtCreateWidget () from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6
#8  0x4014be69 in XtCreateWidget () from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6
#9  0x08194969 in XawGaugeGetValue ()
#10 0x0818d35a in lw_modify_all_widgets ()
#11 0x0818c93b in replace_widget_value_tree ()
#12 0x0818d433 in lw_make_widget ()
#13 0x0818d4a4 in lw_create_widget ()
#14 0x080bf28b in specifier_vars_of_toolbar ()
#15 0x080bf30d in x_initialize_frame_menubar ()
#16 0x0817436b in x_wm_set_variable_size ()
#17 0x08174661 in x_wm_set_variable_size ()
#18 0x080febde in Fmake_frame ()
#19 0x080ade5a in Ffuncall ()
#20 0x0808c0d7 in funcall_compiled_function ()
#21 0x0808bddf in funcall_compiled_function ()
#22 0x080adf51 in Ffuncall ()
#23 0x0808c0d7 in funcall_compiled_function ()
#24 0x0808bddf in funcall_compiled_function ()
#25 0x080adf51 in Ffuncall ()
#26 0x0808c0d7 in funcall_compiled_function ()
#27 0x0808bddf in funcall_compiled_function ()
#28 0x080adb32 in Feval ()
#29 0x080ab8e6 in condition_case_1 ()
#30 0x08095347 in Freally_early_error_handler ()
#31 0x080ab5bc in internal_catch ()
#32 0x08095422 in initial_command_loop ()
#33 0x080a8603 in xemacs_21_4_6_i386_debian_linux ()
#34 0x080a8d72 in main ()
#35 0x403d00bf in __libc_start_main () from /lib/libc.so.6

[snip!]
version distributed with woody).

I downgraded by adding the following line to sources.list:

deb http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/Linux/distributions/debian/stable main non-free contrib

I created an /etc/apt/preferences file, containing the text:

Package: msttcorefonts
Pin: version 1.0.0
Pin-priority: 1001

and did the commands
	apt-get update
	apt-get install msttcorefonts

I'm guessing point 1. from the bug report below (or something
releated) is the problem:
	<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=161113>

Ie. the problem isn't that the fonts has gone away, but the problem is
that the applications that were using them (XEmacs and Opera in my
case), can no longer find the fonts because of a name mismatch.

If you use defoma and x-ttcidfont-conf, then try this:

 dpkg-reconfigure x-ttcidfont-conf

... if XEmacs stops working, printing an error message:

xemacs: X Error of failed request:  BadValue (integer parameter out of
range for  operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  45 (X_OpenFont)
  Value in failed request:  0x2800002
  Serial number of failed request:  66
  Current serial number in output stream:  67

It hung right there, and I killed it from another terminal.  The
backtrace it printed showed that it had been trying to open the andale
mono truetype font.  It does this even with xemacs -vanilla.

Dear submitter,

as the package xemacs21 has just been removed from the Debian archive
unstable we hereby close the associated bug reports.  We are sorry
that we couldn't deal with your issue properly.

For details on the removal, please see http://bugs.debian.org/725883

The version of this package that was in Debian prior to this removal
can still be found using http://snapshot.debian.org/.

This message was generated automatically; if you believe that there is
a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing
ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Ansgar Burchardt (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)