Again, thanks for the interest in my post. Changing the receive length property to 1 did not do any good. I think that tells MSCOM buffer what to expect. If the incoming string was a fixed length it may have helped. I seem to have sorted it out by sending the string to a label first, then work with the data. It has not failed since I started doing it that way. I realize this is a work around, and the true cause is not identified. If there are other suggestions, I will most certainly try them.

Regards.

B