On a hunch I tried the following: grab CVS map-editor; ant; ant run open hall of selection, change region to foo, save as hallofselection2 ok open random world map with no region set, set region to foo, save ok open random world map with no region set, leave region unset, save fails changed the line mentioned, recompiled, repeated the last step, works. This explains why I thought it ok, I tested that my patch could change and set regions properly, but not that it could do nothing properly. The problem only occurs if the region is unset, and stays unset until the file is saved, so I didn't encounter it at all. I've now committed the change to CVS. (in the "" form) I'm sorry for all the hassle this has caused.