I use -R when upgrading something with dependents, because I think it is going to upgrade or recompile/relink the packages that depend on what I'm upgrading. But, I think it just upgrades all of my outdated ports, is that right? For example I used sudo port upgrade -R python24 and it upgraded most of my outdated ports, such as gtk2, and stopped on an error before moving on to the last port. So, what does -R do? Changing the subject: When I upgrade and many ports are upgraded, the process often ends with this error: tclsh(41595,0xa0081074) malloc: *** mmap(size=446464) failed (error code=12) *** error: can't allocate region *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug unable to alloc 443225 bytes Abort trap I don't recall if this happens also when that happens, but this time, just before the malloc error, I get: Error: Variant headercache conflicts with db4 Error: Unable to open port: Error evaluating variants The final port that was going to probably be upgraded was mutt-devel, which depends on db44. I don't recall if mutt was among the ports being upgraded whenever I got this error. Actually, I'm not going to look at mutt now, so I've uninstalled it. But, do you know if the malloc error is a general problem with upgrading many ports, or if it means my ports system is screwed up somehow, or if it is a problem with db44 or mutt-devel? Kendall