OK, we figured the problem is related to the fact that I'm doing something so unusual as using a prefix to got with the references, i.e. when I refer to something in a different chapter, there's first the chapter reference, then a + and then the pointer to the reference. For example the chapter is \chapter[ethernet]{ethernet} and when I refer to a figure in that chapter, the reference goes \in{figure}[ethernet:fig:fiber connection] (the figure reference being fig:fiber connection). In MKII this works fine. In MKIV it doesn't work at all, I get question marks at all references that go to the other chapters, only chapter-internal (i.e. non-prefixed) references work. So good news is that ConTeXt doesn't hang on the references any more, so I can tweak other stuff. Bad news is that my user manuals are full of question marks... Mari