diff --git a/widget/src/motif/nsToolkit.cpp b/widget/src/motif/nsToolkit.cpp
index 912e5b7fd62..aadac5297ec 100644
--- a/widget/src/motif/nsToolkit.cpp
+++ b/widget/src/motif/nsToolkit.cpp
@@ -28,6 +28,23 @@ void RunPump(void* arg)
 {
 }
 
+//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+//
+// constructor
+//
+//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+int nsToolkitErrorHandler (Display * mydisplay, XErrorEvent * myerr) 
+{ 
+  char msg[80] ; 
+
+  XGetErrorText (mydisplay, myerr->error_code, msg, 80) ; 
+  fprintf (stderr, "-------------------------------------\n");
+  fprintf (stderr, "Error code %s\n", msg) ; 
+  fprintf (stderr, "-------------------------------------\n");
+  //exit() ; 
+} 
+  
+
 //-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 //
 // constructor
@@ -35,6 +52,7 @@ void RunPump(void* arg)
 //-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 nsToolkit::nsToolkit() 
 {
+    XSetErrorHandler (nsToolkitErrorHandler) ; 
     NS_INIT_REFCNT();
 }