diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 36b85967..9febceb6 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ NEW the chi^2 calculation in single-histogram and asymmetry fits is parallelized
     if musrfit is built using a compiler supporting OpenMP (e.g. GCC >= 4.2)
     Using --disable-omp this feature can be disabled on the configure level.
 NEW any2many: force the user to define the exact NeXus ouput format (HDF4,HDF5,XML)
+FIXED some severe issues in the run-number-digit determination of msr2data introduced in late 2010
 FIXED a musrview exception error when starting with t0's very much off to the positive side in the msr-file (MUSR-199)
 FIXED a linking problem when only shared libraries are built on Cygwin
 FIXED the problem that in certain environments XML files could not be parsed (MUSR-122)
diff --git a/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp b/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp
index d0d17c1e..68c0685a 100644
--- a/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp
+++ b/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp
@@ -176,6 +176,8 @@ int PMsr2Data::DetermineRunNumberDigits(unsigned int runNo, bool normalMode) con
   tempRunNumber.width(fRunNumberDigits);
   tempRunNumber << runNo;
 
+  fRunNumberDigits = tempRunNumber.str().length();
+
   string line, firstOnLine;
   istringstream strLine;
 
@@ -188,18 +190,19 @@ int PMsr2Data::DetermineRunNumberDigits(unsigned int runNo, bool normalMode) con
       strLine >> firstOnLine;
       string::size_type loc = firstOnLine.rfind(tempRunNumber.str());
       if ( loc != string::npos ) {
-        while ( --loc >= 0 ) {
-           if(isdigit(line.at(loc))) {
-             ++fRunNumberDigits;
-           } else {
-             in->close();
-             delete in;
-             in = 0;
-             fRunVectorIter = fRunVector.begin(); // set back the runlist-iterator which might have changed during the search for the correct file
-             return 0;
-           }
-         }
-       } else {
+        while ( loc > 0 ) {
+          if(isdigit(firstOnLine.at(--loc))) {
+            ++fRunNumberDigits;
+          } else {
+            break;
+          }
+        }
+        in->close();
+        delete in;
+        in = 0;
+        fRunVectorIter = fRunVector.begin(); // set back the runlist-iterator which might have changed during the search for the correct file
+        return 0;
+      } else {
          cerr << endl << ">> msr2data: **ERROR** The first processed run file number does not match the \"file index\"!";
          cerr << endl << ">> msr2data: **ERROR** The number of digits to be used for formatting the run numbers cannot be determined!";
          cerr << endl << ">> msr2data: **ERROR** Please check the first msr-file that should be processed;";