Hi list, with the help of others, here is an adaptation of the "counter-example" based on p2p communications only. MPI_COMM_WORLD is the communicator used in library A MPI_COMM_2 is the communicator used in library B rank 0: belongs to MPI_COMM_WORLD only -> in library A: MPI_Send(MPI_COMM_WORLD, dst=1); -> crashes rank 1: belongs to MPI_COMM_WORLD and MPI_COMM_2 -> in library A: MPI_Recv(MPI_COMM_WORLD, src=0) -> detects the failure -> calls the error manager: collective repair -> would have entere library B and called: MPI_Send(MPI_COMM_2, dst=2); rank 2: belongs to MPI_COMM_WORLD and MPI_COMM_2 -> does nothing in library A except entering library B. -> in library B: MPI_Recv(MPI_COMM_2, src=1); -> will never succeed I understand from the discussion we had that a solution would be to validate COMM_WORLD for process 2 before entering library 2. I agree with that, but would like you to consider that it virtually means that we ask users to call a $n^2$ communications operation before any call of any function of any library (and possibly at the return of calls) if they want to use collective repairs. I would advocate studying a less performance-killer approach, where errors of any communicator would be notified in any MPI call. Bests, Thomas