diff --git a/src/frontends/qt4/GuiProgress.cpp b/src/frontends/qt4/GuiProgress.cpp
index ba678f78b6..e89002fd96 100644
--- a/src/frontends/qt4/GuiProgress.cpp
+++ b/src/frontends/qt4/GuiProgress.cpp
@@ -100,6 +100,9 @@ void GuiProgress::dolyxerrFlush()
 {
 	appendError(toqstr(lyxerr_stream_.str()));
 	lyxerr_stream_.str("");
+	// give the user a chance to disable error messages because 
+	// showing Debug::ANY messages completely blocks the GUI
+	QApplication::processEvents();
 }