diff --git a/app/src/processing/app/Base.java b/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
index 4bb8668de..d11284901 100644
--- a/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
+++ b/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
@@ -142,8 +142,12 @@ public class Base {
 
     // Set the debug flag based on a file being present in the settings folder
     File debugFile = getSettingsFile("debug");
-    // if it's a directory, it's a leftover from older releases
-    DEBUG = debugFile.exists() && !debugFile.isDirectory();
+    if (debugFile.isDirectory()) {
+      // if it's a directory, it's a leftover from older releases, clear it
+      Util.removeDir(debugFile);
+    } else if (debugFile.exists()) {
+      DEBUG = true;
+    }
 
     // Use native popups so they don't look so crappy on OS X
     JPopupMenu.setDefaultLightWeightPopupEnabled(false);
diff --git a/build/build.xml b/build/build.xml
index 7238516e4..adc15e658 100644
--- a/build/build.xml
+++ b/build/build.xml
@@ -387,7 +387,7 @@
       <isset property="version" />
     </condition>
 
-    <echo message="ref ignoreable? ${reference.ignorable}" />
+    <!--<echo message="ref ignoreable? ${reference.ignorable}" />-->
     <get src="http://download.processing.org/reference.zip" 
          dest="../java/reference.zip"
          ignoreerrors="${reference.ignorable}"