That did the trick. FYI. This was the file content.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
- <phex phex-version="2.8.2.92">
- <favorites-list>
- <favorite-host>
<ip>4839AF66</ip>
<port>6346</port>
</favorite-host>
- <favorite-host>
<ip>188D70B2</ip>
<port>6346</port>
</favorite-host>
- <favorite-host>
<port>6346</port>
</favorite-host>
</favorites-list>
</phex>

As well, I was getting a weird behaviour on the conections page before this problem started occuring. The bottom half of the page would display content from the page of the last tab visited (eg search). After shutting down Phex to see if it would clear this problem, it would no longer restart.

Thanks again for your help. All is good now.