I forgot two things:
1. Maybe this is an error that can only be seen on Sun OS. I don't have a Sun to test so you might want to use an x86 machine as your client if possible and see if it exposes the same problem.
2. You wrote:
I just tried and I got the same error.
Well, not exactly the same error, but close. Maybe you could try again with CL-PPCRE:*USE-BMH-MATCHERS* set to T and TRACE the CL-PPCRE::CREATE-BMH-MATCHER function to see which arguments it gets?
Sorry for not being more helpful. I currently have no idea what happens.
Cheers, Edi.