a circuit for detecting disturbances in yarn travel at a textile machine , comprising a probe delivering an electrical signal in the presence of such disturbances , the probe being operatively coupled by means of discriminator stages with a pre - selection counter structured for setting the maximum permissable number of disturbances . the pre - selection counter is operatively coupled with a multivibrator which , upon exceeding the aforesaid number , delivers a disturbance signal . a clock generator is coupled with one input of the multivibrator which is constructed as a bistable multivibrator or flip - flop and additionally is connected by means of a delay element with a resetting input of the pre - selection counter .