diff --git a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/GenericReplayCharSequence.java b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/GenericReplayCharSequence.java
index c5219c3c..d61d729b 100644
--- a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/GenericReplayCharSequence.java
+++ b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/GenericReplayCharSequence.java
@@ -128,6 +128,8 @@ public class GenericReplayCharSequence implements ReplayCharSequence {
      */ 
     private CharBuffer prefixBuffer = null;
 
+    private boolean isOpen = true;
+
     /**
      * Constructor.
      *
@@ -353,7 +355,15 @@ public class GenericReplayCharSequence implements ReplayCharSequence {
         }
     }
 
+
+    @Override
+    public boolean isOpen() {
+        return this.isOpen;
+    }
+
     public void close() throws IOException {
+        this.isOpen = false;
+
         logger.fine("closing");
 
         if (this.backingFileChannel != null && this.backingFileChannel.isOpen()) {
diff --git a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/InMemoryReplayCharSequence.java b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/InMemoryReplayCharSequence.java
index c3e3440e..41f80509 100644
--- a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/InMemoryReplayCharSequence.java
+++ b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/InMemoryReplayCharSequence.java
@@ -157,4 +157,9 @@ public class InMemoryReplayCharSequence implements ReplayCharSequence {
     public CharacterCodingException getCodingException() {
         return codingException;
     }
+
+    @Override
+    public boolean isOpen() {
+        return this.charBuffer != null;
+    }
 }
diff --git a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/ReplayCharSequence.java b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/ReplayCharSequence.java
index bab1f58f..f5f15176 100644
--- a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/ReplayCharSequence.java
+++ b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/io/ReplayCharSequence.java
@@ -61,4 +61,9 @@ public interface ReplayCharSequence extends CharSequence, Closeable {
      * @return CharacterCodingException
      */
     public CharacterCodingException getCodingException();
+
+    /**
+     * @return false if {@link #close()} has been called
+     */
+    public boolean isOpen();
 }
diff --git a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/util/Recorder.java b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/util/Recorder.java
index d10b1cb5..6247ba83 100644
--- a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/util/Recorder.java
+++ b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/util/Recorder.java
@@ -75,6 +75,8 @@ public class Recorder {
      */
     private String characterEncoding = null;
 
+    private ReplayCharSequence replayCharSequence;
+
    
     /**
      * Create an HttpRecorder.
@@ -283,15 +285,20 @@ public class Recorder {
     }
 
     /**
-     * @return A ReplayCharSequence.  Call close on the RCS when done w/ it.
-     * Will return indeterminate results if the underlying recording streams
-     * have not been closed first.
-     * @throws IOException
+     * @return A ReplayCharSequence. Caller may call
+     *         {@link ReplayCharSequence#close()} when finished. However, in
+     *         heritrix, the ReplayCharSequence is closed automatically when url
+     *         processing has finished; in that context it's preferable not
+     *         to close, so that processors can reuse the same instance.
      * @throws IOException
+     * @see {@link #endReplays()}
      */
     public ReplayCharSequence getReplayCharSequence() throws IOException {
-        return getRecordedInput().
-            getReplayCharSequence(this.characterEncoding);
+        if (replayCharSequence == null || !replayCharSequence.isOpen()) {
+            replayCharSequence = getRecordedInput().getReplayCharSequence(this.characterEncoding);
+        }
+        
+        return replayCharSequence;
     }
     
     /**
@@ -335,4 +342,9 @@ public class Recorder {
         is.close();
         return rec;
     }
+
+    public void endReplays() {
+        ArchiveUtils.closeQuietly(replayCharSequence);
+        replayCharSequence = null;
+    }
 }
diff --git a/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/framework/ToeThread.java b/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/framework/ToeThread.java
index b079a200..52833bfe 100644
--- a/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/framework/ToeThread.java
+++ b/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/framework/ToeThread.java
@@ -175,6 +175,7 @@ implements MultiReporter, ProgressStatisticsReporter,
                     // OutOfMemory and any others
                     seriousError(err); 
                 } finally {
+                    httpRecorder.endReplays();
                     KeyedProperties.clearOverridesFrom(curi); 
                 }
                 
diff --git a/engine/src/test/java/org/archive/crawler/selftest/KeyWordProcessor.java b/engine/src/test/java/org/archive/crawler/selftest/KeyWordProcessor.java
index 63f99756..90b0fdfd 100644
--- a/engine/src/test/java/org/archive/crawler/selftest/KeyWordProcessor.java
+++ b/engine/src/test/java/org/archive/crawler/selftest/KeyWordProcessor.java
@@ -92,7 +92,6 @@ public class KeyWordProcessor extends Processor {
             if(!viaUri.getData().containsKey("keywordHit")) {
                 ReplayCharSequence seq = viaUri.getRecorder().getReplayCharSequence();
                 viaUri.getData().put("keywordHit", getPattern().matcher(seq).find());
-                seq.close();
             }
             boolean keywordHit = (Boolean) viaUri.getData().get("keywordHit");
             int precedence = keywordHit ? getFoundPrecedence() : getNotFoundPrecedence(); 
diff --git a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorCSS.java b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorCSS.java
index 7364153a..59eed505 100644
--- a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorCSS.java
+++ b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorCSS.java
@@ -99,17 +99,14 @@ public class ExtractorCSS extends ContentExtractor {
      * @param curi Crawl URI to process.
      */
     public boolean innerExtract(CrawlURI curi) {
-        ReplayCharSequence cs = null;
         try {
-            cs = curi.getRecorder().getReplayCharSequence();
+            ReplayCharSequence cs = curi.getRecorder().getReplayCharSequence();
             numberOfLinksExtracted.addAndGet(
                 processStyleCode(this, curi, cs));
             // Set flag to indicate that link extraction is completed.
             return true;
         } catch (IOException e) {
             logger.log(Level.WARNING, "Problem with ReplayCharSequence: " + e.getMessage(), e);
-        } finally {
-            ArchiveUtils.closeQuietly(cs);
         }
         return false; 
     }
diff --git a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorHTML.java b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorHTML.java
index feb44f0d..1c2492d0 100644
--- a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorHTML.java
+++ b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorHTML.java
@@ -35,7 +35,6 @@ import org.archive.modules.CrawlURI;
 import org.archive.modules.net.RobotsPolicy;
 import org.archive.net.UURI;
 import org.archive.net.UURIFactory;
-import org.archive.util.ArchiveUtils;
 import org.archive.util.DevUtils;
 import org.archive.util.TextUtils;
 import org.archive.util.UriUtils;
@@ -672,8 +671,6 @@ public class ExtractorHTML extends ContentExtractor implements InitializingBean
             curi.getNonFatalFailures().add(e);
             logger.log(Level.SEVERE,"Failed get of replay char sequence in " +
                 Thread.currentThread().getName(), e);
-        } finally {
-            ArchiveUtils.closeQuietly(cs);
         }
         return false;
     }
diff --git a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorXML.java b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorXML.java
index 2481c8d0..9894338f 100644
--- a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorXML.java
+++ b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/ExtractorXML.java
@@ -27,7 +27,6 @@ import org.apache.commons.httpclient.URIException;
 import org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils;
 import org.archive.io.ReplayCharSequence;
 import org.archive.modules.CrawlURI;
-import org.archive.util.ArchiveUtils;
 
 /**
  * A simple extractor which finds HTTP URIs inside XML/RSS files,
@@ -87,8 +86,6 @@ public class ExtractorXML extends ContentExtractor {
             return true;
         } catch (IOException e) {
             logger.severe("Failed getting ReplayCharSequence: " + e.getMessage());
-        } finally {
-            ArchiveUtils.closeQuietly(cs);
         }
         return false; 
     }
diff --git a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/HTTPContentDigest.java b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/HTTPContentDigest.java
index 8c2ac053..1b2166a9 100644
--- a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/HTTPContentDigest.java
+++ b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/extractor/HTTPContentDigest.java
@@ -27,7 +27,6 @@ import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils;
 import org.archive.io.ReplayCharSequence;
 import org.archive.modules.CrawlURI;
 import org.archive.modules.Processor;
-import org.archive.util.ArchiveUtils;
 import org.archive.util.TextUtils;
 
 /**
@@ -156,8 +155,6 @@ public class HTTPContentDigest extends Processor {
                 curi.toString() + " " + e.getMessage() + " " +
                 Thread.currentThread().getName());
             return; // Can't proceed if this happens.
-        } finally {
-            ArchiveUtils.closeQuietly(cs);
         }
     }
 }
\ No newline at end of file