My mistake, but the problem survives the fix:

    \setuphead[section][after={\blank[samepage,big]}]
    \starttext
    \showframe
    \dorecurse{50}{a }
    \startsection[title=spec]
    \startxtable
    \startxrow
    \startxcell[ny=30]a\stopxcell\startxcell 1\stopxcell
    \stopxrow
    \dorecurse{29}{\startxrow\startxcell 2\stopxcell\stopxrow}
    \stopxtable
    \stoptext

Sylvain

On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 17:11, Sylvain Hubert <champignoom@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 16:00, Pablo Rodriguez <oinos@gmx.es> wrote:
On 11/10/20 9:55 AM, Sylvain Hubert wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> In the following example, the section title appears at the very end of
> the first page.
> [...]
> Does anyone know where to adjust the penalty in this case, so that the
> section title can be repositioned to the next page?

Hi Sylvain,

  \setuphead[title]
    [before={\blank[preference, big],
     after={\blank[samepage, big]]

In this case, the blank space before sets a preference for inserting a
page break. The blank space after requires to be in the same page with
next paragraph.

Of course, you don’t need both simultaneously.

Just in case it helps,

Pablo

Hello Pablo,

Thank you very much for the help. The penalty of \blank indeed brings the solution closer and it does format the previous example correctly.

However, when I went back to the original document, neither [before={\blank[preference, big]}] nor [after={\blank[samepage, big]}] nor both worked. I trimmed it into the following example which behaves the same:

    \starttext
    \showframe
    \dorecurse{50}{a }
    \startsection[title=spec][before={\blank[preference,big]}, after={\blank[samepage,big]}]
    \startxtable
    \startxrow
    \startxcell[ny=30]a\stopxcell\startxcell 1\stopxcell
    \stopxrow
    \dorecurse{29}{\startxrow\startxcell 2\stopxcell\stopxrow}
    \stopxtable
    \stoptext

Do you have an idea on how this could also be formatted correctly or how one could inspect and debug the penalty?

Thanks again!

Sylvain