small problem with trigger

I am having a small problem getting a recast trigger to work right. my MUD displays failures as:
You lost your concentration while trying to cast *.
or
You lost your concentration while trying to cast * *.

for some reason i can't get this to work. It's driving me nuts because it seems so simple.

If the trigger isn't matching then it's a trigger problem. Try using Test Trigger on it whith the exact line, as you expect it to be (not what it actually is). If that works, then your trigger is fine, no other triggers are blocking it from matching, and the problem is that the line isn't really what it looks like. In that case, inspect the line closer, maybe there's a trailing space there that you haven't noticed, maybe something else. If Test Trigger doesn't work, then run Phantom, turn tracing on and send the line from the input window to see if there are any other triggers matching on that line and blocking the one your are trying to get to work. Also check the pattern and options - maybe the trigger isn't enabled to begin with?

You actualy only need to have the first one, you don't need two for this. The Wildcard ends on a ., not a space.

actually i got the first one to work but on spells with two words in the name it fails because the game reads it as a target for the spell. which is why i have the second on there what i can't figure out is how to get the first trigger to scan the line but not fire unless the the second trigger doesn't match.

What do you mean by "scan the line"? If you want the first trigger to match the line only if the second trigger DOESN'T match, then you can simply give the second trigger sequence 99 and leave the sequence of the first one at 100. That way the second trigger will block the first one, and the first one will match only if the second one doesn't.