I had this trouble with my QE 4.0 on the last quilt I did. I think I broke at least six needles just FMQ the border. I'm pretty sure that it was my fault. I was using the single hole plate and was pulling a bit too much on my quilt causing the needle to hit the plate. I switched out plates and the problems improved but didn't go away completely. I still think that it was my pulling too hard but I went ahead and took it to my dealer for an annual cleaning and to have him check the issue out. Haven't picked it up yet, so don't have any suggestion other than to slow down your movement or speed up the needle speed a bit.