Minor fixes for stable release 4

Here are several small bug fixes which address the following issues with the following commits:
#814, #908 - 705c775
#893 - b23765e
#927 - c0c3e43
#947 - b6aaa3e
#949 - 5deceff, c2086c5, 8441b16
#971 - 35130e7, 7103478
#976 - e426d7f