consisting of a number of separate contact elements 29 corresponding to the number of rows 4 each contact element 29 is connected to an electrical conductor 30 which in turn is connected to the switching mechanism 13 and to the memory 15 so that the number of warp breaks is also stored in the memory 15 as a function of the rows 4 in which the corresponding drop wires 5a are located the operation of the device shown in fig2 is fairly similar to the operation of the device shown in fig1 with the difference that the number of warp breaks is also stored in the memory 15 as a function of the rows of drop wires 4 in another embodiment not shown in the figures it is also possible for the electrodes 17 to provide the required information about the row of drop wires 4 in which the fallen drop wire 5a is located as a result of the warp break this makes it unnecessary to use a separate detection mechanism 19 for each row of drop wires each time a warp break occurs by storing in memory 15 the position of the fallen drop wire 5 relative to the weaving width and possibly also according to the row 4 and processing all this data in a processing unit 16 important information about the state of particular machine components can be obtained for example in case of damage to the drop wires 5 the heddles 7 the reed 9 the temples the selvedge formers etc the warp threads are subject to particularly heavy wear and have a much higher chance of breaking at the point where the defective.