  The staggered fermion determinant is complex when the quark chemical
potential mu is nonzero. Its fourth root, used in simulations with dynamical
fermions, will have phase ambiguities that become acute when Re mu is
sufficiently large. We show how to resolve these ambiguities, but our
prescription only works very close to the continuum limit. We argue that this
regime is far from current capabilities. Other procedures require being even
closer to the continuum limit, or fail altogether, because of unphysical
discontinuities in the measure. At zero temperature the breakdown is expected
when Re mu is greater than approximately half the pion mass. Estimates of the
location of the breakdown at nonzero temperature are less certain.
