Gnus freezes on startup

Gnus freezes on startup

[Johnny Carlsson]

Hi all,

Recently I have been unable to start gnus on my machine and am completely unable to debug why. This was around two weeks ago - incidentally I created a dual-boot windows partition for the first time in years, but however keen to blame this I don't see any obvious correlation...

Problem is as the heading - I start emacs successfully, then do M-x gnus. The nice logo shows up, but keeps me gazing at it while nothing seems to happen and I have to kill the process from the terminal.

I am running a customised F17 LXDE system with emacs 24.1.1 and used NoGnus (version unknown...). When the problem occured, I recalled seeing a "warning: package gg-gg is obsolete", so I removed my gnus and fetched the latest version from git. Attempting ./configure and make, this freezes just after building compface.el, so I just used the .el files. Gnus still froze on startup. So I removed all custom gnus to fallback to the distro version of gnus (5.13). Gnus still freezes on start. Believing the issue might be in some corrupted file, I removed all gnus customisation in the emacs init file and renamed ".gnus.el, newsrc.eld, News, and Mail" believing this should use defaults for everything. Still freezes. Final attempt using --no-server option, still freezing.

I have no idea where to start to get some traces or ideas how to fault find from here, and any ideas will be /very/ appreciated! As Gnus is my primary mail reader, and filter, there's no way to keep up with any mailing lists - please wide reply to my secondary e-mail as well... 

It is possible I have botched my system in other ways by fiddling with Windows, virtualisation and what not, but everything else works fine.

Cheers,

Johnny

Re: Gnus freezes on startup

[Ian Swainson]

Hi Johnny,

On Thursday 27 September 2012 at 08:32 AM, "Johnny Carlsson" <yggdrasil@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
> Recently I have been unable to start gnus on my machine and am completely unable
> to debug why. This was around two weeks ago - incidentally I created a dual-boot
> windows partition for the first time in years, but however keen to blame this I
> don't see any obvious correlation...

In my experience, Gnus hanging at the startup screen can often be the
result of network issues, so I'd probably start there before I went too
far into messing around with Gnus itself. I'd firstly try connecting
into the mail server from a terminal, if that succeeds I'd then move
towards Emacs itself and check if it can see the network /
mailserver. Don't forget to try starting Emacs without any init file too
(ie. emacs -Q), as problems can be hidden there.

HTH.

Kind regards,
ian

-- 
Ian Swainson
Ruapuke, New Zealand
http://www.913.co.nz

Sent from my emacs

fortune says:
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
to suspect "Hungry."
-- a Larson cartoon

Re: Gnus freezes on startup

[Julien Danjou]

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On Wed, Sep 26 2012, Johnny Carlsson wrote:

> I am running a customised F17 LXDE system with emacs 24.1.1 and used NoGnus
> (version unknown...). When the problem occured, I recalled seeing a
> "warning: package gg-gg is obsolete", so I removed my gnus and fetched the
> latest version from git. Attempting ./configure and make, this freezes just
> after building compface.el, so I just used the .el files.

First, this is too much suspicious. You're saying that compilation
process file blocks? I'd start to resolve this.
If you run top, is an emacs process taking all the CPU power or
something like that?

-- 
Julien Danjou
/* Free Software hacker & freelance
   http://julien.danjou.info */

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Re: Gnus freezes on startup

[Antoine Levitt]

09/26/2012 22:32, Johnny Carlsson
> Hi all,
>
> Recently I have been unable to start gnus on my machine and am
> completely unable to debug why. This was around two weeks ago -
> incidentally I created a dual-boot windows partition for the first
> time in years, but however keen to blame this I don't see any obvious
> correlation...
>
> Problem is as the heading - I start emacs successfully, then do M-x
> gnus. The nice logo shows up, but keeps me gazing at it while nothing
> seems to happen and I have to kill the process from the terminal.

In addition to what has been suggested, you can try killall -s SIGUSR1
emacs, which will cause emacs to go into debug. This can work even if
C-g does nothing.

gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Johnny]

Thanks all for the pointers in faultfinding the Gnus freeze (below), I
have finally got Gnus back working (re-install of F17, it was about time
anyhow). 

There is one final bit I don't get; after installing Ma Gnus v0.6 I
cannot open any messages from the summary buffer as I get the error
message 'gnus-timer--function is void'. I can see this is defined in
gnus-utils.el 

,----
| (if (fboundp 'timer--function)
|     (defalias 'gnus-timer--function 'timer--function)
|   (defun gnus-timer--function (timer)
|     (elt timer 5)))
`----

The load path is set correctly I assume (as it picks up Ma Gnus
correctly) and I have the 'require gnus-load' in .init.el:

,----
|   (add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/gnus/lisp")
|   (add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/gnus/contrib")
|   (require 'gnus-load)
`----

I 'solved' the issue by copying the part from gnus-utils.el to my
init.el, but this doesn't seem right. Am I missing something here?

Thanks,

Johhny


"Johnny Carlsson" <yggdrasil@gmx.co.uk> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> Recently I have been unable to start gnus on my machine and am
> completely unable to debug why. This was around two weeks ago -
> incidentally I created a dual-boot windows partition for the first
> time in years, but however keen to blame this I don't see any obvious
> correlation...
>
> Problem is as the heading - I start emacs successfully, then do M-x
> gnus. The nice logo shows up, but keeps me gazing at it while nothing
> seems to happen and I have to kill the process from the terminal.
>
> I am running a customised F17 LXDE system with emacs 24.1.1 and used
> NoGnus (version unknown...). When the problem occured, I recalled
> seeing a "warning: package gg-gg is obsolete", so I removed my gnus
> and fetched the latest version from git. Attempting ./configure and
> make, this freezes just after building compface.el, so I just used the
> .el files. Gnus still froze on startup. So I removed all custom gnus
> to fallback to the distro version of gnus (5.13). Gnus still freezes
> on start. Believing the issue might be in some corrupted file, I
> removed all gnus customisation in the emacs init file and renamed
> ".gnus.el, newsrc.eld, News, and Mail" believing this should use
> defaults for everything. Still freezes. Final attempt using
> --no-server option, still freezing.
>
> I have no idea where to start to get some traces or ideas how to fault
> find from here, and any ideas will be /very/ appreciated! As Gnus is
> my primary mail reader, and filter, there's no way to keep up with any
> mailing lists - please wide reply to my secondary e-mail as well...
>
> It is possible I have botched my system in other ways by fiddling with Windows, virtualisation and what not, but everything else works fine.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Johnny
>

-- 
Johnny

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Haider Rizvi]

Johnny <yggdrasil@gmx.co.uk> writes:

> There is one final bit I don't get; after installing Ma Gnus v0.6 I
> cannot open any messages from the summary buffer as I get the error
> message 'gnus-timer--function is void'. I can see this is defined in
> gnus-utils.el 

I just hit the same problem as well, after moving to MaGnus
0.6. Started using the same workaround as Johnny described, but
interested in finding out the right solution.

Regards, 
-- 
Haider

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

Haider Rizvi wrote:
> Johnny <yggdrasil@gmx.co.uk> writes:

>> There is one final bit I don't get; after installing Ma Gnus v0.6 I
>> cannot open any messages from the summary buffer as I get the error
>> message 'gnus-timer--function is void'. I can see this is defined in
>> gnus-utils.el

> I just hit the same problem as well, after moving to MaGnus
> 0.6. Started using the same workaround as Johnny described, but
> interested in finding out the right solution.

Well, don't you have the old gnus-util.el file(s) in your load-path
directories?  This should show the most preferred one among them:

M-x locate-library RET gnus-util RET

And this shows all the gnus-util.el(c) files existing in
the load-path directories:

(let ((name "gnus-util")
      (load-path (copy-sequence load-path))
      elc el files dir)
  (while (setq elc (locate-library name))
    (push elc files)
    (setq dir (file-name-directory elc))
    (when (setq el (locate-library (concat name ".el")))
      (unless (equal el elc)
	(push el files)))
    (setq load-path
	  (delete dir (delete (directory-file-name dir) load-path))))
  (nreverse files))

;; Copy this form to the *scratch* buffer and type `C-j' at the end.

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Haider Rizvi]

Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@jpl.org> writes:

> Well, don't you have the old gnus-util.el file(s) in your load-path
> directories?  This should show the most preferred one among them:

I have the new gnus lisp directory ahead of the older one in
load-path. 

> M-x locate-library RET gnus-util RET

I get the new one. 

> And this shows all the gnus-util.el(c) files existing in
> the load-path directories:
>
It shows as expected, new one ahead of the older one. 

gnus-timer--function is used in gnus-art.el (in
gnus-article-stop-animations ()). It is not defined on first
invocation. That's what the stack shows:

gnus-article-stop-animations: Symbol's function definition is void:
gnus-timer--function [2 times]

  gnus-timer--function([nil 20595 12692 388485 900 nnimap-keepalive nil nil])
  gnus-article-stop-animations()
  gnus-article-setup-buffer()
  gnus-article-prepare(830 nil)
  gnus-summary-display-article(830)
  gnus-summary-next-page(nil)
  call-interactively(gnus-summary-next-page nil nil)




Regards, 
-- 
Haider

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

Haider Rizvi wrote:
> Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@jpl.org> writes:

>> Well, don't you have the old gnus-util.el file(s) in your load-path
>> directories?  This should show the most preferred one among them:

> I have the new gnus lisp directory ahead of the older one in
> load-path.

>> M-x locate-library RET gnus-util RET

> I get the new one.

>> And this shows all the gnus-util.el(c) files existing in
>> the load-path directories:
>>
> It shows as expected, new one ahead of the older one.

> gnus-timer--function is used in gnus-art.el (in
> gnus-article-stop-animations ()). It is not defined on first
> invocation.

Hmm, but it should be loaded by way of the following ones:

::: gnus-art.el :::
(require 'gnus)

::: gnus.el :::
(require 'gnus-util)

> That's what the stack shows:

> gnus-article-stop-animations: Symbol's function definition is void:
> gnus-timer--function [2 times]

>   gnus-timer--function([nil 20595 12692 388485 900 nnimap-keepalive nil nil])
>   gnus-article-stop-animations()
>   gnus-article-setup-buffer()
>   gnus-article-prepare(830 nil)
>   gnus-summary-display-article(830)
>   gnus-summary-next-page(nil)
>   call-interactively(gnus-summary-next-page nil nil)

That's a mystery.  I normally use Emacs 24.2.50 but tried 24.2
(for which Ma Gnus has not been installed).  Here are the ones I
observed:

/usr/bin/emacs --version
 => GNU Emacs 24.2.1

# This should not work because of the absence of Ma Gnus.
/usr/bin/emacs -batch -Q\
 -l gnus-art\
 -eval '(message "%s" (gnus-timer--function (timer-create)))'
 => Symbol's function definition is void: gnus-timer--function

# This should work.
/usr/bin/emacs -batch -Q\
 -eval '(push "/Ma Gnus source directory/lisp" load-path)'\
 -l gnus-art\
 -eval '(message "%s" (gnus-timer--function (timer-create)))'
 => nil (ok)

# This should work(2).
/usr/bin/emacs -batch -Q\
 -f batch-byte-compile '/Ma Gnus source directory/lisp/gnus-util.el'
 => Wrote /Ma Gnus source directory/lisp/gnus-util.elc

/usr/bin/emacs -batch -Q\
 -eval '(push "/Ma Gnus source directory/lisp" load-path)'\
 -l gnus-art\
 -eval '(message "%s" (gnus-timer--function (timer-create)))'
 => nil (ok)

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Marius Hofert]

Hi,

I work with Emacs 24.2.1 on Ubuntu 12.10 and wanted to use the latest version
of Gnus. I git-cloned to ~/.emacs.d (then ./configure, make) and ~/.emacs contains:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp") load-path))
(require 'gnus-load)
(require 'info)
(add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "~/.emacs.d/gnus/texi/")
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

On startup of Gnus, I obtain:

,----
| gnus-group-highlight-line: Symbol's function definition is void:
| gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces
`----

That's the backtrace (with M-x toggle-debug-on-error):

,----
| Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces)
|   gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces(1 face)
|   gnus-group-highlight-line("dummy.group" 1 23)
|   gnus-group-insert-group-line("dummy.group" 0 nil 0 nil)
|   gnus-update-group-mark-positions()
|   gnus-group-mode()
|   gnus-group-setup-buffer()
|   gnus-group-list-groups(nil)
|   byte-code("\b\204
`----

I then have executed gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces by hand
(with C-x C-e). Afterwards, Gnus starts and I can also write mails. For testing
purposes, I sent myself a mail. When I wanted to open it, I obtained:

,----
| gnus-article-stop-animations: Symbol's function definition is void: gnus-timer--function
`----

... and this is how I found this post. 

I then executed this auxiliary function:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(let ((name "gnus-util")
      (load-path (copy-sequence load-path))
      elc el files dir)
  (while (setq elc (locate-library name))
    (push elc files)
    (setq dir (file-name-directory elc))
    (when (setq el (locate-library (concat name ".el")))
      (unless (equal el elc)
	(push el files)))
    (setq load-path
	  (delete dir (delete (directory-file-name dir) load-path))))
  (nreverse files))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

and obtained:

("/home/mhofert/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp/gnus-util.elc" 
 "/home/mhofert/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp/gnus-util.el" 
 "/usr/share/emacs/24.2/lisp/gnus/gnus-util.elc" 
 "/usr/share/emacs/24.2/lisp/gnus/gnus-util.el.gz")

=> fine.

I also execute the following (with minimal ~/.gnus.el and ~/.emacs) as Katsumi:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
emacs -batch -Q -l gnus-art -eval '(message "%s" (gnus-timer--function
(timer-create)))'
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

,----[ output (same as Katsumi's): ]
| Symbol's function definition is void: gnus-timer--function
`----

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
emacs -batch -Q -l gnus-art -eval '(push "~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp"
load-path)' -l gnus-art -eval '(message "%s" (gnus-timer--function
(timer-create)))'
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

,----[ output (different from Katsumi's): ]
| Symbol's function definition is void: gnus-timer--function
`----

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
emacs -batch -Q -f batch-byte-compile '~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp/gnus-util.el'
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

,----[ output (same as Katsumi's): ]
| Wrote /home/mhofert/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp/gnus-util.elc
`----

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
emacs -batch -Q -eval '(push "~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp" load-path)' -l gnus-art
-eval '(message "%s" (gnus-timer--function (timer-create)))'
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

,----[ output (same as Katsumi's): ]
| nil
`----


I then also tried to use Emacs snapshot (also from ppa:cassou/emacs), but
obtained even more obscure behavior. 

I'm not an elisp programmer, just wanted to report what I found. I hope an
expert looks into this. If you need more information, please give me detailed
instructions to minimize the risk of "informational loss on debugging".

Cheers,

Marius

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch wrote:
> I work with Emacs 24.2.1 on Ubuntu 12.10 and wanted to use the latest version
> of Gnus. I git-cloned to ~/.emacs.d (then ./configure, make) and
> ~/.emacs contains:

> (setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp") load-path))
> (require 'gnus-load)
[...]

I tried the same, with the ~/.emacs file including only two lines
similar to yours, but got no problem.  Hmm.  Could you send me
a tarball that includes at least the following files in your
~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp" directory?

gnus-art.el
gnus-art.elc
gnus-util.el
gnus-util.elc

I suspect something bad happened when you performed ./configure
and make.

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Shawn Nock]

Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka <at> jpl.org> writes:

> 
> marius.hofert <at> math.ethz.ch wrote:
> > I work with Emacs 24.2.1 on Ubuntu 12.10 and wanted to use the latest 
version
> > of Gnus. I git-cloned to ~/.emacs.d (then ./configure, make) and
> > ~/.emacs contains:
> 
> > (setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp") load-path))
> > (require 'gnus-load)
> [...]
> 
> I tried the same, with the ~/.emacs file including only two lines
> similar to yours, but got no problem.  Hmm.  Could you send me
> a tarball that includes at least the following files in your
> ~/.emacs.d/gnus/lisp" directory?
> 
> gnus-art.el
> gnus-art.elc
> gnus-util.el
> gnus-util.elc
> 
> I suspect something bad happened when you performed ./configure
> and make.
> 

Was this ever resolved? I am seeing the same behaviour with emacs 24.3 on 
ArchLinux. The problem does not occur if I revert to emacs 24.2 . Please copy 
replies to my address, I am not on the list.

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function gnus-get-text-property-excluding-
characters-with-faces)
  gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces(1 face)
  gnus-group-highlight-line("dummy.group" 1 23)
  gnus-group-insert-group-line("dummy.group" 0 nil 0 nil)
  gnus-update-group-mark-positions()
  gnus-group-mode()
  gnus-group-setup-buffer()
  gnus-group-list-groups(nil)
  byte-code("\b\204\x0e

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Erik Colson]

Shawn Nock <nock@nocko.se> writes:

> Was this ever resolved? I am seeing the same behaviour with emacs 24.3 on 
> ArchLinux. The problem does not occur if I revert to emacs 24.2 . Please copy 
> replies to my address, I am not on the list.
>
> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function gnus-get-text-property-excluding-
> characters-with-faces)
>   gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces(1 face)
>   gnus-group-highlight-line("dummy.group" 1 23)
>   gnus-group-insert-group-line("dummy.group" 0 nil 0 nil)
>   gnus-update-group-mark-positions()
>   gnus-group-mode()
>   gnus-group-setup-buffer()
>   gnus-group-list-groups(nil)
>   byte-code("\b\204

Same here..
Emacs 24.3 from git repo (I know it's not bzr ;)) on Macosx 10.8

best
--
erik

Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Shawn Nock]

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Erik Colson <eco@ecocode.net> writes:

> Shawn Nock <nock@nocko.se> writes:
>
>> Was this ever resolved? I am seeing the same behaviour with emacs
>> 24.3 on ArchLinux. The problem does not occur if I revert to emacs
>> 24.2 . Please copy replies to my address, I am not on the list.
>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function
>> gnus-get-text-property-excluding- characters-with-faces)
>> gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces(1 face)
>> gnus-group-highlight-line("dummy.group" 1 23)
>> gnus-group-insert-group-line("dummy.group" 0 nil 0 nil)
>> gnus-update-group-mark-positions() gnus-group-mode()
>> gnus-group-setup-buffer() gnus-group-list-groups(nil)
>> byte-code("\b\204
>
> Same here..  Emacs 24.3 from git repo (I know it's not bzr ;)) on
> Macosx 10.8

I sorted out that 24.3 (as packaged for Arch) started including
Gnus. Even though the git version ghosted the system version; there was
apparently some conflict.

I've reverted to the system version for now.

-- 
Shawn Nock (OpenPGP: 0x65118FA5)

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Re: gnus-timer--function is void (was Re: Gnus freezes on startup)

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

Erik Colson wrote:
> Shawn Nock <nock@nocko.se> writes:
[...]
>> Debugger entered--Lisp error:
>> (void-function gnus-get-text-property-excluding-characters-with-faces)
[...]
> Same here..
> Emacs 24.3 from git repo (I know it's not bzr ;)) on Macosx 10.8

I think there's no reason except for loading an old gnus-util.elc.
I mean that *old* is that of Emacs 24.3 or that of older versions
of Gnus.  If you use Ma Gnus without removing Gnus that Emacs 24.3
bundles, the path for Ma Gnus has to be put high on `load-path' than
the one for Gnus Emacs 24.3 bundles.  An easy way to do that is:

(push "/Directory/Where/Ma_Gnus/Is/Installed" load-path)