K Großjohann writes:

> Paul, what happens when you do the following?
>
> emacs -q -no-site-file -batch --eval "(print (featurep 'base64))"
>
> If it prints t, then Emacs has base64 support in the C code.  Then a
> workaround for base64-encode-string should be in canlock.  If it
> prints nil, then (require 'base64) in canlock.el should do the trick.

It prints nil

(require 'base64) doesn't seem to do the trick. I don't know that the
warning:
  ** the function base64-encode-string is not known to be defined.
is really relevant - base64 stuff ends up in the load path.

Posting news fails in either of two ways, one, which involves emacs
crashing gives the backtrace I posted previously (out of memory).
When that doesn't happen, I get the following backtrace