Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

[Steinar Bang]

Platform: Ubuntu 8.04, Intel Pentium M
	  GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.7) of 2008-02-08 on palmer, modified by Ubuntu
	  No Gnus v0.9 (checkout of today)

I've just upgraded to Emacs 22.  When I post, I get the following error
message: 
 apply: Format specifier doesn't match argument type

Does anyone know what's wrong?

Thanx!

Re: Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no>:

> Platform: Ubuntu 8.04, Intel Pentium M
> 	  GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.7) of 2008-02-08 on palmer, modified by Ubuntu
> 	  No Gnus v0.9 (checkout of today)

> I've just upgraded to Emacs 22.  When I post, I get the following error
> message: 
>  apply: Format specifier doesn't match argument type

It only happens when I try to send email.  Not when posting nntp.

> Does anyone know what's wrong?

That still goes.  I haven't found any google matches for this.  I'll try
to get a stack trace.

Re: Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no>:

> That still goes.  I haven't found any google matches for this.  I'll try
> to get a stack trace.

That was clearifying.  See below.  

Appearently message-send-mail-with-sendmail doesn't work with the
default exim4 installation.

There is a /usr/sbin/sendmail that belongs to the exim4-daemon-light 

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Format specifier doesn't match argument type")
  format("Sending...failed with exit value %d" "Broken pipe")
  apply(format ("Sending...failed with exit value %d" "Broken pipe"))
  error("Sending...failed with exit value %d" "Broken pipe")
  message-send-mail-with-sendmail()
  #[nil "\b " [message-send-mail-function] 1]()
  gnus-agent-send-mail()
  message-send-mail(nil)
  message-send-via-mail(nil)
  message-send(nil)
  message-send-and-exit(nil)
  call-interactively(message-send-and-exit)

Re: Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no>:

> Appearently message-send-mail-with-sendmail doesn't work with the
> default exim4 installation.

> There is a /usr/sbin/sendmail that belongs to the exim4-daemon-light 

Looks like the possibility to use /usr/sbin/sendmail to send email is
disabled in the exim4 config of Ubuntu 8.04.

When I run /usr/sbin/sendmail from the command line, I get the following
output (presumably the same output that meets message-send-mail...?):

$ /usr/sbin/sendmail 
Exim is a Mail Transfer Agent. It is normally called by Mail User Agents,
not directly from a shell command line. Options and/or arguments control
what it does when called. For a list of options, see the Exim documentation.

There is no config that I can figure out to switch this capability on.
There are no diffs between the Ubuntu 7.10 config that looks like it
relates to this.

When running 
 sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
there seems to be no option to allow local delivery.

So I customized message-send-mail-function to have the value
message-smtpmail-send-it and customized the smtpmail-smtp-server
variable to have the value localhost.

And then it seemed to be working again.

Re: Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

[James Cloos]

>>>>> "Steinar" == Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

Steinar> When I run /usr/sbin/sendmail from the command line, I get the
Steinar> following output (presumably the same output that meets
Steinar> message-send-mail...?):

Steinar> $ /usr/sbin/sendmail 
Steinar> Exim is a Mail Transfer Agent. It is normally called by Mail
Steinar> User Agents, not directly from a shell command line. Options
Steinar> and/or arguments control what it does when called. For a list
Steinar> of options, see the Exim documentation.

Try running:

:; /usr/sbin/sendmail -f $from -- $to <$file

with useful email addresses for $from and $to and a message in the file $file.

You should only need From:, To:, and Subject: headers in $file.

That should deliver the $file to $to using $from as the envelope sender.

If it does, exim's /usr/sbin/sendmail isn't disabled, but just has an
unhelpful default error message.

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6

Re: Emacs 22 can't post: "Format specifier doesn't match argument type"

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>:

> Try running:

> :; /usr/sbin/sendmail -f $from -- $to <$file

> with useful email addresses for $from and $to and a message in the
> file $file.

> You should only need From:, To:, and Subject: headers in $file.

> That should deliver the $file to $to using $from as the envelope
> sender.

That worked like a charm.

> If it does, exim's /usr/sbin/sendmail isn't disabled, but just has an
> unhelpful default error message.

So... what _really- failed wrt. to Gnus and exim's /usr/bin/sendmail...?
Is there a way to find out?