ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes:

> > 
> > Seem to be something missing from the tree?
> 
> url-auto.el is an auto generated file in url package.  You should
> build url package before w3.

OK, much better now...  Still get some messages but harmless I think:

   w3.txi:1234: warning: @sc argument all uppercase, thus no effect.
   w3.txi:1490: warning: @sc argument all uppercase, thus no effect.
   w3.txi:1517: warning: @sc argument all uppercase, thus no effect.
   makeinfo w3-faq.txi
   make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/w3-cvs/w3/texi'

The bad news is I still get the same problem.

After applying your patch  I ran a diff on url-http.el~ url-http.el

        $ diff url-http.el~ url-http.el
        291a292
        >   (widen) ;; The buffer might be mysteriously narrowed.

Should there be more?

>From *Messages* buffer:
(is the line about the cookies causing this?)
   [...]
   Loading url-auth (source)...done
   
   Could not load cookie file /home/reader/.url/cookies
   
   Loading mail-extr...
   Loading mail-extr...done
   Loading w3-hot (source)...
   Loading w3-hot (source)...done
   Contacting host: www.cs.indiana.edu:80
   Loading url-cache (source)...
   Loading url-cache (source)...done
   Downloading of `http://www.cs.indiana.edu/elisp/w3/docs.html' complete.
   Parsed  82% of 2632...
   Parsed 100% of 2632...done
   Drawing... \
   Loading w3-style (source)...
   Loading w3-style (source)...done
   HTTP/0.9 How I hate thee!

Backtrace with *.elc files moved out of the line of fire.