Re: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, e

Re: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, e

[Jesse Alama]

Henrik Christian Grove <grove@sslug.dk> writes:

> I've been using gnus for news and email for many years. Recently the
> disk my homedirectory is on suffered a partial crash (it's on linux lvm,
> and one of three disks died). Emacs with gnus was running (in a screen)
> when it happended. 
>
> Since then gnus has worked fine as longer as it can't access a
> particular newsserver (my own), either because the server isn't running,
> or because I've commented out the address in my .gnus. But when my
> newsserver is available gnus just says "Wrong type argument:
> number-or-marker-p, e" during startup, and stops.
>
> I don't find that error message very helpful, so I'm hoping some of you
> can give me an idea of what to look for and where - or possibly a way to
> fix the problem.

Turn on debugging (M-x toggle-debug-on-error), try this again, and
tell us in more detail what the error is.

Jesse

-- 
Jesse Alama (alama@stanford.edu)

Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, e

[Henrik Christian Grove]

Hi

I've been using gnus for news and email for many years. Recently the
disk my homedirectory is on suffered a partial crash (it's on linux lvm,
and one of three disks died). Emacs with gnus was running (in a screen)
when it happended. 

Since then gnus has worked fine as longer as it can't access a
particular newsserver (my own), either because the server isn't running,
or because I've commented out the address in my .gnus. But when my
newsserver is available gnus just says "Wrong type argument:
number-or-marker-p, e" during startup, and stops.

I don't find that error message very helpful, so I'm hoping some of you
can give me an idea of what to look for and where - or possibly a way to
fix the problem.

.Henrik

-- 
"Det er fundamentalt noget humanistisk vås, at der er noget, 
 der hedder blød matematik."
   --- citat Henrik Jeppesen, dekan for det naturvidenskabelige fakultet

Re: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, e

[Tassilo Horn]

Henrik Christian Grove <grove@sslug.dk> writes:

Hi Henrik,

> But when my newsserver is available gnus just says "Wrong type
> argument: number-or-marker-p, e" during startup, and stops.
>
> I don't find that error message very helpful, so I'm hoping some of
> you can give me an idea of what to look for and where - or possibly a
> way to fix the problem.

Put 

  (setq debug-on-error t)

into your ~/.emacs. If the error happens again, it will enter the
debugger and a backtrace will be displayed. This should point you to
where the error occurs.

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.

Re: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, e

[Henrik Christian Grove]

Tassilo Horn <heimdall@uni-koblenz.de> writes:

> Henrik Christian Grove <grove@sslug.dk> writes:
>
> Hi Henrik,
>
>> But when my newsserver is available gnus just says "Wrong type
>> argument: number-or-marker-p, e" during startup, and stops.
>>
>> I don't find that error message very helpful, so I'm hoping some of
>> you can give me an idea of what to look for and where - or possibly a
>> way to fix the problem.
>
> Put 
>
>   (setq debug-on-error t)
>
> into your ~/.emacs. If the error happens again, it will enter the
> debugger and a backtrace will be displayed. This should point you to
> where the error occurs.

Indeed.

The output from the debugger (I haven't taken the complete lines of
bytecode, one of them was 1700+ chars long, and I doubt anyone would
find them interesting):
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument number-or-marker-p e)
  byte-code("Æ^H!\210eb\210Çp!ÈÉÊ\217È^Y^Z^[\nËW\203
  ^@ÌÍ\n\"\210\202\217^@\nÎU\203k^@ÏÈ^\^]Ð \210Ñ
  q\210eb\210m\204b^@ÒÓ!\203\\^@ÔË!^N^_\230\203\\^@ÕÖÔ×!!^K\"\211^T\203\\^@\fÖÔØ!!¡\210Øy\210\2024^@Ù \210Ï^Q*\202$
  gnus-agent-read-agentview("/home/grove/News/agent/nntp/ogel/debianforum.snak/.agentview")
  gnus-cache-file-contents("/home/grove/News/agent/nntp/ogel/debianforum.snak/.agentview" gnus-agent-file-loading-cache gnus-agent-read-agentview)
  gnus-agent-load-alist("nntp+ogel:debianforum.snak")
  gnus-agent-get-local("nntp+ogel:debianforum.snak")
  gnus-agent-possibly-alter-active("nntp+ogel:debianforum.snak" (42
  . 81))
  gnus-activate-group("nntp+ogel:debianforum.snak" scan)
  gnus-get-unread-articles(nil)
  gnus-setup-news(nil nil nil)
  byte-code("^H\204^N^@ \204^N^@Æ
  \210\202^^@ÇÈ!\210É\n!^S\f\204^^^@^M\203!^@Ê \210^N^^\203.^@Ë
  \210ÌÍÎ\"\210^N^_\2038^@ÏÐÑ\"\210ÏÒÓ\"\210ÔÕ^N ^H#\210ÇÖ!\210× \210Ø^N
  !\210Ù \210ÚÛ!\210Ü \210ÇÝ!\210Õ\207" [dont-c$
  gnus-1(nil nil nil)
  gnus(nil)
* call-interactively(gnus)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)

and News/agent/nntp/ogel/debianforum.snak/.agentview is seriously
damaged, the contents (as less displays it):
l^@e^@ ^@S^@e^@c^@u^@r^@i^@

not exactly your average .agentview file, luckily it's even a
extremely-low-traffic and low-interest group. 

It's too late for me now, to try and fix this, and see if there are
other problems, but now I know how to get on with it. Thank you to both
you and Jesse.

.Henrik

-- 
"Det er fundamentalt noget humanistisk vås, at der er noget, 
 der hedder blød matematik."
   --- citat Henrik Jeppesen, dekan for det naturvidenskabelige fakultet