bug#11394: 24.0.96; Sporadic pasting problem

bug#11394: 24.0.96; Sporadic pasting problem

[Richard Stanton]

This bug report will be sent to the Bug-GNU-Emacs mailing list
and the GNU bug tracker at debbugs.gnu.org.  Please check that
the From: line contains a valid email address.  After a delay of up
to one day, you should receive an acknowledgement at that address.

Please write in English if possible, as the Emacs maintainers
usually do not have translators for other languages.

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug, and
the precise symptoms of the bug.  If you can, give a recipe
starting from `emacs -Q':

I've been using Emacs with org-mode quite a lot over the last 24 hours
to edit a file that will turn into a Beamer presentation. During the
course of this editing, I've several times had the problem that when
cutting and pasting text, when I press C-y, instead of doing what I ask, I
get a
message in the minibuffer telling me something like

Quit: pasteboard doesn't contain valid data

At this point, I seem to be completely unable to retrieve the text I had
previously cut. To try and find out more,
I have debug-on-error set to t, but Emacs doesn't enter the debugger when
I press C-y; it just gives me that not very useful error message.

This doesn't happen anywhere close to 100% of the time, and I have no way
to recreate the problem systematically, but it happened probably 4 or 5
times during the last 24 hours.

If Emacs crashed, and you have the Emacs process in the gdb debugger,
please include the output from the following gdb commands:
    `bt full' and `xbacktrace'.
For information about debugging Emacs, please read the file
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/etc/DEBUG.


In GNU Emacs 24.0.96.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.36)
 of 2012-04-27 on bob.porkrind.org
Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.1138
Configured using:
 `configure '--host=x86_64-apple-darwin' '--build=i686-apple-darwin'
 '--with-ns' 'build_alias=i686-apple-darwin'
 'host_alias=x86_64-apple-darwin' 'CC=gcc -mmacosx-version-min=10.5''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: nil
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Org

Minor modes in effect:
  TeX-PDF-mode: t
  TeX-source-correlate-mode: t
  display-time-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  org-beamer-mode: t
  diff-auto-refine-mode: t
  recentf-mode: t
  ido-everywhere: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  visual-line-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  abbrev-mode: t

Recent input:
C-x C-s C-c C-e p C-c C-e d <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <right> <right>
<right> 1 <backspace> C-a C-k C-y C-k C-y <down> <up>
C-k C-k C-y C-@ <down> M-w C-y C-y C-y C-y C-y <down>
<down> C-@ <down> <down> <down> C-k <up> <up> <up>
C-k C-y C-k C-y <down> <down> <down> <down> C-k C-y
C-k C-y <up> C-k C-y <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> C-k C-k C-k C-k
<down> <down> <return> <return> <up> C-y C-x C-s C-c
C-e p <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> C-a C-e <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> C-a C-k C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return>
C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return>
C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return>
C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return> C-y <C-return>
C-y C-x C-s <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> M-x o r g - v
e r SPC <return> C-x b * M e s <return> <down-mouse-1>
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <mouse-movement>
<mouse-movement> <drag-mouse-1> M-c C-a C-k C-y <down-mouse-1>
<mouse-1> C-x b <return> C-a <up> C-@ <down> <down>
<down> <down> M-w <C-end> <return> C-y <down-mouse-1>
<mouse-1> M-x e m a c s - b u g SPC <help-echo> <down-mouse-1>
<mouse-1> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace>
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace>
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> r e
p o r t SPC SPC SPC <return>

Recent messages:
Wrote /Users/stanton/reviews/Stanford/ttt.tex
LaTeX export done, pushed to kill ring and clipboard
Processing LaTeX file /Users/stanton/reviews/Stanford/ttt.tex...done
Exporting to PDF...done
Mark set [15 times]
Saving file /Users/stanton/reviews/Stanford/ttt.org...
Wrote /Users/stanton/reviews/Stanford/ttt.org
Org-mode version 7.8.09 (release_7.8.09-482-gf47915 @
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/org-mode/lisp/org-inst
all.el)
Mark set [4 times]
delete-backward-char: Text is read-only [4 times]

Load-path shadows:
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/Pymacs-0.23/pymacs
hides 
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/python-mode/pymacs
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/dvc/lisp/ewoc hides
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/dvc/lisp/contrib/ewoc
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/org-mode/.dir-locals
hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/gnus/.dir-locals
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/dvc/lisp/ewoc hides
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/emacs-lisp/ewoc

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message rfc822 mml mml-sec
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils
mailheader tabify reftex-vcr reftex-dcr bib-cite flyspell ispell preview
prv-emacs tex-buf font-latex latex tex-style tex latexenc help-mode view
vc-hg vc-bzr bzr-dvc tla smerge-mode newcomment dvc-state dvc-config
diff tla-gnus dvc-gnus dvc-cmenu dvc-about dvc-version bzr dvc-annotate
dvc-revlist dvc-diff dvc-fileinfo bzr-core tla-core pp tla-autoconf
tla-defs dvc-log vc vc-dispatcher dvc-unified dvc-tips dired-x dired
ffap ediff-merg ediff-diff ediff-wind ediff-help ediff-util ediff-mult
ediff-init ediff xdarcs-core xgit-core xhg-core xmtn-minimal
reftex-parse reftex reftex-vars org-wl org-w3m org-vm org-rmail org-mhe
org-mew org-irc org-jsinfo org-infojs org-html org-info org-gnus
org-docview org-bibtex bibtex org-bbdb time cus-start cus-load
python-mode skeleton derived rx shell compile org-latex org-export-latex
org-beamer org-exp ob-exp org-exp-blocks org-agenda footnote ob-C
cc-mode cc-fonts cc-guess cc-menus cc-cmds cc-styles cc-align cc-engine
cc-vars cc-defs ob-perl ob-R ob-python org byte-opt warnings bytecomp
byte-compile cconv macroexp ob-emacs-lisp ob-tangle ob-ref ob-lob
ob-table org-footnote org-src ob-comint ob-keys ob ob-eval org-pcomplete
pcomplete comint ansi-color org-list org-faces org-compat org-entities
org-macs noutline outline format-spec find-func cal-menu calendar
cal-loaddefs org-install preview-latex tex-site auto-loads server
dvc-autoloads dvc-core dvc-lisp dvc-buffers dvc-ui dvc-register
dvc-utils dvc-emacs ewoc dvc-defs dvc-site magit-bisect magit-key-mode
assoc magit diff-mode log-edit easy-mmode ring pcvs-util add-log
color-theme edmacro kmacro cl sendmail regexp-opt rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils reporter package tabulated-list
recentf tree-widget wid-edit uniquify advice help-fns advice-preload ido
info easymenu time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
mwheel ns-win tool-bar dnd fontset image fringe lisp-mode register page
menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock
syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew greek
romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer loaddefs
button faces cus-face files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64
format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote make-network-process ns multi-tty emacs)

bug#11394: 24.0.96; Sporadic pasting problem

[Chong Yidong]

Richard Stanton <stanton@haas.berkeley.edu> writes:

> I've been using Emacs with org-mode quite a lot over the last 24 hours
> to edit a file that will turn into a Beamer presentation. During the
> course of this editing, I've several times had the problem that when
> cutting and pasting text, when I press C-y, instead of doing what I ask, I
> get a
> message in the minibuffer telling me something like
>
> Quit: pasteboard doesn't contain valid data

My suspicion is the fix for Bug#11315 (revno 107896 on emacs-24 branch).
Please recompile with the following patch (which reverts the above fix)
and see if the problem goes away.

=== modified file 'lisp/select.el'
*** lisp/select.el	2012-04-24 05:34:50 +0000
--- lisp/select.el	2012-05-03 01:42:31 +0000
***************
*** 213,237 ****
  (defun xselect--int-to-cons (n)
    (cons (ash n -16) (logand n 65535)))
  
! (defun xselect--encode-string (type str &optional can-modify)
!   (when str
!     ;; If TYPE is nil, this is a local request; return STR as-is.
!     (if (null type)
! 	str
!       ;; Otherwise, encode STR.
!       (let ((coding (or next-selection-coding-system
! 			selection-coding-system)))
  	(if coding
  	    (setq coding (coding-system-base coding)))
  	(let ((inhibit-read-only t))
  	  ;; Suppress producing escape sequences for compositions.
- 	  ;; But avoid modifying the string if it's a buffer name etc.
- 	  (unless can-modify (setq str (substring str 0)))
  	  (remove-text-properties 0 (length str) '(composition nil) str)
- 	  ;; TEXT is a polymorphic target.  Select the actual type
- 	  ;; from `UTF8_STRING', `COMPOUND_TEXT', `STRING', and
- 	  ;; `C_STRING'.
  	  (if (eq type 'TEXT)
  	      (if (not (multibyte-string-p str))
  		  (setq type 'C_STRING)
  		(let (non-latin-1 non-unicode eight-bit)
--- 213,242 ----
  (defun xselect--int-to-cons (n)
    (cons (ash n -16) (logand n 65535)))
  
! (defun xselect-convert-to-string (_selection type value)
!   (let (str coding)
!     ;; Get the actual string from VALUE.
!     (cond ((stringp value)
! 	   (setq str value))
! 	  ((setq value (xselect--selection-bounds value))
! 	   (with-current-buffer (nth 2 value)
! 	     (setq str (buffer-substring (nth 0 value)
! 					 (nth 1 value))))))
!     (when str
!       ;; If TYPE is nil, this is a local request, thus return STR as
!       ;; is.  Otherwise, encode STR.
!       (if (not type)
! 	  str
! 	(setq coding (or next-selection-coding-system selection-coding-system))
  	(if coding
  	    (setq coding (coding-system-base coding)))
  	(let ((inhibit-read-only t))
  	  ;; Suppress producing escape sequences for compositions.
  	  (remove-text-properties 0 (length str) '(composition nil) str)
  	  (if (eq type 'TEXT)
+ 	      ;; TEXT is a polymorphic target.  We must select the
+ 	      ;; actual type from `UTF8_STRING', `COMPOUND_TEXT',
+ 	      ;; `STRING', and `C_STRING'.
  	      (if (not (multibyte-string-p str))
  		  (setq type 'C_STRING)
  		(let (non-latin-1 non-unicode eight-bit)
***************
*** 274,287 ****
        (setq next-selection-coding-system nil)
        (cons type str))))
  
- (defun xselect-convert-to-string (_selection type value)
-   (let ((str (cond ((stringp value) value)
- 		   ((setq value (xselect--selection-bounds value))
- 		    (with-current-buffer (nth 2 value)
- 		      (buffer-substring (nth 0 value)
- 					(nth 1 value)))))))
-     (xselect--encode-string type str t)))
- 
  (defun xselect-convert-to-length (_selection _type value)
    (let ((len (cond ((stringp value)
  		    (length value))
--- 279,284 ----
***************
*** 314,320 ****
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-filename (_selection _type value)
    (when (setq value (xselect--selection-bounds value))
!     (xselect--encode-string 'TEXT (buffer-file-name (nth 2 value)))))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-charpos (_selection _type value)
    (when (setq value (xselect--selection-bounds value))
--- 311,317 ----
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-filename (_selection _type value)
    (when (setq value (xselect--selection-bounds value))
!     (buffer-file-name (nth 2 value))))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-charpos (_selection _type value)
    (when (setq value (xselect--selection-bounds value))
***************
*** 340,352 ****
  			    (xselect--int-to-cons (max beg end))))))))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-os (_selection _type _size)
!   (xselect--encode-string 'TEXT (symbol-name system-type)))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-host (_selection _type _size)
!   (xselect--encode-string 'TEXT (system-name)))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-user (_selection _type _size)
!   (xselect--encode-string 'TEXT (user-full-name)))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-class (_selection _type _size)
    "Convert selection to class.
--- 337,349 ----
  			    (xselect--int-to-cons (max beg end))))))))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-os (_selection _type _size)
!   (symbol-name system-type))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-host (_selection _type _size)
!   (system-name))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-user (_selection _type _size)
!   (user-full-name))
  
  (defun xselect-convert-to-class (_selection _type _size)
    "Convert selection to class.

bug#11394: 24.0.96; Sporadic pasting problem

[Chong Yidong]

> Richard Stanton <stanton@haas.berkeley.edu> writes:
>
>> I've been using Emacs with org-mode quite a lot over the last 24
>> hours to edit a file that will turn into a Beamer
>> presentation. During the course of this editing, I've several times
>> had the problem that when cutting and pasting text, when I press C-y,
>> instead of doing what I ask, I get a message in the minibuffer
>> telling me something like
>>
>> Quit: pasteboard doesn't contain valid data
>
> My suspicion is the fix for Bug#11315 (revno 107896 on emacs-24 branch).

OK, I think I know where the problem lies.  Here are two things I'd like
you to try before using the patch I posted in my earlier message (which
just reverts select.el to an earlier version).

1. Try a bit to reproduce this (in an unpatched version of the pretest),
   by copying and pasting non-ASCII text like some of the text in the
   HELLO buffer displayed by C-h H.  If you can reproduce the problem,
   that is much more convenient than waiting for the problem to occur
   sporadically.

2. Please apply the following patch and see if the problem goes away.

Please try my earlier patch instead (the one which reverts to an earlier
version) only if the problem still occurs after (2).

Waiting for your reply; thanks in advance!


=== modified file 'lisp/select.el'
*** lisp/select.el	2012-04-24 05:34:50 +0000
--- lisp/select.el	2012-05-03 02:27:09 +0000
***************
*** 228,251 ****
  	  ;; But avoid modifying the string if it's a buffer name etc.
  	  (unless can-modify (setq str (substring str 0)))
  	  (remove-text-properties 0 (length str) '(composition nil) str)
! 	  ;; TEXT is a polymorphic target.  Select the actual type
! 	  ;; from `UTF8_STRING', `COMPOUND_TEXT', `STRING', and
! 	  ;; `C_STRING'.
! 	  (if (eq type 'TEXT)
! 	      (if (not (multibyte-string-p str))
! 		  (setq type 'C_STRING)
! 		(let (non-latin-1 non-unicode eight-bit)
! 		  (mapc #'(lambda (x)
! 			    (if (>= x #x100)
! 				(if (< x #x110000)
! 				    (setq non-latin-1 t)
! 				  (if (< x #x3FFF80)
! 				      (setq non-unicode t)
! 				    (setq eight-bit t)))))
! 			str)
! 		  (setq type (if non-unicode 'COMPOUND_TEXT
! 			       (if non-latin-1 'UTF8_STRING
! 				 (if eight-bit 'C_STRING 'STRING)))))))
  	  (cond
  	   ((eq type 'UTF8_STRING)
  	    (if (or (not coding)
--- 228,256 ----
  	  ;; But avoid modifying the string if it's a buffer name etc.
  	  (unless can-modify (setq str (substring str 0)))
  	  (remove-text-properties 0 (length str) '(composition nil) str)
! 	  ;; For X selections, TEXT is a polymorphic target.  Select
! 	  ;; the actual type from `UTF8_STRING', `COMPOUND_TEXT',
! 	  ;; `STRING', and `C_STRING'.
! 	  (when (eq type 'TEXT)
! 	    (cond
! 	     ((featurep 'ns)
! 	      (setq type 'UTF8_STRING))
! 	     ((not (multibyte-string-p str))
! 	      (setq type 'C_STRING))
! 	     (t
! 	      (let (non-latin-1 non-unicode eight-bit)
! 		(mapc #'(lambda (x)
! 			  (if (>= x #x100)
! 			      (if (< x #x110000)
! 				  (setq non-latin-1 t)
! 				(if (< x #x3FFF80)
! 				    (setq non-unicode t)
! 				  (setq eight-bit t)))))
! 		      str)
! 		(setq type (if non-unicode 'COMPOUND_TEXT
! 			     (if non-latin-1 'UTF8_STRING
! 			       (if eight-bit 'C_STRING
! 				 'STRING))))))))
  	  (cond
  	   ((eq type 'UTF8_STRING)
  	    (if (or (not coding)