bug#9146: 24.0.50; M-x broken in console mode with viper (always gives: "viper bell")

[Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@upsilon.cc>]

I'm using Emacs with viper mode and often with a console-only
emacsclient. Since a couple of weeks, viper mode is broken with
emacs snapshot. Every time I try to use M-x (or other M-something)
is impossible with Viper, I immediately obtain a "viper bell"
message in the minibuffer line and the M-x key does not get delivered
to Emacs.

I've been able to reproduce the bug with "emacs -Q -nw", then loading
Viper mode with "M-x viper-mode" (which does work before loading Viper).
From that moment on, "M-x" does not work anymore.


In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.5)
 of 2011-07-21 on cigue, modified by Debian
 (emacs-snapshot package, version 1:20110721-1)
configured using `configure  '--build' 'x86_64-linux-gnu' '--host' 'x86_64-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes' '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs-snapshot:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp' '--without-compress-info' '--with-crt-dir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' '--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--with-imagemagick=yes' 'build_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -DSITELOAD_PURESIZE_EXTRA=5000 -g -O2' 'LDFLAGS=-g -Wl,--as-needed' 'CPPFLAGS=''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: it_IT.utf8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
ESC [ > 1 ; 2 8 0 1 ; 0 c ESC x v i p TAB e r - m o 
TAB RET i a s f g s a f g ESC ESC x ESC x ESC x ESC 
x ESC x ESC x C-_ ESC x C-g ESC [ 2 1 ~ h s

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Making completion list...
Loading viper...
Loading /home/zack/.viper...done
Loading viper...done
Viper bell [6 times]
Undo!
Viper bell
Quit
delete-backward-char: Text is read-only [2 times]

Load-path shadows:
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/debian-startup hides /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/debian-startup
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/puppet-el/puppet-mode hides /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/puppet-mode
/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/rst hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/textmodes/rst

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr message format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mailabbrev mail-utils gmm-utils mailheader
emacsbug tmm electric edmacro kmacro viper viper-ex viper-macs
viper-mous viper-cmd viper-keym ring viper-util viper-init advice
help-fns advice-preload help-mode easymenu view time-date tooltip
ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd 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
dbusbind dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting
move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty emacs)

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, |  .  |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Capossela .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams