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 acknowledgment 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': * Create a file that contains three bytes: two dashes followed by a newline. * Start emacs -Q * C-x C-f NAME-OF-THE-FILE RET * M-x sql-mode RET * M-< * M-: (comment-search-forward (point-max) t) RET You'll see this error: Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil) looking-at(nil) comment-search-forward(4 t) eval((comment-search-forward (point-max) t) nil) eval-expression((comment-search-forward (point-max) t) nil) call-interactively(eval-expression nil nil) 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 24.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.36) of 2013-03-12 on bob.porkrind.org Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.1187 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=10.7 -isystem /Users/david/Xcode-10.7_4.5.2/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk/usr/include/ -F/Users/david/Xcode-10.7_4.5.2/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks'' Important settings: locale-coding-system: nil default enable-multibyte-characters: t Major mode: SQL[ANSI] Minor modes in effect: shell-dirtrack-mode: t 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 blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Recent input: C-x C-f / t m p / f r o t z . s q l - - - - SPC H e y SPC y o u - - M-< M-: M-( c o m m e n t - s e a r c h - f o r w a r d M-( p o i n t - m a x C-f SPC t q M-> C-SPC C-p C-p C-w M-. C-g M-> M-: M-p M-< M-: M-p q M-> C-x C-s M-! s t a t SPC f r M-x r e p o r t - e m a c s - b Recent messages: Quit Mark set nil Mark set Entering debugger... Back to top level. Mark set Saving file /tmp/frotz.sql... Wrote /tmp/frotz.sql 16777224 1250723 -rw-r--r-- 1 erichanchrow wheel 0 3 "May 9 13:00:57 2013" "May 9 13:00:57 2013" "May 9 13:00:57 2013" "May 9 13:00:57 2013" 4096 8 0 frotz.sql Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils shell pcomplete etags help-mode debug sql easymenu thingatpt comint ansi-color ring time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel ns-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment 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 macroexp 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)