Inserting a sufficiently large chunk of text into a fresh cpp file breaks syntax highlighting and causes the buffer to enter a semi-permanent broken state. Moreover, the offending function "c-guess-basic-syntax" seems to break edebug instrumentation. In more detail: Start from emacs -Q. Insert sufficiently many lines of C++ code in a temporary buffer. A slightly contrived example: #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include Copy these lines to the kill ring. Create a new file "test.cpp", and paste what was copied. The first error is that syntax highlighting stops after a certain number of lines (in the above example, just before the final line). The same problem arises if such lines are inserted via abbrev-mode. This is the intended use case. No problem if such lines are copy/pasted in small enough chunks. The problem *appears* to go away if one cuts and then pastes the offending lines, but the buffer remains in a broken state. For instance, attempting to insert a couple newlines followed by int main( gives the following error: Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument number-or-marker-p nil) c-guess-basic-syntax() c-indent-line() indent-according-to-mode() c-electric-paren(nil) funcall-interactively(c-electric-paren nil) command-execute(c-electric-paren) Incidentally, "C-u C-M-x" applied to c-guess-basic-syntax gives a long and complicated backtrace that starts with: Debugger entered--Lisp error: (invalid-read-syntax "Expected" "lambda") edebug-syntax-error("Expected" "lambda") --- In GNU Emacs 28.0.50 (build 2, x86_64-apple-darwin19.6.0, NS appkit-1894.60 Version 10.15.7 (Build 19H524)) of 2021-04-26 built on Pauls-MBP-2 Repository revision: 9d34fd8b33c55768190d41239931120e3fc9717f Repository branch: master Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.1894 System Description: Mac OS X 10.15.7 Configured using: 'configure --with-native-compilation' Configured features: ACL DBUS GMP GNUTLS JPEG LCMS2 LIBXML2 MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY KQUEUE NS PDUMPER PNG THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS XIM ZLIB Important settings: value of $LC_CTYPE: UTF-8 value of $LANG: en_CH.UTF-8 locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: C++//l Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-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 abbrev-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs auth-source eieio eieio-core eieio-loaddefs password-cache json map text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils novice comp comp-cstr warnings subr-x rx cl-seq cl-macs cl-extra help-mode seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cc-mode cc-fonts cc-guess cc-menus cc-cmds cc-styles cc-align cc-engine cc-vars cc-defs cl-loaddefs cl-lib iso-transl tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/ns-win ns-win ucs-normalize mule-util term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray cl-preloaded nadvice button loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind kqueue cocoa ns lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process nativecomp emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 126796 8572) (symbols 48 11546 0) (strings 32 31421 1656) (string-bytes 1 1165707) (vectors 16 18464) (vector-slots 8 333103 10770) (floats 8 30 33) (intervals 56 540 0) (buffers 992 14))