bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

[David Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com>]

Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
usually do not have translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org mailing list.

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

I think MacOS Emacs isn't very resilient to customizations for other
platforms that should be ignored.  For example, my

  default-frame-alist

is 

  ((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "xft") (font . "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-10.5") (tool-bar-lines . 0))

But `M-x new-frame' causes emacs to report "no font backend available"
without opening a new window.

BTW, reporting steps to reproduce bugs with emacs -Q seems to be
counterproductive on MacOS, because if I invoke the underlying
executable instead of the .app bundle, several things don't work
properly... and AFAIK there's no way to pass -Q to the .app bundle.

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'.
If you would like to further debug the crash, please read the file
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/etc/DEBUG for instructions.


In GNU Emacs 23.0.90.1 (i386-apple-darwin9.6.0, NS apple-appkit-949.43)
 of 2009-02-18 on black.local
Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.949
configured using `configure  '--with-ns''

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: Summary

Minor modes in effect:
  show-paren-mode: t
  server-mode: t
  global-auto-revert-mode: t
  delete-selection-mode: 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
  global-auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<help-echo> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> M-x g n u s <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> s e 
t - d e f a <tab> <return> M o n a c o - 1 3 <return> 
M-x g n u s <return> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> y <down-mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
M-x s h e <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> C-g <down-mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> L l L l C-p C-p C-p C-n C-n <return> <return> 
M-x n e w - f r a <tab> <return> M-x M-p <return> C-p 
C-p C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p M-x 
s e t - v a r <tab> <return> d e b u g - o n - e r 
<tab> <return> t <return> <return> C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n M-x M-p M-p <return> C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-p 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-n C-n C-n C-n M-x M-p 
M-p <return> M-p <return> n i l <return> M-x e <backspace> 
r e p o r t - e m a <tab> C-g C-g M-x M-p C-g M-x r 
e p o r t - e m a <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
nnimap: Updating info for INBOX...done
nnimap: Setting marks in INBOX...done
Fetching headers for INBOX...
nnimap: Retrieving headers...done
Fetching headers for INBOX...done
Generating summary...done
x-create-frame-with-faces: No font backend available [2 times]
Fill column set to 86 (was 70)
x-create-frame-with-faces: No font backend available
Auto-saving...done
Quit [3 times]
-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com