ELPA Issues?

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

Is there a problem with the ELPA archive site at present?

Emacs version form today ("107918
eggert@cs.ucla.edu-20120416011813-5owp5impbhuv3w02")

emacs -Q

m-x list-packages

shows package listing with message "Failed to download 'gnu' archive

However, if you are like me an often have debug on error enabled, you
get the backtrace

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Trying to parse HTTP response
code in odd buffer:  *http elpa.gnu.org:80*<2>")
  signal(error ("Trying to parse HTTP response code in odd buffer:
*http elpa.gnu.org:80*<2>"))
  error("Trying to parse HTTP response code in odd buffer: %s" " *http
elpa.gnu.org:80*<2>")
  url-http-parse-response()
  package-handle-response()
  package--download-one-archive(("gnu" .
"http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") "archive-contents")
  #[nil "\30\302\"\207" [archive package--download-one-archive
"archive-contents"] 3]()
  package-refresh-contents()
  list-packages(nil)
  call-interactively(list-packages t nil)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command nil nil)

It strikes me that this error message is not very helpful. It took a
bit of time before I was able to work out there was some issue with
downloading the archive, but even now I'm not clear on exactly
what/why there is an issue. Thought it might be worth a bug report,
but wanted to see what the status of the elpa archive site was as this
make a difference between a bug report concerning error
handling/reporting and a bug report of some deeper issue witht he
list-packages functionality.

Tim



-- 
Tim Cross