Re: Emacs 27.1 init file not loading

[Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>]

>>>>> On Thu, 20 May 2021 15:27:28 -0500, Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro@gmail.com> said:

    >> What's the value of 'user-init-file' when you run emacs normally
    >> (without the symlink below)? Itʼs possible emacs is looking for
    >> '~/.emacs.d/init.el'.

    Skip> "~/.emacs"

    Skip> I think I figured it out. In this manual section:

    Skip> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Find-Init.html

    Skip> it explicitly mentions ~/.emacs.el, ~/.emacs, and ~/.emacs.d/init.el. It
    Skip> also states (emphasis mine):

    Skip> Emacs can also look in an XDG-compatible location for init.el, the default
    Skip> is the directory ~/.config/emacs *[this existed but seemed to be ignored]*.
    Skip> This can be overridden by setting XDG_CONFIG_HOME in your environment, its
    Skip> value replaces ~/.config in the name of the default XDG init file. However
    Skip> ~/.emacs.d, ~/.emacs, and ~/.emacs.el are always preferred if they exist,
    Skip> which means that you must delete or rename them in order to use the XDG
    Skip> location.

Note the 'are always preferred' bit.

    Skip> Note also that if neither the XDG location nor ~/.emacs.d exist, then Emacs
    Skip> will create ~/.emacs.d (*and therefore use it during subsequent invocations*
    Skip> ).


    Skip> I had no XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable, so it created ~/.emacs.d
    Skip> (probably silently), so after that, even when I did set XDG_CONFIG_HOME, it
    Skip> still preferred the virtually empty ~/.emacs.d. I set XDG_CONFIG_HOME,
    Skip> removed ~/.emacs.d, and all is once again right with the world.

If XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset, then emacs looks in ~/.config/emacs. I
wonder if you were initially running a version of emacs that used
~/.config/emacs/init.el even if ~/.emacs.d existed, but that was
changed before the emacs27 release.

In any case, Iʼm glad you solved it.

Robert
--