RE: Issues installing packages from melpa

[Janelle Rose via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>]

I will say the error is different based on the version of emacs that I use. When I use emacs 27.2, I get the option to install the package before it errors. I'll paste the text directly in the email if that makes it easier. 

Here is the output for 27.2

Leaving directory  /arc/home/m1jtr02/.emacs.d/elpa/abl-mode-20210923.950 


Compiling file /arc/home/m1jtr02/.emacs.d/elpa/abl-mode-20210923.950/abl-mode.el at Tue Sep 28 13:32:58 2021
Entering directory  /arc/home/m1jtr02/.emacs.d/elpa/abl-mode-20210923.950/ 
abl-mode.el:1:3:Warning: reference to free variable  �\213
abl-mode.el:1:23:Warning: reference to free variable  � 
abl-mode.el:1:29:Warning: reference to free variable  ko�F�s�+ 
abl-mode.el:1:49:Warning: reference to free variable  ZS\201
abl-mode.el:1:55:Error: Invalid read syntax: ")"

Here is the output from emacs 26.3

These default coding systems were tried to encode text
in the buffer   *temp* :
  (utf-8-unix (2 . 4194187) (11 . 4194189) (13 . 4194253) (15
  . 4194267) (18 . 4194238) (19 . 4194291) (23 . 4194194) (28
  . 4194195) (29 . 4194264) (30 . 4194275) (32 . 4194284))
However, each of them encountered characters it couldn t encode:
  utf-8-unix cannot encode these: \213 \215 \315 \333 \276 \363 \222 \223 \330 \343

Click on a character (or switch to this window by  C-x o 
and select the characters by RET) to jump to the place it appears,
where  C-u C-x =  will give information about it.

Select one of the safe coding systems listed below,
or cancel the writing with C-g and edit the buffer
   to remove or modify the problematic characters,

Regards,
Janelle 
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> 
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2021 1:55 PM
To: Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>
Cc: Janelle Rose <Janelle.T.Rose@frb.gov>; help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Akber Khan <Akber.Khan@frb.gov>
Subject: Re: Issues installing packages from melpa



Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:

> It might be some kind of a network issue, but there might be something 
> wrong with the encoding too. Considering the Janelle's domain, I am 
> wondering if there might be a proxy issue.

I just noticed that the first bytes "^_" (hex 1f) and "\213" (hex 8B) are the magic bytes for gzip. That means the connection was probably aborted before enough data was transmitted for decoding.

-- 
	Philip Kaludercic