Re: Random "Regular expression too big"

["Rob Emanuele" <rje@crystalfontz.com>]

So far the error still happens, with no stack trace even after
--debug-init and M-: (setq debug-on-error t).  It happens lets say 1
in 4 times of starting emacs.

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 2:36 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Rob!
>
> On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 12:03:31PM -0700, Rob Emanuele wrote:
>> Greetings,
>
>> Every now and again I've been getting an error "Regular expression too
>> big".  This seems to occur randomly.  Sometimes it can occur on startup
>> and emacs never opens.  Other times emacs opens and these messages
>> below are listed out.  Yet other times it'll happen in the middle of my
>> work while I'm saving, setting the fontset, or doing some otherwise
>> innocuous task.
>
> Does it happen:
> (i) a lot - so often that you can hardly get your work done;
> (ii) sometimes - once or twice a week, but you're continually on edge
>  about it.
> (iii) once a blue moon?
>
> Hopefull it's (i) or (ii).  :-)
>
> A good thing to do would be to start your Emacs as
>
>  emacs --debug-init
>
> , and once you've started OK, do
>
>  M-: (setq debug-on-error t)
>
> .  One of these will generate a lisp stack dump when the error happens
> again.
>
>> This is with emacs:
>> GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.5) of
>> 2008-05-23 on xenbuilder2.fedora.redhat.com
>
>> This will still happen even if I remove my .emacs and even if I remove
>> /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp.
>
> Hmmm...  That suggests that some other initialisation file is giving you
> grief.  There's a list of these files on the page "Init File" in the
> Emacs manual.  Try doing
>
> M-x locate-library default
>
> .  If this locates a default.el, the problem may be there.
>
>> ("emacs" "production/main.cpp")
>> Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/focus-init.el (source)...done
>> Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/igrep-init.el (source)...done
>> Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/php-mode-init.el (source)...done
>> Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/po-mode-init.el (source)...done
>> Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/rpm-spec-mode-init.el
>> (source)...done
>> For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
>> Loading cc-mode...done
>> File mode specification error: (invalid-regexp "Regular expression too big")
>
> This error occurs in the function `normal-mode', which was in the course
> of determining the major mode for the file you were trying to visit
> (whatever that might be).  Seeing as how CC Mode has just been loaded,
> this could well be a C, C++, ... file.
>
>> Loading vc-svn...done
>> Loading vc...done
>> vc-svn-parse-status: Invalid regexp: "Regular expression too big"
>> mouse-drag-region: Invalid regexp: "Regular expression too big" [2 times]
>  byte-code: Beginning of buffer
>> Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (invalid-regexp Regular expression too big)
>
>> Thank you for any help fixing this or working around it!
>
> You do seem to like big regular expressions rather a lot.  ;-)
>
> Anyhow, please activate these things which will generate a stack dump.
> That might well enable you to fix the problem yourself.  If not, post the
> dump here.
>
>> --Rob
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>