Melpa failure :-(

Melpa failure :-(

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi all,

and today it happened again: upgrading a package using the package
manager failed in the middle of the process, in what I would consider an
undefined state, and now I'm left without Icicles:-(.

Am I the only one to suffer from upgrade failures from time to time?
Might it be the fault of the pacakge manager, or is using Melpa (not the
stable version) just asking for trouble?  I have to say that I'm on the
verge of deciding to drop this whole package manager stuff and switching
to Git or manual install from EW: it will be a bit more work, but at
least I won't break my Emacs that easily (and I'll be able to easily
revert to the previous state).

Wouldn't it be a good idea for the package manager to wrap the whole
installation routine in a (condition-case ...) or something, and make
a (temporary) backup of the package being installed just in case?

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Melpa failure :-(

[Eric Brown]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> Am I the only one to suffer from upgrade failures from time to time?
> Might it be the fault of the pacakge manager, or is using Melpa (not the
> stable version) just asking for trouble?  I have to say that I'm on the
> verge of deciding to drop this whole package manager stuff and switching
> to Git or manual install from EW: it will be a bit more work, but at
> least I won't break my Emacs that easily (and I'll be able to easily
> revert to the previous state).
>

No, you are not alone. I recommend using QUELPA, which will allow you to
keep cutting-edge as much as possible, but roll back to a previous
commit if (and when!) you run into trouble.

https://github.com/quelpa/quelpa

You could synthesize a Marmalade/MELPA-stable experience if you dial-in
the commits corresponding to tagged releases.

Re: Melpa failure :-(

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-18, at 19:19, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> and today it happened again: upgrading a package using the package
> manager failed in the middle of the process, in what I would consider an
> undefined state, and now I'm left without Icicles:-(.

Hate to say that, but it's worse than that.  I tried two more methods of
downloading Icicles described here:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Libraries#toc5 (the
get-icicles.sh script and the wget invocation) and they both /failed/
(probably for the same reason: it seems that the downloaded files are
cluttered by some html headers).  I'm currently downloading all the
files manually...

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Melpa failure :-(

[Memnon Anon]

Hi,

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Libraries#toc5 (the
> get-icicles.sh script and the wget invocation) and they both /failed/
> (probably for the same reason: it seems that the downloaded files are
> cluttered by some html headers).

I use icicles-install.el and changed the url a while ago:

(defcustom icicle-archive-base
"http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/"  
;; old url: "http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/download/"
  "*Base URL from which the Icicles files should be downloaded.
Default value is the Emacs Wiki site."
  :type 'string :group 'Icicles-Miscellaneous)

and everything works again. Try adjusting get-icicles.sh acccordingly
and check if that helps. 

Memnon
-- 
/-------------------------------------------\
| SDF and SDF-EU Public Access UNIX System  |
| http://sdf.org   ||   http://sdf-eu.org   |
=============================================

RE: Melpa failure :-(

[Drew Adams]

> I use icicles-install.el and changed the url a while ago:
> 
> (defcustom icicle-archive-base
> "http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/"
> ;; old url: "http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/download/"
>   "*Base URL from which the Icicles files should be downloaded.
> Default value is the Emacs Wiki site."
>   :type 'string :group 'Icicles-Miscellaneous)
> 
> and everything works again. Try adjusting get-icicles.sh
> acccordingly and check if that helps.

Ah, good point.  I will update those scripts on the wiki
to reflect the new URLs.

RE: Melpa failure :-(

[Drew Adams]

> > "http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/"
> > ;; old url: "http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/download/"
> 
> Ah, good point.  I will update those scripts on the wiki
> to reflect the new URLs.

I've done that.  Let me know if you find a problem.

This was, as I guessed, a result of the wiki moving to a
different site.  Most of the .../cgi-bin/wiki/... URLs
got changed (redirected) to .../emacs/..., but the URLs
in these scripts did not.

Thx to Marcin for grumbling about the problem, and to
Memnon for proposing the URL fix.

RE: Melpa failure :-(

[Drew Adams]

> Hate to say that, but it's worse than that.  I tried two more
> methods of downloading Icicles described here:
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Libraries#toc5 (the
> get-icicles.sh script and the wget invocation) and they both
> /failed/ (probably for the same reason: it seems that the
> downloaded files are cluttered by some html headers).

That should not be the case.  Lots of people have used those
other methods to download the files.

If you can determine (e.g. later, as I'm guessing there might
be a problem at your end currently) that there is a problem
with those download scripts etc., then please let me know
what you find out.  I did not write that code, but I know that
it has worked well.  On the other hand, Emacs Wiki moved to
a different site and setup a few months ago.  If for some
reason the displayed HTML versions of files in the Elisp Area
are being downloaded then that would probably be something
to report to the wiki maintainer.

> I'm currently downloading all the files manually...

OK.  But let's not exaggerate - it's not like there are
459 files to download. ;-)  (Anyway, I agree that when
MELPA works well it is easier than doing things manually.)

RE: Melpa failure :-(

[Drew Adams]

> and today it happened again: upgrading a package using the package
> manager failed in the middle of the process, in what I would
> consider an undefined state, and now I'm left without Icicles:-(.

Just download the files from Emacs Wiki.  There are only 10 that
contain code (there are 2 that contain only doc and 1 that contains
a change log).

Put them in a directory that is in your `load-path', and you are
done.  Byte-compile them if you like (after loading `icicles-mac.el').
Not a big deal.

If you don't have the patience to right-click each file and save it
separately, then refer to this section for ways to download them
together:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Libraries#BulkIciclesDownload

Re: Melpa failure :-(

[Alexis]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> Am I the only one to suffer from upgrade failures from time to 
> time?  Might it be the fault of the pacakge manager, or is using 
> Melpa (not the stable version) just asking for trouble?

i've got 200+ packages installed from MELPA, and can't recall 
having had any upgrade failures.

(i've very occasionally had a package upgrade break some 
functionality, but my experience is that the package authors have 
rectified the problem quickly. For me, this cost is greatly 
outweighed by the benefits of getting access to bugfixes and new 
functionality within hours of package authors pushing such 
changes.)


Alexis.

Re: Melpa failure :-(

[gnuist006]

A related question. If you are using MELPA or QUELPA and dont want the conflict with the existing packet manager database (apt etc.) what do you do and how do you script your packages to see if they are installed and if not then install and if installed then upgrade etc.

Just give me some basic commands so I can make script or elisp functions myself.

Bolega

Re: Melpa failure :-(

[Alexis]

gnuist006@gmail.com writes:

> A related question. If you are using MELPA or QUELPA and dont 
> want the conflict with the existing packet manager database (apt 
> etc.) what do you do and how do you script your packages to see 
> if they are installed and if not then install and if installed 
> then upgrade etc.

i avoid this problem entirely by simply not using the various 
Emacs packages provided by my distro (Debian); instead, i compile 
the latest stable Emacs release from source. Once the appropriate 
toolchain is installed (a one-time cost), the entire procedure of:

    $ tar xvf emacs-24.5.tar.xz
    $ cd emacs-24.5
    $ ./configure
    $ make
    $ make install

takes about 5 minutes on my i5-2410M / 2.3GHz laptop. i then use 
the GNU ELPA and MELPA archives to install and upgrade packages 
for Emacs, without needing to deal with the possibly outdated / 
less featureful / more buggy versions of packages for Emacs as 
provided by the distro.

Usually i very much prefer to install software from Debian repos, 
but Emacs is a central part of my computing - i not only use it 
for programming and sysadmin, but also for email (via mu4e), note- 
and data-keeping (via Org), chat (IM via ERC), etc. So making an 
exception for Emacs, and compiling and installing new stable 
releases as they come out, has a high benefit/cost ratio for 
me. :-)


Alexis.