PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Tory S. Anderson]

I've been giving emacs PDF-Tools (very poorly documented here: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PdfTools) a try and have been thoroughly impressed. For the majority of my needs I'm even willing to switch from the system pdf viewer (the excellent Okular) to this one. But then, just when life is getting rosy, my faith is completely undermined by a PDF that not only refuses to open, but causes all of emacs to crash terribly. The daring user of PDF-Tools can try such a file here: http://orys.us/breaksemacspdf

I have not identified what causes the problem; other PDFs with image components or side-runners don't seem to be problematic, nor are PDFs of hundreds (even thousands) of pages in length. But if emacs crashes here, I'm not sure where else it may fail. Any suggestions? Otherwise, be warned. 

Note: by "crash" I mean, utterly and indefinitely freezes without warning or complaint. 

- Tory

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Tassilo Horn]

torys.anderson@gmail.com (Tory S. Anderson) writes:

Hi Tory,

> I've been giving emacs PDF-Tools (very poorly documented here:
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PdfTools) a try and have been
> thoroughly impressed.  For the majority of my needs I'm even willing
> to switch from the system pdf viewer (the excellent Okular) to this
> one.

Huh?  The pdftools.el you've linked has no support for viewing PDFs.
What it can do is save a buffer or region as a PDF file.  That's all.

So is it possible that you are actually opening PDF files from within
emacs and then view them using Emacs' built-in `doc-view-mode'?

> But then, just when life is getting rosy, my faith is completely
> undermined by a PDF that not only refuses to open, but causes all of
> emacs to crash terribly. The daring user of PDF-Tools can try such a
> file here: http://orys.us/breaksemacspdf

I've just downloaded and opened that file with Emacs (current Git
version and also 24.4) and it worked without any problem.

> I have not identified what causes the problem; other PDFs with image
> components or side-runners don't seem to be problematic, nor are PDFs
> of hundreds (even thousands) of pages in length. But if emacs crashes
> here, I'm not sure where else it may fail. Any suggestions? Otherwise,
> be warned.
>
> Note: by "crash" I mean, utterly and indefinitely freezes without
> warning or complaint.

Well, then that's no crash. ;-)

I guess you did try to hit `C-g' repeatedly to see if that breaks the
freeze, right?

Otherwise, it's a bit hard to debug from my side.  I see you use Emacs
24.3.  I don't have that available right now but you could try upgrading
to 24.4 and check if the freeze occurs there, too.

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Tory S. Anderson]

Okay, sorry; I assumed it as just a half-made wiki page. Looks like it's actually a different package. A better link for the pdf-tools I'm using is this awesome package: https://github.com/politza/pdf-tools (available through Melpa). 

yeah, C-g provides no response. I'll can look into trying a different emacs version; I usually just run with whatever my Linux repo (Fedora in this case) provides. 

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> torys.anderson@gmail.com (Tory S. Anderson) writes:
>
> Hi Tory,
>
>> I've been giving emacs PDF-Tools (very poorly documented here:
>> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PdfTools) a try and have been
>> thoroughly impressed.  For the majority of my needs I'm even willing
>> to switch from the system pdf viewer (the excellent Okular) to this
>> one.
>
> Huh?  The pdftools.el you've linked has no support for viewing PDFs.
> What it can do is save a buffer or region as a PDF file.  That's all.
>
> So is it possible that you are actually opening PDF files from within
> emacs and then view them using Emacs' built-in `doc-view-mode'?
>
>> But then, just when life is getting rosy, my faith is completely
>> undermined by a PDF that not only refuses to open, but causes all of
>> emacs to crash terribly. The daring user of PDF-Tools can try such a
>> file here: http://orys.us/breaksemacspdf
>
> I've just downloaded and opened that file with Emacs (current Git
> version and also 24.4) and it worked without any problem.
>
>> I have not identified what causes the problem; other PDFs with image
>> components or side-runners don't seem to be problematic, nor are PDFs
>> of hundreds (even thousands) of pages in length. But if emacs crashes
>> here, I'm not sure where else it may fail. Any suggestions? Otherwise,
>> be warned.
>>
>> Note: by "crash" I mean, utterly and indefinitely freezes without
>> warning or complaint.
>
> Well, then that's no crash. ;-)
>
> I guess you did try to hit `C-g' repeatedly to see if that breaks the
> freeze, right?
>
> Otherwise, it's a bit hard to debug from my side.  I see you use Emacs
> 24.3.  I don't have that available right now but you could try upgrading
> to 24.4 and check if the freeze occurs there, too.
>
> Bye,
> Tassilo

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Tassilo Horn]

torys.anderson@gmail.com (Tory S. Anderson) writes:

> Okay, sorry; I assumed it as just a half-made wiki page. Looks like
> it's actually a different package.  A better link for the pdf-tools
> I'm using is this awesome package:
> https://github.com/politza/pdf-tools (available through Melpa).

Oh, that looks pretty impressive.  I haven't used it, though, so I
cannot help with this.

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Tassilo Horn]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

>> Okay, sorry; I assumed it as just a half-made wiki page. Looks like
>> it's actually a different package.  A better link for the pdf-tools
>> I'm using is this awesome package:
>> https://github.com/politza/pdf-tools (available through Melpa).
>
> Oh, that looks pretty impressive.  I haven't used it, though, so I
> cannot help with this.

Ok, now I had to check it out, and Andreas, it's a really superb
package.  I'm gonna use that now for reading PDF files instead of
doc-view (where I'm the author) and Evince (which I use due to
doc-view's limitations).

But Troy is correct.  The PDF he links makes emacs freeze, although I've
been able to recover by hitting `C-g' repeatedly.  The result was that
the raw PDF data was shown.

Before I had opened that file successfully with doc-view and then did
M-x pdf-view-mode.  That worked.  When doing it that way, it seems some
if not all of PDF Tools minor modes aren't active, so I guess one of
them does something that triggers the freeze.

Andreas, do you plan to propose PDF Tools for inclusion in Emacs?  IMO,
that's really a package anybody's gonna love.  (Oh my god, how well the
syntex stuff/AUCTeX integration works!)

Bye,
Tassilo (who is flashed by that package)

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Andreas Politz]

Should be fixed by now (in github). The reason was a invalid response,
due to `unusual' links in the PDF, which made Emacs wait forever.

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> Ok, now I had to check it out, and Andreas, it's a really superb
> package.  [...]

Thank you.

> Andreas, do you plan to propose PDF Tools for inclusion in Emacs?
> IMO, that's really a package anybody's gonna love.

I don't know, I haven't thought about it.

-ap

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Óscar Fuentes]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> Ok, now I had to check it out, and Andreas, it's a really superb
> package.

Yes, it is. Not as good as a fully-fledged pdf reader, but quite
interesting when you add to its basic viewer capabilities the features
provided by Emacs integration.

[snip]

> But Troy is correct.  The PDF he links makes emacs freeze, although I've
> been able to recover by hitting `C-g' repeatedly.  The result was that
> the raw PDF data was shown.

FWIW, the author already fixed the problem.

[snip]

> Andreas, do you plan to propose PDF Tools for inclusion in Emacs?

Including it on Emacs would be a good thing since it is an hybrid
Elisp+C extension and building the C part is not trivial on certain
environments (including some GNU/Linux distros that do not install a C
compiler by default, not to mention libpoppler).

OTOH anything that is included into the Emacs core is hampered by the
glacial pace of the Emacs release rate.

[snip]

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Rasmus]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> Andreas, do you plan to propose PDF Tools for inclusion in Emacs?  IMO,
> that's really a package anybody's gonna love.  (Oh my god, how well the
> syntex stuff/AUCTeX integration works!)

+1.

Except for color issues (I opened an issue on Github) it seems like the
*best* pdf-annoter on Linux (I haven't tried Okular).

And it's as fast as a real pdfviewer!

It really, really should be part of Emacs!

—Rasmus

-- 
Tack, ni svenska vakttorn. Med plutonium tvingar vi dansken på knä!

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Rasmus]

Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:

> OTOH anything that is included into the Emacs core is hampered by the
> glacial pace of the Emacs release rate.

ELPA?  I believe a bunch of fast-paced packages are to move to ELPA-based
release in-between major releases, e.g. Org.

—Rasmus

-- 
Summon the Mothership!

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Peter Mao]

Hi Tory,

Tassilo covered everything I would have said anyways.  I was also able to
open your pdf with doc-view under Emacs 24.4 on mac osx system.

"Pdf Tools" only generates pdf's from buffers or regions.  I can't take any
credit for the rest of the magic in Emacs!

Peter

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:02 AM, Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> wrote:

> torys.anderson@gmail.com (Tory S. Anderson) writes:
>
> Hi Tory,
>
> > I've been giving emacs PDF-Tools (very poorly documented here:
> > http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PdfTools) a try and have been
> > thoroughly impressed.  For the majority of my needs I'm even willing
> > to switch from the system pdf viewer (the excellent Okular) to this
> > one.
>
> Huh?  The pdftools.el you've linked has no support for viewing PDFs.
> What it can do is save a buffer or region as a PDF file.  That's all.
>
> So is it possible that you are actually opening PDF files from within
> emacs and then view them using Emacs' built-in `doc-view-mode'?
>
> > But then, just when life is getting rosy, my faith is completely
> > undermined by a PDF that not only refuses to open, but causes all of
> > emacs to crash terribly. The daring user of PDF-Tools can try such a
> > file here: http://orys.us/breaksemacspdf
>
> I've just downloaded and opened that file with Emacs (current Git
> version and also 24.4) and it worked without any problem.
>
> > I have not identified what causes the problem; other PDFs with image
> > components or side-runners don't seem to be problematic, nor are PDFs
> > of hundreds (even thousands) of pages in length. But if emacs crashes
> > here, I'm not sure where else it may fail. Any suggestions? Otherwise,
> > be warned.
> >
> > Note: by "crash" I mean, utterly and indefinitely freezes without
> > warning or complaint.
>
> Well, then that's no crash. ;-)
>
> I guess you did try to hit `C-g' repeatedly to see if that breaks the
> freeze, right?
>
> Otherwise, it's a bit hard to debug from my side.  I see you use Emacs
> 24.3.  I don't have that available right now but you could try upgrading
> to 24.4 and check if the freeze occurs there, too.
>
> Bye,
> Tassilo
>

Re: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Óscar Fuentes]

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:
>
>> OTOH anything that is included into the Emacs core is hampered by the
>> glacial pace of the Emacs release rate.
>
> ELPA?  I believe a bunch of fast-paced packages are to move to ELPA-based
> release in-between major releases, e.g. Org.

ELPA does not solve the complications associated with a C extension. But
for building Emacs you need a C compiler (suppossing that you build
Emacs yourself, I guess that most users just install binary packages.)

[pdf-tools] WAS: PDF breaks emacs (PDF-Tools)

[Rainer M Krug]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 939 bytes --]

I am just trying to install under OS X Yosemite and homebrew, but
there seems to be a compiler issue (compiler version I guess):

,----
| error: unknown type name 'bool' typedef bool GBool;
`----

I filed an issue on github.

I will provide some feedback as soon as installation is working.

Cheers,

Rainer


Andreas Politz <politza@hochschule-trier.de> writes:

> Should be fixed by now (in github). The reason was a invalid response,
> due to `unusual' links in the PDF, which made Emacs wait forever.
>
> Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Ok, now I had to check it out, and Andreas, it's a really superb
>> package.  [...]
>
> Thank you.
>
>> Andreas, do you plan to propose PDF Tools for inclusion in Emacs?
>> IMO, that's really a package anybody's gonna love.
>
> I don't know, I haven't thought about it.
>
> -ap
>
>

-- 
Rainer M. Krug
email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982

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