bug#34983: 27.0.50; Gnus cannot start

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:

> I checked out and buil Emacs from master today 24-03-2019.
>
> I started Gnus using my usual configuration (see
> https://github.com/bzg/dotemacs/blob/master/emacs.el) and got this
> error:
>
> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument number-or-marker-p nil)
>   <=(nil 6)
>   gnus-get-unread-articles(nil nil)
>   gnus-setup-news(nil nil nil)
>   #f(compiled-function () #<bytecode 0x1556149e8b91>)()
>   gnus-1(nil nil nil)
>   gnus(nil)
>   funcall-interactively(gnus nil)
>   call-interactively(gnus record nil)
>   command-execute(gnus record)
>   execute-extended-command(nil "gnus" "gnus")
>   funcall-interactively(execute-extended-command nil "gnus" "gnus")
>   call-interactively(execute-extended-command nil nil)
>   command-execute(execute-extended-command)
>
> Starting Gnus *without* a .newsrc.eld file, I can list local groups
> from my dovecot local IMAP server, but I get another weird behavior:
> after leaving the summary buffer, the group I just left is listed one
> more time; if I enter the group and leave it again, I get three groups
> of the same name in the group buffer, etc.
>
> To read Gnus using my .newsrc.eld file again, I tried to revert back
> to Emacs 26.0.92 but now Emacs seems unable to read my .newsrc.eld at
> all.  Is it possible that recent changes against Gnus changed the way
> Gnus parses .newsrc.eld?
>
> Copying Eric, as he seems to have been active on Gnus recently.

This is frustrating -- this was the most important part of the patch,
and the part I thought I'd tested most thoroughly. At worst I think Gnus
may be trying to read .newsrc.eld using the wrong encoding, so I don't
think you will have lost anything permanently. (Still, I'm very sorry
this is causing you Gnus outage.)

First -- did you run "make bootstrap" before running this new version?
Second, can you tell me if your non-ascii group names are being saved in
.newsrc.eld in utf-8, or if they have literal byte sequences in them?

Thanks,
Eric