Re: Random "Regular expression too big"

[Joseph Shraibman <jks@iname.com>]

In the last couple of days this starting being a problem for me, I don't 
know why.  I'm getting it most of the time.  Sometimes I can't even exit 
emacs because the quit command fails with "Regular expression too big"

Rob Emanuele wrote:
> 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).
>>
> 
>