Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[jrw]

I've been having a problem in Emacs (my own build based on 24.4.51.1) where sometimes, if I try to paste from an X11 program, either using C-y or a middle click, Emacs freezes for several seconds.  Pressing C-g does nothing, but usually Emacs starts responding again after a few seconds.  Since I can't reproduce the issue reliably, does anyone have any ideas on how to diagnose this problem.  It seems like the next step may be to run Emacs in gdb, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Emanuel Berg]

jrw@google.com writes:

> I've been having a problem in Emacs (my own build
> based on 24.4.51.1) where sometimes, if I try to
> paste from an X11 program, either using C-y or a
> middle click, Emacs freezes for several seconds.
> Pressing C-g does nothing, but usually Emacs starts
> responding again after a few seconds.

Do I have selective perception, or is this yet another
problem with Emacs in the accursed GUI world?

This doesn't sound like an Emacs per se problem.
Still, for anyone to have any luck reproducing the
problem, what Emacs, and what desktop (GNOME or KDE
most likely), and what window manager (Openbox, fvwm,
...) do you use?

"What Emacs?" - try:

    readlink -e `type -p emacs`

You say C-y doesn't "paste" from X programs. Are you
sure it should? Did you or someone else successfully
integrate the X clipboard with the Emacs `kill-ring'?
What is `C-h k C-y' say? (I have `yank' - i.e., has
nothing to do with X.)

The middle mouse click may also be a feature either of
X or if you for example run Emacs in xterm, urxvt, or
the like. Yes: how do you invoke Emacs in X?

By the way, I once did an interface [1] to the X
clipboard. It uses xsel. I know there is another such
package in ELPA which uses xclip which should amount
to virtually the same. Can you get either of them to
work? Or you can just get either (xsel or xclip) with
aptitude and try for yourself, probably easier. Is it
the same problem?

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/xsel.el

-- 
underground experts united

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Jacob Gerlach]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:
>Did you or someone else successfully
> integrate the X clipboard with the Emacs `kill-ring'?

I have

(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)

in my init and I'm able to paste/yank (using C-y) text I copied from
Firefox (or any other program) into emacs. (Not sure if there is more
than a semantic difference between yank and paste in this case). I use
vanilla Ubuntu 14.04 and have never paid much attention to what
desktop/WM I'm using. I guess it's X based on the docstring, but not
sure.

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Robert Thorpe]

Jacob Gerlach <jacobgerlach@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:
>>Did you or someone else successfully
>> integrate the X clipboard with the Emacs `kill-ring'?
>
> I have
>
> (setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
>
> in my init and I'm able to paste/yank (using C-y) text I copied from
> Firefox (or any other program) into emacs. (Not sure if there is more
> than a semantic difference between yank and paste in this case). I use
> vanilla Ubuntu 14.04 and have never paid much attention to what
> desktop/WM I'm using. I guess it's X based on the docstring, but not
> sure.

I know that two other people have seen this issue.  I've never seen it
though and I use Emacs on Ubuntu (12.04 though) all the time.

Have you tried it with emacs -Q?

If it persists then file a bug-report about it.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Glenn Morris]

> If it persists then file a bug-report about it.

s/file a bug report/check for bug reports/

http://debbugs.gnu.org/16737   and several friends.

I don't know what is needed to make progress fixing it,
but it's obviously a problem.

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Tom Tromey]

>> If it persists then file a bug-report about it.

GM> s/file a bug report/check for bug reports/

GM> http://debbugs.gnu.org/16737   and several friends.

GM> I don't know what is needed to make progress fixing it,
GM> but it's obviously a problem.

See comment #76.
It's been a while since I looked at this but it seemed to be an issue
with the events arriving "too late" -- either some bug in the SIGIO code
or a missing call to gobble_input.

Tom

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Robert Thorpe writes:

> Have you tried it with emacs -Q?

As I said, for me the bug can start after a couple of days of 
running the emacs server, so I will definitely not attempt to do 
run emacs -Q until the bug appears, I don't think that I would be 
able to work for more than a couple of minutes without my 
customization =)

-- 
Jorge.

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Stefan Monnier]

> Did you or someone else successfully
> integrate the X clipboard with the Emacs `kill-ring'?

FWIW, it's the default mode of operation of Emacs since Emacs-24.


        Stefan

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Rasmus]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Did you or someone else successfully
>> integrate the X clipboard with the Emacs `kill-ring'?
>
> FWIW, it's the default mode of operation of Emacs since Emacs-24.

FWIW2: I see the same issue sometimes.  Using Gnome-Shell.  I assume it's
a dbus-thingy, but I don't know what causes the error...

-- 
Not everything that goes around comes back around, you know

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Rasmus writes:

> FWIW2: I see the same issue sometimes.  Using Gnome-Shell.  I 
> assume it's a dbus-thingy, but I don't know what causes the 
> error...

I also see the same issue with openbox on Debian. It generally 
happens after the emacs server has been running for a couple of 
days, emacs is the only thing that fails to paste, the rest of X 
programs are working fine. The issue goes away after I restart the 
emacs server.

In my .emacs I have for the kill-yank related part:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
  (setq kill-ring-max 100)
  (setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
  (setq select-active-regions t)
  (setq save-interprogram-paste-before-kill 1)
  (setq yank-pop-change-selection t)
#+END_SRC

I also have browse-kill-ring cloned from 
git://github.com/browse-kill-ring/browse-kill-ring

Best,
-- 
Jorge.

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[shponglespore]

Just to add a little more detail, I'm also using emacs in a client-server config like some of the other posters in this thread, and the problem only appears when I've been running emacs for a while, which is why I'm not optimistic about diagnosing it myself.  I can't say for sure if re-starting the server is necessary to fix it or if I can do it by just re-starting the client, since I usually just re-start both.

FWIW my system is Ubuntu Trusty and my desktop is Cinnamon. No other programs exhibit the same problem, and my emacs build exhibits standard X clipboard behavior by default.

Re: Emacs hangs on X11 paste--how to diagnose?

[shponglespore]

On Sunday, March 15, 2015 at 11:46:59 AM UTC-7, shpong...@gmail.com wrote:
> Just to add a little more detail, I'm also using emacs in a client-server config like some of the other posters in this thread, and the problem only appears when I've been running emacs for a while, which is why I'm not optimistic about diagnosing it myself.  I can't say for sure if re-starting the server is necessary to fix it or if I can do it by just re-starting the client, since I usually just re-start both.
> 
> FWIW my system is Ubuntu Trusty and my desktop is Cinnamon. No other programs exhibit the same problem, and my emacs build exhibits standard X clipboard behavior by default.

Oh, and I'm the same person as jrw@google.com, in case that was confusing.