emacs won't open files at startup from command line

emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

I could use some help troubleshooting this.  

I've been using emacs for years, and years, right now I'm running it on
cygwin, under Windows XP Pro.

When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.

Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
anything that I've changed in the recent past.

Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.

Emacs is GNU Emacs 23.1.1 (i686-pc-cygwin, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
of 2009-08-03.

Emacsclient works fine, Ctl-X f works fine.  

Could this be from an error I missed at compile time?  Any ideas?

Dave in Largo, FL

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Tyler Smith]

david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:

> I could use some help troubleshooting this.  
>
> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>
> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>
> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.

At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
pretty quick to do.

Cheers,

Tyler

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:

> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>
>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.  
>>
>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>>
>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>>
>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
> pretty quick to do.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tyler


Been trying to avoid that.  I was hoping that it was a compilation error
of some kind, and that this message would spark someone's memory into
remembering "oh yeah, I heard about that...".

But, what you said is what I suppose I'll have to do...

Thanks for the reminder of the obvious!

Dave

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Tassilo Horn]

david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:

Hi Dave,

> Been trying to avoid that.  I was hoping that it was a compilation
> error of some kind,...

if it was, then you would have some error message in the *Messages*
buffer after startup.  You could also start emacs as "emacs
--debug-init" to get a backtrace of the error.

,----[ (info "(emacs)Initial Options") ]
| `--debug-init'
|      Enable the Emacs Lisp debugger for errors in the init file.  *Note
|      Entering the Debugger on an Error: (elisp)Error Debugging.
`----


Bye,
Tassilo

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:

> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>
> Hi Dave,
>
>> Been trying to avoid that.  I was hoping that it was a compilation
>> error of some kind,...
>
> if it was, then you would have some error message in the *Messages*
> buffer after startup.  You could also start emacs as "emacs
> --debug-init" to get a backtrace of the error.
>
> ,----[ (info "(emacs)Initial Options") ]
> | `--debug-init'
> |      Enable the Emacs Lisp debugger for errors in the init file.  *Note
> |      Entering the Debugger on an Error: (elisp)Error Debugging.
> `----
>
>
> Bye,
> Tassilo


No, I don't mean compilation of the .el or .emacs file.  I mean that,
when I compiled this from code, that maybe there was an error in the
piece that reads the command line to load the file, and I missed the
error message going by.   

I think, just to be on the safe side, first I'll recompile it, and catch
the output into a file.

If that abides me nothing, I'll have to start commenting out my .emacs,
a line at a time.

Thanks,

Dave

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:

> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>
>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.  
>>
>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>>
>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>>
>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
> pretty quick to do.

Also, the OP could try:

    emacs --debug-init file.txt

If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:

> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>
>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>>
>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.  
>>>
>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>>>
>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>>>
>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>>
>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
>> pretty quick to do.
>
> Also, the OP could try:
>
>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
>
> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs


That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
file(s) named on the command line.

Thanks for the idea, though.

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:

> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>
>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>
>>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>>>
>>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.  
>>>>
>>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>>>>
>>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>>>>
>>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>>>
>>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
>>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
>>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
>>> pretty quick to do.
>>
>> Also, the OP could try:
>>
>>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
>>
>> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs
>
>
> That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
> be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
> file(s) named on the command line.
>
> Thanks for the idea, though.

Anyone have any idea which variable in emacs contains the command line?
I'd like to dump it at various points in my .emacs file, and see when it
is getting wiped clean, if that is what is happening...

Dave

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd)
> Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:07:37 -0400
> 
> Anyone have any idea which variable in emacs contains the command line?

It's called `command-line-args', not surprisingly.

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:

> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>
>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>
>>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>>>
>>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.  
>>>>
>>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>>>>
>>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>>>>
>>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>>>
>>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
>>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
>>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
>>> pretty quick to do.
>>
>> Also, the OP could try:
>>
>>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
>>
>> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs
>
>
> That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
> be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
> file(s) named on the command line.
>
> Thanks for the idea, though.

Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
the functionality in it anyway...

Dave

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>
>> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>>
>>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>>
>>>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>>>>
>>>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.
>>>>>
>>>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>>>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>>>>>
>>>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>>>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>>>>>
>>>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>>>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>>>>
>>>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
>>>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
>>>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
>>>> pretty quick to do.
>>>
>>> Also, the OP could try:
>>>
>>>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
>>>
>>> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs
>>
>>
>> That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
>> be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
>> file(s) named on the command line.
>>
>> Thanks for the idea, though.
>
> Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
> incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
> the functionality in it anyway...
>
> Dave


The file table.el is included in Emacs now.

This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
init files.)

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Kevin Rodgers]

Lennart Borgman wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
...
>> Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
>> incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
>> the functionality in it anyway...
> 
> The file table.el is included in Emacs now.
> 
> This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
> from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
> Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
> potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
> init files.)

`list-load-path-shadows' is what you want.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:06 AM, Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lennart Borgman wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>>>
>>> Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
>>> incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
>>> the functionality in it anyway...
>>
>> The file table.el is included in Emacs now.
>>
>> This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
>> from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
>> Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
>> potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
>> init files.)
>
> `list-load-path-shadows' is what you want.


You mean something that checks this variable after default.el have
been loaded? Yes.

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[J. David Boyd]

Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers@gmail.com> writes:

> Lennart Borgman wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
> ...
>>> Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
>>> incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
>>> the functionality in it anyway...
>>
>> The file table.el is included in Emacs now.
>>
>> This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
>> from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
>> Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
>> potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
>> init files.)
>
> `list-load-path-shadows' is what you want.


Hey, that _is_ what I want!  Cool, thanks, that will help me clean up my
.emacs file immensely...

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

  > On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
  > > david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
  > >
  > >> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
  > >>
  > >>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
  > >>>
  > >>>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
  > >>>>
  > >>>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.
  > >>>>>
  > >>>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
  > >>>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
  > >>>>>
  > >>>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
  > >>>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
  > >>>>>
  > >>>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
  > >>>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
  > >>>>
  > >>>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
  > >>>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
  > >>>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
  > >>>> pretty quick to do.
  > >>>
  > >>> Also, the OP could try:
  > >>>
  > >>>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
  > >>>
  > >>> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs
  > >>
  > >>
  > >> That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
  > >> be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
  > >> file(s) named on the command line.
  > >>
  > >> Thanks for the idea, though.
  > >
  > > Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
  > > incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
  > > the functionality in it anyway...
  > >
  > > Dave
  > 
  > 
  > The file table.el is included in Emacs now.
  > 
  > This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
  > from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
  > Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
  > potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
  > init files.)

See `bad-packages-alist'

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> wrote:
> Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:
>
>  > On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
>  > > david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>  > >
>  > >> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>  > >>
>  > >>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>  > >>>
>  > >>>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
>  > >>>>
>  > >>>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.
>  > >>>>>
>  > >>>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
>  > >>>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
>  > >>>>>
>  > >>>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
>  > >>>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
>  > >>>>>
>  > >>>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
>  > >>>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
>  > >>>>
>  > >>>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
>  > >>>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
>  > >>>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
>  > >>>> pretty quick to do.
>  > >>>
>  > >>> Also, the OP could try:
>  > >>>
>  > >>>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
>  > >>>
>  > >>> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs
>  > >>
>  > >>
>  > >> That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
>  > >> be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
>  > >> file(s) named on the command line.
>  > >>
>  > >> Thanks for the idea, though.
>  > >
>  > > Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
>  > > incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
>  > > the functionality in it anyway...
>  > >
>  > > Dave
>  >
>  >
>  > The file table.el is included in Emacs now.
>  >
>  > This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
>  > from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
>  > Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
>  > potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
>  > init files.)
>
> See `bad-packages-alist'
>

Ah, thanks, forgot about it.

Should not table.el be in this list too then?
And nxml too?

Re: emacs won't open files at startup from command line

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

  > On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> wrote:
  > > Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:
  > >
  > >  > On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, J. David Boyd <david@adboyd.com> wrote:
  > >  > > david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
  > >  > >
  > >  > >> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
  > >  > >>
  > >  > >>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
  > >  > >>>
  > >  > >>>> david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes:
  > >  > >>>>
  > >  > >>>>> I could use some help troubleshooting this.
  > >  > >>>>>
  > >  > >>>>> When I start up emacs, it doesn't load the files I name on the command
  > >  > >>>>> line, unless I do an 'emacs -q' to not load any init files.
  > >  > >>>>>
  > >  > >>>>> Obviously, it must be something in my .emacs file, but I don't see
  > >  > >>>>> anything that I've changed in the recent past.
  > >  > >>>>>
  > >  > >>>>> Where should I start to debug this?  I don't get any errors when it
  > >  > >>>>> runs, it just refuses to load anything from the command line.
  > >  > >>>>
  > >  > >>>> At the risk of stating the obvious, have you tried commenting out all of
  > >  > >>>> your .emacs, then progressively uncommenting it to isolate the lines
  > >  > >>>> that are causing the problem? comment-region (aka M-;) makes this
  > >  > >>>> pretty quick to do.
  > >  > >>>
  > >  > >>> Also, the OP could try:
  > >  > >>>
  > >  > >>>     emacs --debug-init file.txt
  > >  > >>>
  > >  > >>> If the file is not open it might be because there's a bug in ~/.emacs
  > >  > >>
  > >  > >>
  > >  > >> That I have tried.  No errors at all...  I was hoping that there would
  > >  > >> be one, but everything loads just fine, no errors, just doesn't load the
  > >  > >> file(s) named on the command line.
  > >  > >>
  > >  > >> Thanks for the idea, though.
  > >  > >
  > >  > > Found it!  I've been calling table.el for years, but somehow it must be
  > >  > > incompatible with emacs 23.1.1.  Took that out, works great.  Never used
  > >  > > the functionality in it anyway...
  > >  > >
  > >  > > Dave
  > >  >
  > >  >
  > >  > The file table.el is included in Emacs now.
  > >  >
  > >  > This is not the first time I have seen quite interesting side effects
  > >  > from using old versions of a file that has later been included in
  > >  > Emacs. I think that some test should be made after startup for
  > >  > potential such loadings. (This could be run conditionally after all
  > >  > init files.)
  > >
  > > See `bad-packages-alist'
  > >
  > 
  > Ah, thanks, forgot about it.
  > 
  > Should not table.el be in this list too then?
  > And nxml too?

If they cause problems, they should.