Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

[Carlo Tambuatco]

I have emacs-28 and emacs-26 installed alongside each other. I use emacs-28 most of the time, and only 
use emacs-26 occasionally. I download and compile all my emacs packages using emacs-28, which starts 
and initializes flawlessly and works exactly as I expect it to work. But, emacs-26, which reads the same 
init files and uses the same packages as emacs-28 encounters errors like:

Transient error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2)
Error during file deserialization: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2) [2 times]
File mode specification error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2) [26 times]
etc…

during startup. 

Whenever I run a basic command like ‘find-files’, which is maped to ‘helm-find-files’ because I use 
helm, I keep getting the error:

transient--pp-to-file: Wrong number of arguments: (1 . 1), 2

Even when I try closing emacs using C-x C-c, I get the error:

Wrong number of arguments: (1 . 1), 2

I don’t know what is going on, apologies if I have trouble explaining what is going on here.

Re: Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

[Stefan Monnier]

> use emacs-26 occasionally. I download and compile all my emacs packages
> using emacs-28, which starts 
> and initializes flawlessly and works exactly as I expect it to work. But,
> emacs-26, which reads the same 
> init files and uses the same packages as emacs-28 encounters errors like:

Files compiled with Emacs-NN are likely not to work under Emacs-MM if MM<NN.
Better do the opposite: compile with Emacs-26 and then use with Emacs-28.


        Stefan

Re: Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

[Joost Kremers]

On Thu, Feb 25 2021, Carlo Tambuatco wrote:
> I have emacs-28 and emacs-26 installed alongside each other. I use emacs-28 most of the time, and only 
> use emacs-26 occasionally. I download and compile all my emacs packages using emacs-28, which starts 
> and initializes flawlessly and works exactly as I expect it to work. But, emacs-26, which reads the same 
> init files and uses the same packages as emacs-28 encounters errors like:

Byte code isn't guaranteed to be backwards compatible, so if you load byte code
generated by Emacs 28 into Emacs 26, you're bound to get errors.

Forward compatibility is much better, AFAIK, so you should be able to get
things working if you compile your packages with Emacs 26. If it were me,
however, I would give each Emacs its own space. If Elpa packages are the only
problem, you probably only need to set `package-user-dir` depending on the major
version, something you can do in your init file.



-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments

Re: Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

[TRS-80]

On 2021-02-25 09:14, Carlo Tambuatco wrote:
> I have emacs-28 and emacs-26 installed alongside each other. I use
> emacs-28 most of the time, and only
> use emacs-26 occasionally. I download and compile all my emacs
> packages using emacs-28, which starts
> and initializes flawlessly and works exactly as I expect it to work.
> But, emacs-26, which reads the same
> init files and uses the same packages as emacs-28 encounters errors 
> like:
> 
> Transient error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2)
> Error during file deserialization: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1)
> 2) [2 times]
> File mode specification error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2) 
> [26 times]
> etc…
> 
> during startup.
> 
> Whenever I run a basic command like ‘find-files’, which is maped to
> ‘helm-find-files’ because I use
> helm, I keep getting the error:
> 
> transient--pp-to-file: Wrong number of arguments: (1 . 1), 2
> 
> Even when I try closing emacs using C-x C-c, I get the error:
> 
> Wrong number of arguments: (1 . 1), 2
> 
> I don’t know what is going on, apologies if I have trouble explaining
> what is going on here.

Sounds like one or more functions changed their required arguments
between 26 and 28.  You would probably need to dig in a little more to
get some more specifics.  If you are not inclined towards that, it's
probably easiest just to stop using 26 altogether (unless there is
some compelling reason you must keep using it).

Cheers,
TRS-80

Re: Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

[Carlo Tambuatco]

> On Feb 25, 2021, at 9:39 AM, TRS-80 <lists.trs-80@isnotmyreal.name> wrote:
> 
> On 2021-02-25 09:14, Carlo Tambuatco wrote:
>> I have emacs-28 and emacs-26 installed alongside each other. I use
>> emacs-28 most of the time, and only
>> use emacs-26 occasionally. I download and compile all my emacs
>> packages using emacs-28, which starts
>> and initializes flawlessly and works exactly as I expect it to work.
>> But, emacs-26, which reads the same
>> init files and uses the same packages as emacs-28 encounters errors like:
>> Transient error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2)
>> Error during file deserialization: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1)
>> 2) [2 times]
>> File mode specification error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (1 . 1) 2) [26 times]
>> etc…
>> during startup.
>> Whenever I run a basic command like ‘find-files’, which is maped to
>> ‘helm-find-files’ because I use
>> helm, I keep getting the error:
>> transient--pp-to-file: Wrong number of arguments: (1 . 1), 2
>> Even when I try closing emacs using C-x C-c, I get the error:
>> Wrong number of arguments: (1 . 1), 2
>> I don’t know what is going on, apologies if I have trouble explaining
>> what is going on here.
> 
> Sounds like one or more functions changed their required arguments
> between 26 and 28.  You would probably need to dig in a little more to
> get some more specifics.  If you are not inclined towards that, it's
> probably easiest just to stop using 26 altogether (unless there is
> some compelling reason you must keep using it).

Well, I mostly keep emacs-26 around for clojure development. The clojure 
development packages I installed ie: CIDER, sesman, clojure-mode, do not 
seem to be fully supported by emacs-28. They are not fully featured unless 
I use emacs-26. It’s like whoever developed them did not intend them 
to be forward compatible.

> 
> Cheers,
> TRS-80
> 

Re: Strange startup behavior on emacs 26.3 and malfunctioning commands

[Stefan Monnier]

> Well, I mostly keep emacs-26 around for clojure development. The clojure 
> development packages I installed ie: CIDER, sesman, clojure-mode, do not 
> seem to be fully supported by emacs-28. They are not fully featured unless 
> I use emacs-26. It’s like whoever developed them did not intend them 
> to be forward compatible.

I suggest you work on that problem.  I.e. report bugs about it (both to
the package and to Emacs (after all, Emacs intends to preserve
compatibility)).

It's bad to force users to upgrade, but it's even worse to
prevent upgrading.


        Stefan