Capture broken with org-plus-contrib-20170917

Capture broken with org-plus-contrib-20170917

[N. Jackson]

After an Emacs package update a few days ago, my Org captures no
longer work. This is with org-plus-contib-20170917 from
http://orgmode.org/elpa/.

After I select a capture template to run, I get the error message

  Invalid file location: nil

and setting debug-on-error I see this:

  Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Invalid file location: nil")
    signal(error ("Invalid file location: nil"))
    error("Invalid file location: %S" nil)
    org-capture-expand-file((concat org-directory "/notes.org"))
    org-capture-target-buffer((concat org-directory "/notes.org"))
    org-capture-set-target-location()
    org-capture(nil)
    funcall-interactively(org-capture nil)
    call-interactively(org-capture nil nil)
    command-execute(org-capture)

. Checking the value returned by the concat,

  M-: (concat org-directory "/notes.org")

the correct value

  "/data/org/notes.org"

is returned. This is the correct file and it exists etc..

There have been no changes to my org configuration since June of
2016 and I have had no problem with my captures until the latest
Emacs package update.

An example of the capture templates that are suddenly failing is
this one:

  (setq org-capture-templates
      '(
	  ("n"
	   "Note"
	   ;; This one is a bit ugly. I see the guts of the template while the prompt is displayed. Also the PROPERTIES drawer is after the LOGBOOK instead of before.
	   entry (file (concat org-directory "/notes.org"))
	   "* %^{Enter Note Title}    %^g\n   :PROPERTIES:\n   :Created:  %U\n   :END:\n\n%?\n%i\n"
	   :kill-buffer t :empty-lines 1 :clock-in t :clock-resume t)
      )
  )

I found a work-around, in that if I change the `entry' line of the
capture template to read

  entry (file "notes.org")

the capture works again (taking advantage of what I assume must be
a new(ish) feature that org-directory is automatically used when
the file name in the capture template is unqualified).

Is this problem a new bug in Org, or is it simply that my capture
templates are wrong and that they've only worked all these years
by some accident?

If my capture templates are valid, then I would much rather see
Org put back the way it was so that they work, rather than have to
go through the error-prone process of having to edit them all (I
have dozens of them).

Thank you and best regards,
N.

Re: Capture broken with org-plus-contrib-20170917

[Josiah Schwab]

Hi N.,

> Is this problem a new bug in Org, or is it simply that my capture
> templates are wrong and that they've only worked all these years
> by some accident?

Have you looked at the incompatible changes described in the release
notes?  I believe this change (and the migration) are described in
"org-capture-templates no longer accepts S-expressions as file names".

http://orgmode.org/Changes.html

Hope that helps,
Josiah

Re: Capture broken with org-plus-contrib-20170917

[N. Jackson]

Hi Josiah,

At 09:48 -0700 on Thursday 2017-09-21, Josiah Schwab wrote:

> Have you looked at the incompatible changes described in the
> release notes?

No, I hadn't. This is the downside of having the convenience of a
package manager in Emacs rather than installing things manually --
one neglects to read the release notes!

> I believe this change (and the migration) are described in
> "org-capture-templates no longer accepts S-expressions as file
> names".

Indeed. You are quite right, that explains the problem exactly.

> Hope that helps,

Yes it did, thank you. Thanks for the quick answer.

I have now bitten the bullet and "fixed" all my capture templates.
One advantage of this is that they are now slightly easier to
read!

N.