Emacs won't start with ESS

[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

hello,

I've been able to use ESS a few times, but now it seems that I'm
unable to start Emacs about 80% of the time. Emacs just shows a blank
screen: even the splash-screen buffer fails to load. (But sometimes it
just works, for no apparent reason)

My .emacs is just 1 line:

(require 'ess-site)


When I remove the .emacs, everything works again.

Any idea what could be wrong?

Gustavo

--
Gustavo Lacerda
http://www.optimizelife.com

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[Richard M. Heiberger]

Instead of
(require 'ess-site)


try using the full pathname

;; use the correct path for your system
(load-file "c:/emacs/ess/lisp/ess-site.el")

using (require)  implies that the ess packages is installed
in a place emacs knows about.  My guess is that you put ess
in some non-standard place.

Rich

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

Thanks, but I don't seem to have a file named "ess-site.el".

Besides, it is working *sometimes*. (It just worked again)

Can I ask emacs where it found it? Something like an elisp version of
"which ess-lite"?

Gustavo


On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Richard M. Heiberger<rmh@...> wrote:

> Instead of
> (require 'ess-site)
>
>
> try using the full pathname
>
> ;; use the correct path for your system
> (load-file "c:/emacs/ess/lisp/ess-site.el")
>
> using (require)  implies that the ess packages is installed
> in a place emacs knows about.  My guess is that you put ess
> in some non-standard place.
>
> Rich
>

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[Richard M. Heiberger]

Yes, you have ess-site.el because it is part of ESS.

You can ask the system where it is.

On Windows, open Windows Explorer and search for ess-site.el
on the entire computer.

On Unix, or Windows with Cygwin, use the emacs command

M-x find-dired <RET> / <RET> -name ess-site.el <RET>


Rich

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[spencerg]

      Is there a way to get that from Emacs?  It clearly knows.  There
could be several files by that name on your computer, but Emacs would
use (at most) one of them.


      Spencer


Richard M. Heiberger wrote:

> Yes, you have ess-site.el because it is part of ESS.
>
> You can ask the system where it is.
>
> On Windows, open Windows Explorer and search for ess-site.el
> on the entire computer.
>
> On Unix, or Windows with Cygwin, use the emacs command
>
> M-x find-dired <RET> / <RET> -name ess-site.el <RET>
>
>
> Rich
>
> ______________________________________________
> ESS-help@... mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>

--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Operating Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567

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[Martin Maechler-4]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 05:11, spencerg<spencer.graves@...> wrote:
>     Is there a way to get that from Emacs?  It clearly knows.

> There could
> be several files by that name on your computer, but Emacs would use (at
> most) one of them.

Yes.   M-x locate-library  ess-site
it will show that it does find with (require 'ess-site).
Note that this may be ess-site.elc [if existing] rather than ess-site.el.

The "80% of the times"  is puzzling.

Could it be that you start emacs differently, and you get different
versions of emacs, or at least different "emacs paths"?   The relevant
info inside emacs is

C-h v  load-path


Hoping that helps further (I won't be around e-mail for the rest of
the weekend though).
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich

>
>     Spencer
>
>
> Richard M. Heiberger wrote:
>>
>> Yes, you have ess-site.el because it is part of ESS.
>>
>> You can ask the system where it is.
>>
>> On Windows, open Windows Explorer and search for ess-site.el
>> on the entire computer.
>>
>> On Unix, or Windows with Cygwin, use the emacs command
>>
>> M-x find-dired <RET> / <RET> -name ess-site.el <RET>
>>
>>
>> Rich
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> ESS-help@... mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>>
>
>
> --
> Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
> President and Chief Operating Officer
> Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
> 751 Emerson Ct.
> San José, CA 95126
> ph:  408-655-4567
>
> ______________________________________________
> ESS-help@... mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>
>

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[spencerg]

Dear Martin:


      Thanks very much.  When I did that just now, I got the following:


           Library is in
C:\Users\spencerg\Emacs22.3\site-lisp\ess\ess-site.elc


      This raises other questions:  How can I get more information about
(1) how to find files like this and (2) what their contents should be
and (3) the difference between *.el and *.elc files?
   
      Thanks,
      Spencer


Martin Maechler wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 05:11, spencerg<spencer.graves@...> wrote:
>  
>>     Is there a way to get that from Emacs?  It clearly knows.
>>    
>
>  
>>  There could
>> be several files by that name on your computer, but Emacs would use (at
>> most) one of them.
>>    
>
> Yes.   M-x locate-library  ess-site
> it will show that it does find with (require 'ess-site).
> Note that this may be ess-site.elc [if existing] rather than ess-site.el.
>
> The "80% of the times"  is puzzling.
>
> Could it be that you start emacs differently, and you get different
> versions of emacs, or at least different "emacs paths"?   The relevant
> info inside emacs is
>
> C-h v  load-path
>
>
> Hoping that helps further (I won't be around e-mail for the rest of
> the weekend though).
> Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich
>  
>>     Spencer
>>
>>
>> Richard M. Heiberger wrote:
>>    
>>> Yes, you have ess-site.el because it is part of ESS.
>>>
>>> You can ask the system where it is.
>>>
>>> On Windows, open Windows Explorer and search for ess-site.el
>>> on the entire computer.
>>>
>>> On Unix, or Windows with Cygwin, use the emacs command
>>>
>>> M-x find-dired <RET> / <RET> -name ess-site.el <RET>
>>>
>>>
>>> Rich
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> ESS-help@... mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>>>
>>>      
>> --
>> Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
>> President and Chief Operating Officer
>> Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
>> 751 Emerson Ct.
>> San José, CA 95126
>> ph:  408-655-4567
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> ESS-help@... mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>>
>>
>>    
>
>  

--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Operating Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 1:07 AM, Martin
Maechler<maechler@...> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 05:11, spencerg<spencer.graves@...> wrote:
>>     Is there a way to get that from Emacs?  It clearly knows.
>
>> There could
>> be several files by that name on your computer, but Emacs would use (at
>> most) one of them.
>
> Yes.   M-x locate-library  ess-site

Thanks.

For me, Emacs is using:
C:\Program Files\emacs\emacs-22.3\site-lisp\ess-5.4\lisp\ess-site.el


> The "80% of the times"  is puzzling.
>
> Could it be that you start emacs differently, and you get different
> versions of emacs, or at least different "emacs paths"?   The relevant
> info inside emacs is

I don't think so.

I should add: when it doesn't work, it feels as if the loading never ends.



> C-h v  load-path

trouble is, I can't do this on the attempts to run Emacs that *didn't* work.



I also tried Rich's suggestion to use  (load-file "C:\Program
Files\emacs\emacs-22.3\site-lisp\ess-5.4\lisp\ess-site.el") instead of
"require".

After doubling the blackslashes (the first being an escape character),
I seem to get the same behavior as before. (it hasn't succeded yet,
but it might a few hours from now)

Thanks!

Gustavo

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[Richard M. Heiberger]

Try

(load-file
"C:\\progra~1\\emacs\\emacs-22.3\\site-lisp\\ess-5.4\\lisp\\ess-site.el")

The embedded blank in "Program Files" often causes problems.  Therefore
use the 8.3 version of the name.  It is usually "progra~1", but not
always. Confirm the name in the MSDOS cmd window by entering
  dir c:\pr* /x

The single forward slash I sent and the double backslash you are using
are equivalent.

Rich

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

I confirmed that the name is "Progra~1" and made the change.

But this had no noticeable effect on the behavior of Emacs (it hasn't
worked yet, but I have a feeling that it might work later today).

Gustavo


On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Richard M. Heiberger<rmh@...> wrote:

> Try
>
> (load-file
> "C:\\progra~1\\emacs\\emacs-22.3\\site-lisp\\ess-5.4\\lisp\\ess-site.el")
>
> The embedded blank in "Program Files" often causes problems.  Therefore
> use the 8.3 version of the name.  It is usually "progra~1", but not
> always. Confirm the name in the MSDOS cmd window by entering
>  dir c:\pr* /x
>
> The single forward slash I sent and the double backslash you are using
> are equivalent.
>
> Rich
>

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[Richard M. Heiberger]

One more try.

Start emacs with

emacs -q --no-site-files

then go into the *scratch* buffer, enter

(load-file
"C:\\progra~1\\emacs\\emacs-22.3\\site-lisp\\ess-5.4\\lisp\\ess-site.el")

followed by C-j (ctrl-J)

Now what happens?

If it works correctly, then there is some conflict in your site-start.el


If it doesn't, look at the *Messages* buffer, and perhaps send the
entire contents of that buffer to this list.

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Richard M. Heiberger<rmh@...> wrote:
> One more try.

Thanks.


> Start emacs with
>
> emacs -q --no-site-files

Emacs starts up, but without the initial screen, i.e. no picture of a Gnu.
And I hear a sound, the same sound when Ctrl-G.

Here is the messages buffer, at this point:

("c:\\Program Files\\emacs\\emacs-22.3\\bin\\emacs.exe" "-q" "--no-site-files")
Loading encoded-kb...done
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
command-line-1: Unknown option `--no-site-files'
Quit



> then go into the *scratch* buffer, enter
>
> (load-file
> "C:\\progra~1\\emacs\\emacs-22.3\\site-lisp\\ess-5.4\\lisp\\ess-site.el")
>
> followed by C-j (ctrl-J)
>
> Now what happens?

now Emacs freezes just like before... (e.g. the menus don't appear
when I click on them)



> If it works correctly, then there is some conflict in your site-start.el
>
> If it doesn't, look at the *Messages* buffer, and perhaps send the
> entire contents of that buffer to this list.

I don't know how to do this, since Emacs is frozen.

However, I see that the status bar says: "Finding all versions of R on
your system..."
I guess this is the step that takes forever.

For the record, under C:\Program Files\R,  I have both R-2.9.0 and R-2.9.1
So I deleted the R-2.9.0 folder and tried again, but nothing changed.

Gustavo

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

I've since discovered that the correct command is 'no-site-file'. Now
I see the splash screen again, but that doesn't change anything.

i.e., I've been trying to start ESS from the *scratch* buffer, and it
mostly doesn't work... however it just worked again (for the 1st time
from the *scratch* buffer).

But this could be because ESS always works after 3:30pm ;-)  Right now
it's working any way I start it.

Gustavo

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[Richard M. Heiberger]

sorry about that typo,  yes
emacs -q --no-site-file
is correct.



Next trick.  Don't shut your machine down.
Always use hibernate

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[Patrick Connolly-4]

On Sat, 22-Aug-2009 at 10:07AM +0200, Martin Maechler wrote:

|> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 05:11, spencerg<spencer.graves@...> wrote:
|> >     Is there a way to get that from Emacs?  It clearly knows.
|>
|> > There could
|> > be several files by that name on your computer, but Emacs would use (at
|> > most) one of them.
|>
|> Yes.   M-x locate-library  ess-site
|> it will show that it does find with (require 'ess-site).
|> Note that this may be ess-site.elc [if existing] rather than ess-site.el.
|>
|> The "80% of the times"  is puzzling.

Yesterday it worked
Today it doesn't
Windows is like that.

Some of my friends who use Windows reinstall the OS each year as a
kind of spring cleaning.  In fairness, I have to admit that new
releases of KDE can be flakey also and I've had occasion to go through
the setting up from scratch to deal with it.



--
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.  
   ___    Patrick Connolly  
 {~._.~}                   Great minds discuss ideas    
 _( Y )_           Average minds discuss events
(:_~*~_:)                  Small minds discuss people  
 (_)-(_)                        ..... Eleanor Roosevelt
         
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

It worked all of yesterday and most of today, and now it stopped working
again.


Again, it looks like it gets stuck on the step where it's looking for R:

<< However, I see that the status bar says: "Finding all versions of R on
your system..."    I guess this is the step that takes forever. >>


Looking at C:\Program Files\R, I see that R-2.9.0 is there again!
Deleting it, I can start ESS via the *scratch* buffer, and directly with the
.emacs file.

I've deleted this before, but it looks like some process in my machine is
creating that directory. This could explain some of the apparent randomness.

(1) What process could this be? (I had RTools installed until just now)
(2) Can I make this directory be read-only? There are no files inside it,
just the folder 'R-2.9.1' (R-2.9.1 could still be full-access)  UPDATE: it
already is read-only!
(3) Could we make ESS handle this ambiguity gracefully?

In any case, for now everything works again, and it looks like I know what
to do when it breaks.

Thanks very much for your help!

Gustavo



On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Richard M. Heiberger <rmh@...>wrote:

> sorry about that typo,  yes
> emacs -q --no-site-file
> is correct.
>
>
>
> Next trick.  Don't shut your machine down.
> Always use hibernate
>
>

        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

hi all,

This issue haunted me again for most of today. Now it seems to be
resolved for good, but the story might be helpful or interesting to
you.

My previous message (quoted below) still described the situation:
Emacs gets stuck forever and uninterruptibly on "Finding all versions
of R on your system...", except that I only seem to have 1 version of
R running.

So it came down to hacking  essd-r.el . I recognized that Emacs hangs
somewhere inside 'ess-find-newest-R', and in particular this bit here:

(setq ess-newest-R
            (ess-newest-r
             (if ess-microsoft-p
                 ess-rterm-version-paths
               (add-to-list 'ess-r-versions-created
                            inferior-R-program-name))))))


Since this was a random issue, I waited until I got lucky and queried
the value of the variable 'ess-newest-R', which for me was
"c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-2.9.1/bin/Rterm.exe"

Then I modified the previous defvar as follows:

(defvar ess-newest-R "c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-2.9.1/bin/Rterm.exe")

Now ESS does not search for the newest R, which avoids the issue.

I hope that, this time around, I finally have a definitive solution. :-)

Gustavo




On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Gustavo Lacerda<guse@...> wrote:

> It worked all of yesterday and most of today, and now it stopped working
> again.
>
>
> Again, it looks like it gets stuck on the step where it's looking for R:
>
> << However, I see that the status bar says: "Finding all versions of R on
> your system..."    I guess this is the step that takes forever. >>
>
>
> Looking at C:\Program Files\R, I see that R-2.9.0 is there again!
> Deleting it, I can start ESS via the *scratch* buffer, and directly with the
> .emacs file.
>
> I've deleted this before, but it looks like some process in my machine is
> creating that directory. This could explain some of the apparent randomness.
>
> (1) What process could this be? (I had RTools installed until just now)
> (2) Can I make this directory be read-only? There are no files inside it,
> just the folder 'R-2.9.1' (R-2.9.1 could still be full-access)  UPDATE: it
> already is read-only!
> (3) Could we make ESS handle this ambiguity gracefully?
>
> In any case, for now everything works again, and it looks like I know what
> to do when it breaks.
>
> Thanks very much for your help!
>
> Gustavo
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Richard M. Heiberger <rmh@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> sorry about that typo,  yes
>> emacs -q --no-site-file
>> is correct.
>>
>>
>>
>> Next trick.  Don't shut your machine down.
>> Always use hibernate
>>
>
>

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[Stephen Eglen]

Gustavo Lacerda <guse@...> wrote:


> My previous message (quoted below) still described the situation:
> Emacs gets stuck forever and uninterruptibly on "Finding all versions
> of R on your system...", except that I only seem to have 1 version of
> R running.

I wrote ths code, and although I developed it on linux, it should now
work on Windows (I think Rich helped with this).  It would be very
useful to find out why it is hanging for you,  and not for others.
The way to help us debug this would to be to put the following at the
top of your emacs, and then when you hit C-g you should get a backtrace
buffer; send us that, and it might help us see what was going on.

  (setq debug-on-quit t)  

>
> So it came down to hacking  essd-r.el . I recognized that Emacs hangs
> somewhere inside 'ess-find-newest-R', and in particular this bit here:
>
> (setq ess-newest-R
>    (ess-newest-r
>     (if ess-microsoft-p
> ess-rterm-version-paths
>       (add-to-list 'ess-r-versions-created
>    inferior-R-program-name))))))
>
>
> Since this was a random issue, I waited until I got lucky and queried
> the value of the variable 'ess-newest-R', which for me was
> "c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-2.9.1/bin/Rterm.exe"
>
> Then I modified the previous defvar as follows:
>
> (defvar ess-newest-R "c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-2.9.1/bin/Rterm.exe")
>
> Now ESS does not search for the newest R, which avoids the issue.
>
> I hope that, this time around, I finally have a definitive solution. :-)
>
> Gustavo

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[Gustavo Lacerda-2]

When it hangs, Ctrl-G doesn't work, and neither does ESC ESC ESC. The
menus don't drop down, and Emacs stops refreshing its graphics. I
always needed to close Emacs from outside. (This is what I meant by
"uninterruptibly")

Having said that, I would be willing to run a simple test, if you can
think of one.

Gustavo



On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Stephen Eglen
<S.J.Eglen@...> wrote:

> Gustavo Lacerda <guse@...> wrote:
>
>
>> My previous message (quoted below) still described the situation:
>> Emacs gets stuck forever and uninterruptibly on "Finding all versions
>> of R on your system...", except that I only seem to have 1 version of
>> R running.
>
> I wrote ths code, and although I developed it on linux, it should now
> work on Windows (I think Rich helped with this).  It would be very
> useful to find out why it is hanging for you,  and not for others.
> The way to help us debug this would to be to put the following at the
> top of your emacs, and then when you hit C-g you should get a backtrace
> buffer; send us that, and it might help us see what was going on.
>
>  (setq debug-on-quit t)
>
>
>>
>> So it came down to hacking  essd-r.el . I recognized that Emacs hangs
>> somewhere inside 'ess-find-newest-R', and in particular this bit here:
>>
>> (setq ess-newest-R
>>           (ess-newest-r
>>            (if ess-microsoft-p
>>                ess-rterm-version-paths
>>              (add-to-list 'ess-r-versions-created
>>                           inferior-R-program-name))))))
>>
>>
>> Since this was a random issue, I waited until I got lucky and queried
>> the value of the variable 'ess-newest-R', which for me was
>> "c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-2.9.1/bin/Rterm.exe"
>>
>> Then I modified the previous defvar as follows:
>>
>> (defvar ess-newest-R "c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-2.9.1/bin/Rterm.exe")
>>
>> Now ESS does not search for the newest R, which avoids the issue.
>>
>> I hope that, this time around, I finally have a definitive solution. :-)
>>
>> Gustavo
>

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[Stephen Eglen]

Hmm. that is odd.  Debugging this remotely is going to be tricky - does
anyone else see this behaviour on windows?  If it is a common problem on
windows, we need to either investigate or make it easy to switch off the
code that automatically finds R versions.

Stephen

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