Projects - Reporting Emacs Lisp Bugs

This page covers the procedure for reporting bugs that you experience with Emacs Lisp programs like Emacs Muse and Planner.

Diagnosing the problem

Selecting and pasting a region

If you don't know how to copy and paste text from buffers, here's a quick summary.

• Go to the beginning of the region you'd like to copy.
• Hit C-SPC.
• Move to the end of the region.
• Hit M-w. If you want to paste outside of Emacs, try M-x clipboard-kill-ring-save.
• Switch to the buffer you want to paste into, which is most likely a mail window.
• Hit C-y.

Getting a backtrace

One of the most helpful things that you can provide in a bug report is a backtrace. This helps the programmer identify where exactly the problem is occurring.

To get a backtrace, follow this procedure.

• Get things like they were just before you experienced the error.
• Type M-: (setq debug-on-error t) RET.
• Try to trigger the error.
• You should see a new buffer called *Backtrace*. Send the contents of that buffer along with your report.
• If you cannot get the Backtrace to show up, type M-: (setq debug-on-signal t) RET and try to trigger the error again.

If you cannot trigger the error this way, it could be that a problem occurs during the refreshing of the screen colors. Check the *Messages* buffer and see if there was anything like "Error during redisplay: ..." near the bottom of the buffer. If so, try the following in order to get a backtrace.

• Get things like they were just before you experienced the error.
• Enable `debug-on-error' and/or `debug-on-signal', as mentioned previously.
• If you're using Emacs Muse, type M-x muse-colors-buffer RET.
• Hopefully you should now see a *Backtrace* buffer, which can be included with your report.

Okay, enough backtraces already!

Type M-: (setq debug-on-error nil) RET and M-: (setq debug-on-signal nil) RET to prevent Emacs from creating any more *Backtrace* buffers.

To get rid of an existing *Backtrace* buffer, switch to it and hit the `q'. key.

Look at the Messages buffer

If you see the word "Error" on a line in the *Messages* buffer, please include that line and those around it with your bug report. If you are using XEmacs, you can find this buffer by doing M-x switch-to-buffer RET SPC *Messages* RET.

Reporting the problem

Composing the bug report

Make sure you include the following with every bug report that you send. Doing so saves the maintainer time and helps you get the issue resolved as fast as possible.

• The output from C-h v emacs-version — this lets the maintainer know what version of Emacs/XEmacs you are using.
• The output from C-h v [program-name]-version. In the case of emacs-wiki and Muse, this is `emacs-wiki-version' and `muse-version', respectively. If you are using Arch, take a look at the ChangeLog file and report the patch number.
• The particular file that causes the problem, if it's something you notice with just one or two different files. Feel free to prune any sensitive information off of the page, then make sure you can reproduce the error, and include the result.
• Make sure to specify whether you are using any special modes or hacks that might potentially cause trouble with this program.
• The configuration file(s) that contain the settings for the program, as an attachment.

Who to send it to

Try sending it to one of the following places, in order of preference.

• A bug-specific mailing list.
• A user-specific mailing list.
• The author of the program.

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