bug#12148: 24.1.50; Tramp has problems with Solaris server (test -e)

[Michael Albinus]

Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org> writes:

> This appears to get circumvented correctly once, but the .emacs.d/tramp
> written out from the first emacs says:
>
>   ("file-exists" "test -e")
>
> which is clearly wrong.
> So the next incarnation of emacs will no longer work correcly with that
> Solaris server.

Hmm. In `tramp-find-file-exists-command', it is correctly tested for
"test -e", "/bin/test -e" aso. But the cache seems to get the wrong value.

I would need to analyze the cache operations. Would you, please, apply
"M-x tramp-cleanup-all-connections" (this also removes cache settings),
set `tramp-verbose' to 9, and rerun the test? The resulting debug buffer
shall tell us more.

> (Because of the caching in .emacs.d/tramp and the behavior of writing out the 
> tramp file during kill-emacs, this can be very confusing to debug.  It took 
> me a while to understand that the "works/doesn't work/works/doesn't work" 
> behavior can only be explained by to the tramp file written out with bad 
> information.)

Maybe the Tramp info file shall be improved for recipes how to disable
the cache for debugging.

Best regards, Michael.