Re: Ediff frequently crashes emacs.

[Peter Seibel]

address@hidden (Kim F. Storm) writes:

> Peter Seibel <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Okay, here's another strange one which has happened a few times. I'll
>> get an error in the minibuffer that says:
>>
>>   Symbol's value as variable is void: nil
>>
>> No matter what I do I continue to get that error or something similar
>> such as:
>>
>>   Error in pre-command-hook: (void-variable nil)
>>
>> I can type 'q' to the ediff window and it'll ask if I want to quit but
>> when I type 'y' it goes back to:
>>
>>   Symbol's value as variable is void: nil
>>
>> I realize that this is probably just more symptoms of memory
>> corruption but maybe one of these details will give someone an aha
>> moment. 
>
> We have had occasional reports of crashes related to the cons list
> before, but I really wonder why you see them so consistently.
>
> E.g. I use ediff too and haven't seen any problems...
>
> What kind of files do you compare with ediff?

Text files, in particular chapters from a book. So lots of little
changes (add a comma here, remove a comma there) within large
paragraphs, for whatever that's worth. I haven't been measuring but it
probably crashes on 1% or less of the times I hit 'n' in ediff. So you
have to use ediff quite a bit to see it.

> Any special character set or encoding in those files?

Nope.

> What does M-x list-processes show ?

When? I am typically running a shell and an inferior lisp (with
SLIME).

>>         (BTW, is there a way to interrupt emacs without killing it so
>> I can get a backtrace from GDB?)
>
> C-z in gdb.

Thanks.

-Peter

-- 
Peter Seibel                                     address@hidden

         Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp