Hi Alan,

On Oct 17, 2013, at 3:40 PM, Alan E. Davis <lngndvs@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have made only minor changes to my capture-templates variable, which is admittedly quite convoluted.  Recently, this error pops up whenever I run C-cC and any of the keys for templates:  
> 
>  Capture abort: (wrong-type-argument stringp |)

This is an error that happens while the function org-capture-fill-template runs.  It is not easy to locate because the error is captured.

What you can do this this:

Goto org-capture.el and find this piece of code:

	(condition-case error
	    (org-capture-put :template (org-capture-fill-template))
	  ((error quit)
	   (if (get-buffer "*Capture*") (kill-buffer "*Capture*"))
	   (error "Capture abort: %s" error)))

Edit it to remove the error trap:

 (org-capture-put :template (org-capture-fill-template))
(if (get-buffer "*Capture*") (kill-buffer "*Capture*"))

Evaluate buffer to update.

Set debug-on-error

And then go and hit the error again.
The traceback will then give information we can hopefully use.

HTH

- Carsten


> 
> Does this ring a bell for anyone?  Does this mean that "|" is encountered in a template, as a string, and shouldn't be?
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Alan