Re: Frequent crashes of Emacs 24 on Mac OS X 10.7.3 due to org-mode

[Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch>]

Dear Martyn,

thanks for helping.

3) 7.7: As far as I remember, I've been there.
2) 24.0.94.1: I've definitely been there -- didn't sort it out. I even wanted to
build Emacs on my own to see if that has an influence. But I obtained some
errors due to missing tools (starting with libgif/libungif but after I installed
that many other things appeared) and others also reported that it is not too
easy under Lion
(http://readystate4.com/2011/04/19/installing-latest-command-line-emacs-on-mac-os-x/).
1) .emacs: I've never seen .emacs in org-babel, sounds interesting. What I typically do is some kind of "bisection" procedure to find the the bug (comment out half of the code, test, find the buggy half...).

The part of my .emacs that concerns org-mode is (of course the problem could be
elsewhere but my suspicion would be it's in here):

,----[ org-mode part of .emacs: ]
| ;; basics
| (require 'org-install); use org-mode
| (setq org-startup-indented 1); use indentation in org mode
| (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org\\'" . org-mode)); open all .org files in org-mode
| (setq org-agenda-files
|       (list "~/org/agenda.org")); set up org agenda file
| (setq org-default-notes-file "~/org/agenda.org"); set up org notes file (stores captured events -- also use agenda.org)
| (setq org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil); start agenda view on current day
| (setq org-agenda-span 14); agenda view: show 14 days by default
| (setq calendar-week-start-day 1); start week on Monday
|
| ;; suggested global org keys
| (global-set-key (kbd "C-c l") 'org-store-link)
| (global-set-key (kbd "C-c c") 'org-capture); for capturing new TODO
| (global-set-key (kbd "C-c a") 'org-agenda); for viewing your agenda
|
| ;; define capture templates (for C-c c)
| ;; see 9.1.3.1 in the org-mode manual
| ;; order:
| ;; 1) key: trigger of the capture task
| ;; 2) description: description to be shown during selection
| ;; 3) type: - entry: org-mode node with headline; put in as a child of the target
| ;;          - ..., see org-manual
| ;; 4) target: where the captured item should be placed
| ;;            - file+headline "path-to-file" [empty defaults to org-default-notes-file] "node name where to put in"
| ;; 5) template: string which specifies the look of the template
| ;;              %? # place the point here after template insertion
| ;;              \n # newline
| ;;              %^T # prompt for date and time
| ;;              %U # inactive time stamp with date and time
| ;;              %(org-contacts-template-name) # tries to determine the name from Gnus
| ;;              %^g # prompt for tag
| ;;              %(org-contacts-template-email) # tries to determine the email address from Gnus
| (setq org-capture-templates
|       '(("t" "TODO in ~/org/agenda.org -> Tasks" entry (file+headline "~/org/agenda.org" "Tasks")
|          "* TODO %?\nSCHEDULED: %^T\n%U")
|         ("c" "Contact in ~/org/contacts.org -> Contact" entry (file+headline "~/org/contacts.org" "Contact")
|          "* %?%(org-contacts-template-name)%(org-contacts-template-email) %^g
| :PROPERTIES:
| :WORK:
| :HOME:
| :MOBILE:
| :LOCATION:
| :NOTE:
| :URL:
| :END:")))
|
| ;; set up org-contacts
| (require 'diary-lib); for making org-contacts anniversaries work
| (setq load-path (cons "~/.emacs.d/contacts" load-path))
| (require 'org-contacts)
| (setq org-contacts-files (quote ("~/org/contacts.org"))); set up org-contacts file
|
| ;; make org-mode play nicely together with yasnippets
| ;; http://eschulte.me/emacs-starter-kit/starter-kit-org.html
| (defun yas/org-very-safe-expand ()
|   (let ((yas/fallback-behavior 'return-nil)) (yas/expand)))
| (add-hook 'org-mode-hook
|           (lambda ()
|             ;; yasnippet (using the new org-cycle hooks)
|             (make-variable-buffer-local 'yas/trigger-key)
|             (setq yas/trigger-key [tab])
|             (add-to-list 'org-tab-first-hook 'yas/org-very-safe-expand)
|             (define-key yas/keymap [tab] 'yas/next-field)
|             ))
`----

Just a remark: The problem has nothing to do with Sweave (I just use Sweave for
some weeks now and the crashes I had long before). Last week a colleague
wanted to use my laptop and as soon as he hit the first button, Emacs
crashed (-- very annoying -- this was when I decided to try to track the problem down). That's why I have trouble figuring out what it is (and I was quite
"happy" to see "org-mode" popping up through Console.app as a reason -- at least
that gives a chance to track it down).

I'll further explore and get back to you (and the guys from Emacs bug tracker
who also are interested in this).


Cheers,

Marius

PS: I used the same .emacs on Ubuntu 11.10, only one line was changed (the
default font being changed from Menlo -- which is Mac-specific). I never
experienced a crash (although I just tried it for some hours, so I can't tell
for sure).