Projects - Reporting Emacs Lisp Bugs

Diagnosing the problem
Selecting and pasting a region
Getting a backtrace
Okay, enough backtraces already!
Look at the Messages buffer
Reporting the problem
Composing the bug report
Who to send it to

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.

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.

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.

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.

Who to send it to

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