Package updating, and behavior of hangs

[Eric Abrahamsen]

I get hangs a lot when updating `package-list', and find the bailout
behavior weird.

My `package-archives' looks like this:

(("gnu" . "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/";)
 ("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/";)
 ("org" . "http://orgmode.org/elpa/";))

The "org" entry is the one mostly responsible for my problems. It hangs
a lot, and sometimes I have to "C-g" out of it, and then
`package--downloads-in-progress' is left with the "melpa" and "gnu"
entries, and "Package Menu:Loading" in the status bar, and I can't do
anything with the packages.

If I `list-processes', I see:

elpa.gnu.org -- failed *http elpa.gnu.org:443* -- Main (network connection to 
elpa.gnu.org)
melpa.org -- failed *http melpa.org:443* -- Main (network connection to 
melpa.org)
orgmode.org<1> -- open -- -- Main (network connection to orgmode.org)

If I "d" on the orgmode process it just goes away, nothing else happens.
If I "d" on either of the other two, I get something like this in *Messages*:

error in process sentinel: Error retrieving:
https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/archive-contents (error connection-failed
"deleted " :host "elpa.gnu.org" :service 443)

Then I "d" on the other one, get the same sentinel error, then get
"Package update done", and the *Packages* buffer finally refreshes and I
have control of that again.

I don't really know how this should behave, but it seems like there
ought to be a better recovery mechanism for timeouts...

Eric