Re: Random "Regular expression too big"

[Joseph Shraibman]

In the last couple of days this starting being a problem for me, I don't 
know why.  I'm getting it most of the time.  Sometimes I can't even exit 
emacs because the quit command fails with "Regular expression too big"

Rob Emanuele wrote:
> So far the error still happens, with no stack trace even after
> --debug-init and M-: (setq debug-on-error t).  It happens lets say 1
> in 4 times of starting emacs.
>
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 2:36 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> > Hi, Rob!
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 12:03:31PM -0700, Rob Emanuele wrote:
> > > Greetings,
> > > Every now and again I've been getting an error "Regular expression too
> > > big".  This seems to occur randomly.  Sometimes it can occur on startup
> > > and emacs never opens.  Other times emacs opens and these messages
> > > below are listed out.  Yet other times it'll happen in the middle of my
> > > work while I'm saving, setting the fontset, or doing some otherwise
> > > innocuous task.
> > Does it happen:
> > (i) a lot - so often that you can hardly get your work done;
> > (ii) sometimes - once or twice a week, but you're continually on edge
> >  about it.
> > (iii) once a blue moon?
> >
> > Hopefull it's (i) or (ii).  :-)
> >
> > A good thing to do would be to start your Emacs as
> >
> >  emacs --debug-init
> >
> > , and once you've started OK, do
> >
> >  M-: (setq debug-on-error t)
> >
> > .  One of these will generate a lisp stack dump when the error happens
> > again.
> >
> > > This is with emacs:
> > > GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.5) of
> > > 2008-05-23 on xenbuilder2.fedora.redhat.com
> > > This will still happen even if I remove my .emacs and even if I remove
> > > /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp.
> > Hmmm...  That suggests that some other initialisation file is giving you
> > grief.  There's a list of these files on the page "Init File" in the
> > Emacs manual.  Try doing
> >
> > M-x locate-library default
> >
> > .  If this locates a default.el, the problem may be there.
> >
> > > ("emacs" "production/main.cpp")
> > > Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/focus-init.el (source)...done
> > > Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/igrep-init.el (source)...done
> > > Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/php-mode-init.el (source)...done
> > > Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/po-mode-init.el (source)...done
> > > Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/rpm-spec-mode-init.el
> > > (source)...done
> > > For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
> > > Loading cc-mode...done
> > > File mode specification error: (invalid-regexp "Regular expression too big")
> > This error occurs in the function `normal-mode', which was in the course
> > of determining the major mode for the file you were trying to visit
> > (whatever that might be).  Seeing as how CC Mode has just been loaded,
> > this could well be a C, C++, ... file.
> >
> > > Loading vc-svn...done
> > > Loading vc...done
> > > vc-svn-parse-status: Invalid regexp: "Regular expression too big"
> > > mouse-drag-region: Invalid regexp: "Regular expression too big" [2 times]
> >  byte-code: Beginning of buffer
> > > Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (invalid-regexp Regular expression too big)
> > > Thank you for any help fixing this or working around it!
> > You do seem to like big regular expressions rather a lot.  ;-)
> >
> > Anyhow, please activate these things which will generate a stack dump.
> > That might well enable you to fix the problem yourself.  If not, post the
> > dump here.
> >
> > > --Rob
> > --
> > Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).