Re: XEmacs suddenly doesn't work on my Mac

>  > I'm running XEmacs beta (21.4 patch 22) on my up-to-date iMac running
>  > El Capitan. (Mac OS X 10.11.5)

> I'm running XEmacs 21.5.recent, same version of Mac OS X on a MacBook
> Pro.  XQuartz is XQuartz 1.18.99.1 (xorg-server 1.18.99.1) (you can
> copy-paste that from the X11 menu, About).

Mine is 2.7.9 (xorg-server 1.17.4)

>  > After installing the new version, when I start XEmacs the usual way
>  > (from a menu ... but I also tried it from a terminal command line), I
>  > get this message on STDERR:
>
> By "terminal", do you mean an X terminal such as xterm, or do you mean
> Terminal.app?

Both xterm and Terminal.app. I have to redirect STDERR to a file to
catch it. Without that (as when I try to open it from a XQuartz menu
option), it just blinks.

>  > X server not responding
>  > : "/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.zC9wJRhG9U/org.macosforge.xquartz:0.0"

> Did you restart X?

Yes. Several times. Meanwhile we had a major storm and were without
electricity for eight or ten hours, so that also forced a reboot.
Actually, I've rebooted a couple of times, though I normally reboot
only once a month or less.

> Perhaps you have multiple installations of X and XEmacs is linked to
> the wrong libraries (which just happened to work before).

Perhaps. I could check that.

> There is a really stupid bug in Mac OS X such that named socket names
> have a really short length limit.  Yes, it's so short that it's
> conceivable that the above is too long.  This bug bit TRAMP a while
> back.  TRAMP is written in LISP so I hacked around it, then Michael A
> fixed it upstream pretty quick.  X is another matter....

> Are other X apps working?

Yes. All I tried was xterm, xlogo, xman, and xeyes. I don't actually
use any of them, but they all work.

> Where did you get XQuartz, and in what form?

That's an interesting question, and I'm embarrassed to say I don't
know the answer offhand. It's one of those things I got a long time
ago, I thought directly from whoever makes it.  ... Got it from Apple
I thought. Dang, now that I'm trying to remember where that thingy
that tells me I have software updates is and what it's called, I can't
lay my hands on it.

>  > I've considered biting the bullet and switching over to GNU Emacs, but
>  > I really, really don't want to do that. I *like* XEmacs the way it is,

> You can get an older version of XQuartz at
> https://www.xquartz.org/releases/index.html.

I may resort to that.

> You could also try the MacPorts or Homebrew versions (if you have one
> of those distros installed already, but I wouldn't recommend

Yeah, Maybe MacPorts, but I'd rather try other options first.

-- 
Lynn David Newton
Columbus, Ohio
neologisticsediting.com
lynndavidnewton.com