GNU bug report logs - #889
23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" is misleading

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Message #5 received at submit <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: Yary Hluchan <yary <at> apicom.com>
To: emacs-pretest-bug <at> gnu.org
Subject: 23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" fails "No files can be recovered"
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:28:52 -0700

I'm running Emacs 23 on a laptop, and the laptop sometimes loses power.
That's not the problem.

When I boot and restart Emacs, I go to the File menu > "Recover Crashed
Session", it brings up a window like so:

 Move to the session you want to recover,
 then type C-c C-c to select it.

 You can also delete some of these files;
 type d on a line to mark that file for deletion.

  c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/Application Data/.emacs.d/auto-save-list:
  wildcard .saves-*
  total used in directory 5 available 21636216
  -rw-rw-rw-  1 Yary None  778 09-02 16:13 .saves-360-POPNOTE~
  -rw-rw-rw-  1 Yary None  382 08-15 09:21 .saves-1648-POPNOTE~
  -rw-rw-rw-  1 Yary None  138 08-10 15:06 .saves-2560-POPNOTE~
...

I put the cursor on the first line (".saves-360-POPNOTE~") and hit
C-c C-C, and get this error in *Messages*:

No files can be recovered from this session now

That error happens for any of the .saves files

The contents of .saves-360-POPNOTE~:
c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/My Documents/programming projects/API/brocade/src/mantis-trunk/phase3/process_files_new.php
c:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Edwards\My Documents\programming projects\API\brocade\src\mantis-trunk\phase3\#process_files_new.php#
c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/My Documents/programming projects/API/brocade/src/mantis-trunk/phase3/local_file.php
c:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Edwards\My Documents\programming projects\API\brocade\src\mantis-trunk\phase3\#local_file.php#
c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/My Documents/programming projects/API/brocade/src/mantis-trunk/phase3/filepath.php
c:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Edwards\My Documents\programming projects\API\brocade\src\mantis-trunk\phase3\#filepath.php#

The files exist, the temp files do not exist- in this case, I had
saved all my work.

In GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2008-09-03 on LENNART-69DE564
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (3.4) --no-opt --cflags -Ic:/g/include -fno-crossjumping'

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: ENU
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: cp1252
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Dired by date

Minor modes in effect:
  recentf-mode: t
  partial-completion-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  global-auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <menu-bar> <file> <recover-session> <down> 
<down> <up> <up> <return> C-x 2 C-x k <return> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-2> <left> C-x o <left> 
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> C-c C-c <escape> 
x r e p o <tab> r t - e m <tab> <return>

Recent messages:

File error: Cannot open load file, menuacc

To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the
cause of the error in your initialization file.  Start Emacs with
the `--debug-init' option to view a complete error backtrace.

For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
call-interactively: Beginning of buffer
No files can be recovered from this session now

Message #10 received at submit <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Yary Hluchan <yary <at> apicom.com>, 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: emacs-pretest-bug <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#889: 23.0.60;	"Recover Crashed Session" fails "No files can be recovered"
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:58:01 +0300

> Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:28:52 -0700
> From: Yary Hluchan <yary <at> apicom.com>
> Cc: 
> 
> The files exist, the temp files do not exist- in this case, I had
> saved all my work.

Please clarify: which of the files you mentioned in your report exist
and which don't.

Thanks.

Message #20 received at submit <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: Yary Hluchan <yary <at> apicom.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, emacs-pretest-bug <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#889: 23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" fails "No files can be recovered" 
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:39:41 -0700

These files exist:
c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/My Documents/programming projects/API/brocade/src/mantis-trunk/phase3/process_files_new.php
c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/My Documents/programming projects/API/brocade/src/mantis-trunk/phase3/local_file.php
c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/My Documents/programming projects/API/brocade/src/mantis-trunk/phase3/filepath.php

These files don't exist:
c:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Edwards\My Documents\programming projects\API\brocade\src\mantis-trunk\phase3\#process_files_new.php#
c:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Edwards\My Documents\programming projects\API\brocade\src\mantis-trunk\phase3\#local_file.php#
c:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Edwards\My Documents\programming projects\API\brocade\src\mantis-trunk\phase3\#filepath.php#

-y

~~~~~

The Moon is Waxing Crescent (32% of Full)

Message #32 received at 889 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: era+emacsbugs <at> iki.fi
To: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: "Recover Crashed Session" fails "No files can be recovered"
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:15:46 +0200

> No files can be recovered from this session now
<...>
> The files exist, the temp files do not exist- in this case, I had
> saved all my work.

I think this is basically a misunderstanding of what "recover-session"
does.

Emacs saves some state while you are editing.  These are stored in the
temporary files you see in the .saves-* file.  If you have unsaved
changes, recover-session can help you reclaim the unsaved data from the
temporary files into the proper files.

It does not "recover" your "session" back to the way it was before the
crash.  (The package "desktop" does something like this, but you have to
invoke "desktop-save" explicitly in order to start it.)

The Info documentation for Emacs explains this fairly well.
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Recover.html

Granted, I think it would be a lot more useful if recover-session could
work in the way the reporter expected.

In the meantime, perhaps the docstring for recover-session should be
clarified.

I have a private bit of elisp I call "recover-buffers" but it's not on
the machine where I'm writing this.  Remind me to follow up here with a
pointer to a public repository in a few weeks.  Thanks.

/* era */

-- 
If this were a real .signature, it would suck less.  Well, maybe not.

Message #37 received at 889 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: era+emacsbugs <at> iki.fi
To: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: "Recover Crashed Session" fails "No files can be recovered"
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:30:39 +0200

On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:49:21 -0800, "Yary Hluchan" said:
> Here's your reminder!

Thanks.

I set up a public Darcs repo at
http://porkmail.org/elisp/recover-buffers

Darcs isn't invasive; you don't actually need Darcs to download it.  In
fact you can just browse the code by visiting that URL.

This piggybacks on recover-session, and then just redefines the C-c C-c
keybinding to run recover-buffers-finish instead of
recover-session-finish.  It does call recover-session-finish from inside
recover-buffers-finish, but then proceeds to visit all files from the
auto-save file.

The recover-buffers-skip-list feature probably isn't very useful; my
vague recollection is that my previous version had this feature because
recovering remote Tramp files used to be something I didn't want to
attempt, but these days Tramp is well-supported and I haven't come up
with any other scenario where I would actually still want this.  So
perhaps it should just be obsoleted.

Hope this is useful for y'all,

/* era */

-- 
If this were a real .signature, it would suck less.  Well, maybe not.

Message #40 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Yary Hluchan <yary <at> apicom.com>
Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: 23.0.60;
	"Recover Crashed Session" fails "No files can be recovered"
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:05:18 +0200

Yary Hluchan <yary <at> apicom.com> writes:

> I'm running Emacs 23 on a laptop, and the laptop sometimes loses power.
> That's not the problem.
>
> When I boot and restart Emacs, I go to the File menu > "Recover Crashed
> Session", it brings up a window like so:
>
>  Move to the session you want to recover,
>  then type C-c C-c to select it.
>
>  You can also delete some of these files;
>  type d on a line to mark that file for deletion.
>
>   c:/Documents and Settings/Stephen Edwards/Application Data/.emacs.d/auto-save-list:
>   wildcard .saves-*
>   total used in directory 5 available 21636216
>   -rw-rw-rw-  1 Yary None  778 09-02 16:13 .saves-360-POPNOTE~
>   -rw-rw-rw-  1 Yary None  382 08-15 09:21 .saves-1648-POPNOTE~
>   -rw-rw-rw-  1 Yary None  138 08-10 15:06 .saves-2560-POPNOTE~
> ...
>
> I put the cursor on the first line (".saves-360-POPNOTE~") and hit
> C-c C-C, and get this error in *Messages*:
>
> No files can be recovered from this session now

I'm unable to reproduce this bug in Emacs 24.  If I have a ~/.saves-*
file, where some of the files are deleted, and some are not, `M-x
recover-session' correctly recovers the non-deleted files.

So either this bug has been fixed by now, or there's something in your
setup I'm now able to reproduce.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Message #49 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "era eriksson" <era <at> iki.fi>
To: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, control <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Reopen #889
Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:56:10 +0300

reopen 889
thanks

[Resend -- attempted to reopen before, with a Cc: to Larsi.]

On Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:05:18 +0200, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
<larsi <at> gnus.org> wrote:
> I'm unable to reproduce this bug in Emacs 24.  If I have a ~/.saves-*
> file, where some of the files are deleted, and some are not, `M-x
> recover-session' correctly recovers the non-deleted files.
> So either this bug has been fixed by now, or there's something in your
> setup I'm now able to reproduce.

Larsi, I think you misunderstand the issue.  My understanding is that this is a feature request: recover-session should recover your entire session after a crash, which it doesn't do, and never has done.

Reopening; obviously, feel free to reclose if I am mistaken (and / or there really is such functionality in Emacs24 now.  Cursory review of the bzr head suggests that there isn't).

/* era */

-- 
If this were a real .signature, it would suck less.  Well, maybe not.


/* era */

-- 
If this were a real .signature, it would suck less.  Well, maybe not.

Message #60 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: era eriksson <era <at> iki.fi>
To: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: recover-buffers moved
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 09:29:12 +0200

In case somebody still wants to take a look, the recover-buffers code is
now hosted on Github.

https://github.com/tripleee/recover-buffers

The current license is dual GPL/BSD but if you would like to consider
inclusion with Emacs, I'd be happy to change it.

/* era */

-- 
If this were a real .signature, it would suck less.  Well, maybe not.

Message #63 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: "era eriksson" <era <at> iki.fi>
Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, control <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#889: 23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" is misleading
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2022 15:01:57 +0100

"era eriksson" <era <at> iki.fi> writes:

> Larsi, I think you misunderstand the issue.  My understanding is that
> this is a feature request: recover-session should recover your entire
> session after a crash, which it doesn't do, and never has done.

The function is defined to:

---
Recover auto save files from a previous Emacs session.
---

Which I think it does successfully?

> In case somebody still wants to take a look, the recover-buffers code is
> now hosted on Github.
>
> https://github.com/tripleee/recover-buffers
>
> The current license is dual GPL/BSD but if you would like to consider
> inclusion with Emacs, I'd be happy to change it.

If you want to restore the session from where you left off, I think the
recommended way to do that is to use the desktop package.
recover-session is more lightweight, and your proposed recover-buffers
(if I read the code correctly) sort of automates some bits of what
recover-session does?

I can't really remember much demand for something like this in Emacs,
since there are already other packages like desktop that's meant for
this, so I'm not sure it makes sense to add something like
recover-buffers to Emacs.  Does anybody else have an opinion here?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #68 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: "era eriksson" <era <at> iki.fi>
Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, control <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#889: 23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" is misleading
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2022 19:31:55 +0100

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> I can't really remember much demand for something like this in Emacs,
> since there are already other packages like desktop that's meant for
> this, so I'm not sure it makes sense to add something like
> recover-buffers to Emacs.  Does anybody else have an opinion here?

Nobody had an opinion here in a month, so I'm closing this as a "wontfix".

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #75 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: era <era+emacs <at> iki.fi>
To: "Lars Ingebrigtsen" <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#889: 23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" is misleading
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 07:09:54 +0200

On Mon, Mar 21, 2022, at 20:31, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Nobody had an opinion here in a month, so I'm closing this as a "wontfix".

The actual  bug report here is that  the description of what "recover-buffers" does is vaguely wrong.

I reported it because I came across people who thought it was supposed to do more.

-- 
If this were a real .signature, it would suck less.  Well, maybe not.

Message #78 received at 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: era <era+emacs <at> iki.fi>
Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, larsi <at> gnus.org
Subject: Re: bug#889: 23.0.60; "Recover Crashed Session" is misleading
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:02:51 +0200

> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 07:09:54 +0200
> From: era <era+emacs <at> iki.fi>
> Cc: 889 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2022, at 20:31, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> > Nobody had an opinion here in a month, so I'm closing this as a "wontfix".
> 
> The actual  bug report here is that  the description of what "recover-buffers" does is vaguely wrong.
> 
> I reported it because I came across people who thought it was supposed to do more.

The current doc string says:

  Recover auto save files from a previous Emacs session.
  This command first displays a Dired buffer showing you the
  previous sessions that you could recover from.
  To choose one, move point to the proper line and then type C-c C-c.
  Then you’ll be asked about a number of files to recover.

This is quite descriptive, IMO, but if you can point out where are the
potentially confusing parts, maybe we could make it even better.

For example, if we reword the first sentence like this:

  Recover your edits saved in auto-save files by previous Emacs sessions.

will the doc string be less confusing?  Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

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