Intermittent problem in which all cursor movement selects text

[William Henney-2]

Hi David

For the past several versions of Aquamacs, I regularly run into the  
following problem and I've finally got annoyed enough to file a  
report. The problem only manifests itself after I have been using  
Aquamacs for a long time (days). I am quite prepared to believe that  
the problem is due to interaction with some personal configuration or  
loaded package, but this is very difficult for me to test....

What happens is that Aquamacs will get into a state where any movement  
of the cursor (arrow keys, C-v, C-a, whatever) selects text in the  
same way that shifted motion keys are suposed to. This can be "cured"  
by executing M-x normal-mode, but the cure is only temporary. Some  
time later (sometimes 20 mins, sometimes 1 min) it will happen again.

I don't really expect you to be able to debug a problem like this, but  
I'm posting it in case anyone else is seeing the same problem. If so,  
maybe we can find what we have in common with our configurations.

Cheers

Will


In GNU Emacs 22.2.50.2 (i386-apple-darwin9.2.2, Carbon Version 1.6.0)
  of 2008-06-17 on plume.sr.unh.edu - Aquamacs Distribution 1.4
Windowing system distributor `Apple Inc.', version 10.5.4
configured using `configure  '--without-x' '--prefix=/usr/local''

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: nil
   locale-coding-system: iso-8859-1
   default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: PDFLaTeX/F

Minor modes in effect:
   reftex-mode: t
   TeX-fold-mode: t
   TeX-PDF-mode: t
   savehist-mode: t
   smart-frame-positioning-mode: t
   recentf-mode: t
   encoded-kbd-mode: t
   osx-key-mode: t
   delete-selection-mode: t
   pc-selection-mode: t
   cua-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
   unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
   utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
   auto-compression-mode: t
   column-number-mode: t
   line-number-mode: t
   transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> : S-SPC S 0 0 <backspace> <backspace>
4 5 L , SPC S 0 0 L <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <wheel-up>
<double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <wheel-up>
<double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up>
<double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
<triple-wheel-up> C-c C-c SPC <return> <help-echo>
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <escape> < C-s p l a s m a
SPC <down> i s SPC i n i t i a l l y SPC c o n s t
a n t SPC t h r o u g h o u t SPC t h e SPC s i m u
l a t i o n SPC b o x , SPC b e i n g SPC C-SPC <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <backspace>
M-q <down> C-g <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<down> <down> <up> <up> M-x <up> <return> <wheel-down>
<double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <wheel-down>
<double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> C-x C-s <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down>
<triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<wheel-down> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
<menu-bar> <help-menu> <send-emacs-bug-report>

Recent messages:
LaTeX: successfully formatted {5} pages.
Mark set [2 times]
Mark activated
Quit
Mark set
Applying style hooks... done
Sorting environment...
Removing duplicates... done
Wrote /Users/will/Work/Fabio/Papers/Globules/mhd-globules.tex
Loading emacsbug...done

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[davidswelt]

Will,
do you inadvertently press C-SPC to explicitly set the mark?
This was my first guess, and your log shows this as well:

> a n t SPC t h r o u g h o u t SPC t h e SPC s i m u
> l a t i o n SPC b o x , SPC b e i n g SPC C-SPC <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>

This is a feature, not a bug :)

- David

--
http://aquamacs.org -- Aquamacs: Emacs on Mac OS X
http://aquamacs.org/donate -- Could we help you? Return the favor and  
support the Aquamacs Project!






On 12 Jul 2008, at 11:15, William Henney wrote:

> Hi David
>
> For the past several versions of Aquamacs, I regularly run into the
> following problem and I've finally got annoyed enough to file a
> report. The problem only manifests itself after I have been using
> Aquamacs for a long time (days). I am quite prepared to believe that
> the problem is due to interaction with some personal configuration or
> loaded package, but this is very difficult for me to test....
>
> What happens is that Aquamacs will get into a state where any movement
> of the cursor (arrow keys, C-v, C-a, whatever) selects text in the
> same way that shifted motion keys are suposed to. This can be "cured"
> by executing M-x normal-mode, but the cure is only temporary. Some
> time later (sometimes 20 mins, sometimes 1 min) it will happen again.
>
> I don't really expect you to be able to debug a problem like this, but
> I'm posting it in case anyone else is seeing the same problem. If so,
> maybe we can find what we have in common with our configurations.
>
> Cheers
>
> Will
>
>
> In GNU Emacs 22.2.50.2 (i386-apple-darwin9.2.2, Carbon Version 1.6.0)
>  of 2008-06-17 on plume.sr.unh.edu - Aquamacs Distribution 1.4
> Windowing system distributor `Apple Inc.', version 10.5.4
> configured using `configure  '--without-x' '--prefix=/usr/local''
>
> 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: nil
>   locale-coding-system: iso-8859-1
>   default-enable-multibyte-characters: t
>
> Major mode: PDFLaTeX/F
>
> Minor modes in effect:
>   reftex-mode: t
>   TeX-fold-mode: t
>   TeX-PDF-mode: t
>   savehist-mode: t
>   smart-frame-positioning-mode: t
>   recentf-mode: t
>   encoded-kbd-mode: t
>   osx-key-mode: t
>   delete-selection-mode: t
>   pc-selection-mode: t
>   cua-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
>   unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
>   utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
>   auto-compression-mode: t
>   column-number-mode: t
>   line-number-mode: t
>   transient-mark-mode: t
>
> Recent input:
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> : S-SPC S 0 0 <backspace> <backspace>
> 4 5 L , SPC S 0 0 L <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <wheel-up>
> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <wheel-up>
> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <wheel-up>
> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up> <triple-wheel-up>
> <triple-wheel-up> C-c C-c SPC <return> <help-echo>
> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <escape> < C-s p l a s m a
> SPC <down> i s SPC i n i t i a l l y SPC c o n s t
> a n t SPC t h r o u g h o u t SPC t h e SPC s i m u
> l a t i o n SPC b o x , SPC b e i n g SPC C-SPC <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <backspace>
> M-q <down> C-g <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <down> <down> <up> <up> M-x <up> <return> <wheel-down>
> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <wheel-down>
> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> C-x C-s <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down>
> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <wheel-up> <double-wheel-up>
> <menu-bar> <help-menu> <send-emacs-bug-report>
>
> Recent messages:
> LaTeX: successfully formatted {5} pages.
> Mark set [2 times]
> Mark activated
> Quit
> Mark set
> Applying style hooks... done
> Sorting environment...
> Removing duplicates... done
> Wrote /Users/will/Work/Fabio/Papers/Globules/mhd-globules.tex
> Loading emacsbug...done

 

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[William Henney-2]

Hi David

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 10:20 AM, David Reitter <david.reitter@...> wrote:
> do you inadvertently press C-SPC to explicitly set the mark?
> This was my first guess, and your log shows this as well:
>
>> a n t SPC t h r o u g h o u t SPC t h e SPC s i m u
>> l a t i o n SPC b o x , SPC b e i n g SPC C-SPC <right>
>> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
>
> This is a feature, not a bug :)
>

No, that isn't it I'm afraid. Yes, you are right that I used C-SPC
there, but it was on purpose during a time that emacs was working
normally. Quoting from my key log:

l a t i o n SPC b o x , SPC b e i n g SPC C-SPC <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <right>
<right> <right> <right> <right> <right> <backspace>

In the above, everything was working fine.

M-q <down> C-g <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
    ^^^^^

It was around here that the problems started

<down> <down> <up> <up> M-x <up> <return> <wheel-down>
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And here is where I did M-x normal-mode to fix it.

Cheers

Will



--

 Dr William Henney, Centro de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica,
 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia

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[davidswelt]

On 12 Jul 2008, at 12:04, William Henney wrote:
>
> M-q <down> C-g <wheel-down> <double-wheel-down> <triple-wheel-down>
>    ^^^^^
>
> It was around here that the problems started

OK, did M-q take an awful long time? Why did you use C-g there?

- D

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[davidswelt]

On 12 Jul 2008, at 12:20, William Henney wrote:
>
> I think that the <down> was starting to select the region. My first
> instinct was to do C-g, which deselected the region, but didn't solve
> the underlying problem.

Try C-SPC next time.

We need to establish if it is always M-q that causes it.  If that's  
the case, one would probably want to look at the paragraph that is  
being reformatted, i.e. do an Undo and then copy/paste the paragraph  
to save its state.

- D

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[William Henney-2]

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 11:24 AM, David Reitter <david.reitter@...> wrote:
> On 12 Jul 2008, at 12:20, William Henney wrote:
>>
>> I think that the <down> was starting to select the region. My first
>> instinct was to do C-g, which deselected the region, but didn't solve
>> the underlying problem.
>
> Try C-SPC next time.
>

Will do.

> We need to establish if it is always M-q that causes it.  If that's the
> case, one would probably want to look at the paragraph that is being
> reformatted, i.e. do an Undo and then copy/paste the paragraph to save its
> state.
>

OK, thanks for the advice. This keystroke analysis is even better than
M-x doctor! :)

Cheers

Will

--

 Dr William Henney, Centro de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica,
 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia

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[William Henney-2]

Finally, I can reproduce the problem (semi) repeatably.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Aquamacs and use it heavily for a few days/weeks :) I spend
99% of my time between AUCTeX, org-mode, shell, dired, python-mode,
and f90-mode but the exact mix doesn't seem to matter.

2. Eventually, Aquamacs will get into into a state where the following
can be triggered reliably.

3. Set the mark with C-space.

4. Use cursor movement commands to define a region.

5. Copy the region with M-w. The region highlighting should disappear.

6. Now use cursor movement commands again: you will start to highlight
another region, just as if you had pressed C-space again after the
M-w.

7. Pressing C-space gets things back to normal (back to step 2).

8. Quitting and restarting Aquamacs gets you back to step 1.

However, I think there are other circumstances that trigger the bug,
such as the M-q from last time. Here is the key log from the last time
it happened:

SPC n o w SPC <help-echo> <up> <up> <down> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> A
SPC f e a t u r e SPC a n a n <backspace> l o g o u
s SPC t o SPC M-l M-q <down> <down> <left> SPC f o
r m s SPC <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
a t SPC t h e SPC t o p SPC c o r n e r SPC o f SPC
t h e SPC g l o b u l e SPC h e a d , SPC w h e r e
SPC t h e SPC i n i t i l <backspace> a l SPC m a g
n e t i c SPC f i e l d SPC i s SPC t a n g e n t i
a l SPC t o SPC t h e SPC l b u l e SPC <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> g <right> o C-e s u r f
a c e . SPC <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <return> C-c C-e C-g <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up>
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <up> <up> <up> C-SPC
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <down> <up> M-w <down> <down> <down>
                              ^
                              |
                    Here starts the bug.

<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> C-h
l

So the problem started after I had just selected and copied a region.

Cheers

Will


On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 11:27 AM, William Henney <whenney@...> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 11:24 AM, David Reitter <david.reitter@...> wrote:
>> On 12 Jul 2008, at 12:20, William Henney wrote:
>>>
>>> I think that the <down> was starting to select the region. My first
>>> instinct was to do C-g, which deselected the region, but didn't solve
>>> the underlying problem.
>>
>> Try C-SPC next time.
>>
>
> Will do.
>
>> We need to establish if it is always M-q that causes it.  If that's the
>> case, one would probably want to look at the paragraph that is being
>> reformatted, i.e. do an Undo and then copy/paste the paragraph to save its
>> state.
>>
>
> OK, thanks for the advice. This keystroke analysis is even better than
> M-x doctor! :)
>
> Cheers
>
> Will
>
> --
>
>  Dr William Henney, Centro de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica,
>  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia
>

--

 Dr William Henney, Centro de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica,
 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia

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