Dear all,

start of gnus fails, if .newsrc.eld contains a directory group.
Steps to reproduce:

Create empty directory: mkdir /tmp/foo
Start emacs with neither .newsrc nor .newrc.eld nor .nnmail-cache:
src/emacs -Q
Start gnus: M-x gnus ("No news is good news", which is expected.)

Subscribe to /tmp/foo as directory group:
G d /tmp/foo
That group appears.  Hitting space to read messages, I see "Group
nndir:/tmp/foo contains no messages", which is expected.
Quit gnus: q y
Quit emacs.

Now .newsrc exists and is empty, and .newsrc.eld exists and is attached.
Start emacs again:
src/emacs -Q
Starting gnus fails:
M-x gnus
-> Last messages from echo area are (with non-printable characters
removed before sending; full error text in 2nd attachment):
Reading active file from /tmp/baz via nndir...
apply: Wrong number of arguments: #[(&optional server) "Š
Æ!ˆ*Ç )ȇ" [nnmail-active-file-coding-system
nnmail-pathname-coding-system file-name-coding-system
nnmail-file-coding-system nnml-active-file nnml-group-alist
nnmail-find-file nnmail-get-active t] 2], 2

The same scenario also fails with a non-empty directory:
Quit emacs, delete .newsrc and .newsrc.eld.
If I copy an e-mail into /tmp/foo before invoking "G d", I see that
directory as group and can read the e-mail just fine.  After
restarting emacs, "M-x gnus" fails with the above error message.

Output from "M-x report-emacs-bug" follows.

In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.20.1)
 of 2013-03-05 on pcwi7557
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.10706000
System Description:	Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: de_DE.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Fundamental

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


Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug sendmail help-mode novice nndir nndraft
nnmh nnfolder nnagent nnml network-stream auth-source eieio byte-opt
bytecomp byte-compile cconv starttls tls gnus-agent gnus-srvr gnus-score
score-mode nnvirtual gnus-msg gnus-art mm-uu mml2015 epg-config mm-view
mml-smime smime password-cache dig mailcap nntp gnus-cache gnus-sum nnoo
gnus-group gnus-undo nnmail mail-source gnus-start gnus-spec gnus-int
gnus-range message format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec mm-decode
mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums
mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader gnus-win gnus gnus-ems nnheader
gnus-util mail-utils mm-util mail-prsvr wid-edit time-date tooltip
ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd
fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode
register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse
jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties
overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process dbusbind
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty emacs)

Kind regards
Jens Lechtenbörger