While editing the ~/.emacs file in emacs, the machine rebooted (kernel panic I believe). This left a lock file behind. The ~/.emacs file is actually a softlink: .emacs -> /Users//Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs The fact that it's a softlink may or may not be relevant. In ~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/, there was a file: .#dotemacs After the reboot, I started emacs, and continued with further edits to .emacs. Upon saving .emacs, had the following warning: ⛔ Warning (unlock-file): Unlocking file: Invalid argument, ~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs, ignored As per the warning, the save was nonetheless successful. Invoking file-locked-p directly, I saw the same error, and the following debug info: Debugger entered--Lisp error: (file-error "Testing file lock" "Invalid argument" "~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs") file-locked-p("~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs") eval((file-locked-p "~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs") t) eval-expression((file-locked-p "~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs") nil nil 127) funcall-interactively(eval-expression (file-locked-p "~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/dotemacs") nil nil 127) call-interactively(eval-expression nil nil) command-execute(eval-expression) After removing the lock file manually, the warning on save goes away: rm ~/Dropbox/Documents/Projects/emacs/.#dotemacs Access flags on dotemacs file are as follows: -rw-r--r--@ 1 dgreatwood staff 133806 May 15 16:01 dotemacs lrwxr-xr-x 1 dgreatwood staff 59 Dec 6 2015 .emacs -> ... Thanks. ---- In GNU Emacs 29.1 (build 1, aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0, NS appkit-2113.60 Version 12.6.6 (Build 21G646)) of 2023-08-16 built on armbob.lan Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.2487 System Description: macOS 14.5 Configured using: 'configure --with-ns '--enable-locallisppath=/Library/Application Support/Emacs/${version}/site-lisp:/Library/Application Support/Emacs/site-lisp' --with-modules 'CFLAGS=-DFD_SETSIZE=10000 -DDARWIN_UNLIMITED_SELECT' --with-x-toolkit=no' Configured features: ACL GLIB GMP GNUTLS JPEG JSON LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY KQUEUE NS PDUMPER PNG RSVG SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER ZLIB Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Messages Minor modes in effect: server-mode: t override-global-mode: t delete-selection-mode: t tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t show-paren-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t 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/Users/username/.emacs.d/elpa/use-package-20221029.1857/use-package-diminish hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/use-package/use-package-diminish /Users/username/.emacs.d/elpa/use-package-20221029.1857/use-package hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/use-package/use-package /Users/username/.emacs.d/elpa/use-package-20221029.1857/use-package-bind-key hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/use-package/use-package-bind-key /Users/username/.emacs.d/elpa/bind-key-20221028.1858/bind-key hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/use-package/bind-key /Users/username/.emacs.d/elpa/use-package-20221029.1857/use-package-lint hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/use-package/use-package-lint /Users/username/.emacs.d/lisp/linum hides /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/obsolete/linum Features: (shadow mail-extr emacsbug misearch multi-isearch help-fns radix-tree cl-print debug backtrace warnings 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button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads kqueue cocoa ns multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 407012 134522) (symbols 48 26631 1) (strings 32 138327 48200) (string-bytes 1 3541370) (vectors 16 50914) (vector-slots 8 1424473 208168) (floats 8 298 443) (intervals 56 1081 0) (buffers 984 16)) -- NOTICE: This email and its attachments may contain privileged and confidential information, only for the viewing and use of the intended recipient. 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