Subject: 29.4; set-face-attribute fails to actually set cursor face during init on debian

From: Garrett McLean <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2025 06:59:44 -0800

This involving init files, I can't start from emacs -Q, but hopefully
this is reproducible. This issue only occurs on my debian stable
machine, running the bookworm backports emacs package. I
can't reproduce it on my other machine (macOS).

1. remove all init (rm -fr .emacs.d for me)
2. start emacs
3. visit init file
4. add
(set-face-attribute 'cursor nil :background "#ff0000")
notice the call works if you eval-last-sexp on it.
5. exit emacs
6. start emacs. observe your cursor is not red.
7. Run (describe-face cursor), notice it says your cursor is red when it
is in fact not red.
8. Run (set-face-attribute 'cursor nil :background "#ff0000"), notice it
still does not make your cursor red.
9. Try the same command with "red" or any other color (even in hex). Now
your cursor changes color.

In GNU Emacs 29.4 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.38,
 cairo version 1.16.0) of 2024-12-15, modified by Debian built on sbuild
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12101007
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)

Configured using:
 'configure --build x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/29.4/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/29.4/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-sound=alsa --without-gconf --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --build x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/29.4/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/29.4/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-sound=alsa --without-gconf --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --with-cairo --with-x=yes
 --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-toolkit-scroll-bars 'CFLAGS=-g -O2
 -ffile-prefix-map=/build/reproducible-path/emacs-29.4+1=.
-fstack-protector-strong
 -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wall' 'CPPFLAGS=-Wdate-time
 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' LDFLAGS=-Wl,-z,relro'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES
NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3
THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP X11 XDBE XIM XINPUT2
XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  global-git-commit-mode: t
  magit-auto-revert-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  display-time-mode: t
  all-the-icons-completion-mode: t
  electric-pair-mode: t
  fido-vertical-mode: t
  icomplete-vertical-mode: t
  icomplete-mode: t
  fido-mode: t
  global-hl-line-mode: t
  global-display-line-numbers-mode: t
  display-line-numbers-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
/home/garrett/.emacs.d/elpa/transient-20250201.1314/transient hides
/usr/share/emacs/29.4/lisp/transient

Features:
(shadow sort face-remap mail-extr emacsbug cus-start magit-submodule
magit-blame magit-stash magit-reflog magit-bisect magit-push magit-pull
magit-fetch magit-clone magit-remote magit-commit magit-sequence
magit-notes magit-worktree magit-tag magit-merge magit-branch
magit-reset magit-files magit-refs magit-status magit magit-repos
magit-apply magit-wip magit-log which-func imenu magit-diff smerge-mode
diff diff-mode easy-mmode git-commit log-edit message sendmail
yank-media puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg
rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date mm-decode
mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 mm-util
ietf-drums mail-prsvr mailabbrev mail-utils gmm-utils mailheader
pcvs-util add-log magit-core magit-autorevert autorevert filenotify
magit-margin magit-transient magit-process with-editor shell pcomplete
comint ansi-osc ring server ansi-color magit-mode transient edmacro
kmacro benchmark magit-git magit-base magit-section format-spec
cursor-sensor crm llama comp comp-cstr warnings rx dash compat compat-30
time all-the-icons-completion all-the-icons all-the-icons-faces
data-material data-weathericons data-octicons data-fileicons
data-faicons data-alltheicons cl-extra help-mode modus-vivendi-theme
modus-themes elec-pair icomplete hl-line display-line-numbers cus-edit
pp cus-load icons wid-edit finder-inf all-the-icons-completion-autoloads
all-the-icons-dired-autoloads all-the-icons-ibuffer-autoloads
all-the-icons-autoloads ledger-mode-autoloads magit-autoloads pcase
magit-section-autoloads llama-autoloads dash-autoloads
transient-autoloads with-editor-autoloads info compat-autoloads
use-package-ensure use-package-core package browse-url url url-proxy
url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie
generate-lisp-file url-domsuf url-util mailcap url-handlers url-parse
auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs password-cache json subr-x
map byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile url-vars cl-loaddefs cl-lib rmc
iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook
vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win
term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register
page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded 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 dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit xinput2 x multi-tty
make-network-process native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 512898 22299)
 (symbols 48 25943 0)
 (strings 32 149338 6964)
 (string-bytes 1 3774937)
 (vectors 16 51648)
 (vector-slots 8 866415 36677)
 (floats 8 973 412)
 (intervals 56 507 0)
 (buffers 984 11))