GNU bug report logs - #79308
30.2; Maximum buffer size exceeded when running package-list-packages

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 30.2; Maximum buffer size exceeded when running package-list-packages
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 11:40:24 +0200

Hi,
after upgrading to Emacs 30.2 I've this error message when running the 'package-list-packages' 
command:

"find-file-noselect-1: Maximum buffer size exceeded"

Running the command more times seems to make the message disappear, but doing some tests I found 
that the cause of the problem, at least in my system, seems to be the configuration of 
"custom-file' to 'null-device'.
Leaving it at its default value or setting it to a different real file (e.g. 'my-custom.el' in 
'user-emacs-directory') does not cause any errors.

If it matters my Emacs is a locally 'self compiled' version running on KDE Plasma (Wayland)


In GNU Emacs 30.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.43,
 cairo version 1.18.0) of 2025-08-16 built on localhost
System Description: openSUSE Leap 15.6

Configured using:
 'configure --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes --without-dbus
 --without-gconf --without-gsettings --with-mailutils
 --without-native-compilation --with-json --with-tree-sitter
 --prefix=/home/user/bin/pkg/emacs --with-pgtk --without-xwidgets
 --without-xaw3d --with-gif --with-jpeg --with-png --with-rsvg
 --with-tiff --with-xft --with-xpm --with-gpm=no --with-modules
 --without-pop'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS HARFBUZZ JPEG LCMS2 LIBOTF
LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PGTK PNG
RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER
WEBP XIM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: it_IT.utf8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Message #8 received at 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79308: 30.2;
 Maximum buffer size exceeded when running package-list-packages
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 17:42:08 +0300

> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 11:40:24 +0200
> From:  Enrico Rivarola via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
> 
> Hi,
> after upgrading to Emacs 30.2 I've this error message when running the 'package-list-packages' 
> command:
> 
> "find-file-noselect-1: Maximum buffer size exceeded"
> 
> Running the command more times seems to make the message disappear, but doing some tests I found 
> that the cause of the problem, at least in my system, seems to be the configuration of 
> "custom-file' to 'null-device'.
> Leaving it at its default value or setting it to a different real file (e.g. 'my-custom.el' in 
> 'user-emacs-directory') does not cause any errors.

I cannot reproduce this.  I started Emacs, the typed

  M-: (setq custom-file null-device) RET

then typed

  M-x package-list-packages RET

and Emacs displayed the list of packages without any error message.

Can anyone else reproduce this problem?

Message #11 received at 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Jeremy Bryant <jb <at> jeremybryant.net>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
Subject: Re: bug#79308: 30.2; Maximum buffer size exceeded when running
 package-list-packages
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2025 20:39:30 +0100

Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> writes:

>> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 11:40:24 +0200
>> From:  Enrico Rivarola via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
>> 
>> Hi,
>> after upgrading to Emacs 30.2 I've this error message when running the 'package-list-packages' 
>> command:
>> 
>> "find-file-noselect-1: Maximum buffer size exceeded"
>> 
>> Running the command more times seems to make the message disappear, but doing some tests I found 
>> that the cause of the problem, at least in my system, seems to be the configuration of 
>> "custom-file' to 'null-device'.
>> Leaving it at its default value or setting it to a different real file (e.g. 'my-custom.el' in 
>> 'user-emacs-directory') does not cause any errors.
>
> I cannot reproduce this.  I started Emacs, the typed
>
>   M-: (setq custom-file null-device) RET
>
> then typed
>
>   M-x package-list-packages RET
>
> and Emacs displayed the list of packages without any error message.
>
> Can anyone else reproduce this problem?

FWIW I was no able to reproduce this bug on emacs -Q

Message #14 received at 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
To: Jeremy Bryant <jb <at> jeremybryant.net>, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#79308: 30.2; Maximum buffer size exceeded when running
 package-list-packages
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:01:39 +0200

Thanks for response,
I tried recompiling Emacs, but I still have the problem.
Maybe the problem is related to something on my system, but I don't know.
For now, I've solved it by setting 'custom-file' to a 'real' file (e.g "my-custom.el" in 
'user-emacs-directory').
I found two messages that refer to the same problem on 'help-gnu-emacs' archive for the Emacs 30 
series:
* "Maximum buffer size exceeded when running package-list-packages"
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2025-03/msg00343.html
* "Maximum buffer size message on Emacs 30.1"
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2025-03/msg00187.html

in my case I created a testing script to reproduce the problem, at least on my system:

######################################################################
#!/bin/bash -e

rm -rf ~/emacs-tmp
mkdir ~/emacs-tmp
cat <<EOF > ~/emacs-tmp/init.el
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)
(setq custom-file null-device)
(package-install 'git-gutter)
EOF

emacs --init-directory=~/emacs-tmp --eval "(package-list-packages)"
######################################################################

'git-gutter' is one of my installed package but I don't think it's important for testing, what's 
needed for testing purposes is to install some packages.

Thanks
Enrico


Il 26/08/25 21:39, Jeremy Bryant ha scritto:
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> writes:
> 
>>> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 11:40:24 +0200
>>> From:  Enrico Rivarola via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>>>   the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>> after upgrading to Emacs 30.2 I've this error message when running the 'package-list-packages'
>>> command:
>>>
>>> "find-file-noselect-1: Maximum buffer size exceeded"
>>>
>>> Running the command more times seems to make the message disappear, but doing some tests I found
>>> that the cause of the problem, at least in my system, seems to be the configuration of
>>> "custom-file' to 'null-device'.
>>> Leaving it at its default value or setting it to a different real file (e.g. 'my-custom.el' in
>>> 'user-emacs-directory') does not cause any errors.
>>
>> I cannot reproduce this.  I started Emacs, the typed
>>
>>    M-: (setq custom-file null-device) RET
>>
>> then typed
>>
>>    M-x package-list-packages RET
>>
>> and Emacs displayed the list of packages without any error message.
>>
>> Can anyone else reproduce this problem?
> 
> FWIW I was no able to reproduce this bug on emacs -Q
> 

Message #17 received at 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, jb <at> jeremybryant.net
Subject: Re: bug#79308: 30.2; Maximum buffer size exceeded when running
 package-list-packages
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 15:33:28 +0300

> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:01:39 +0200
> Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> From: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
> 
> Thanks for response,
> I tried recompiling Emacs, but I still have the problem.
> Maybe the problem is related to something on my system, but I don't know.
> For now, I've solved it by setting 'custom-file' to a 'real' file (e.g "my-custom.el" in 
> 'user-emacs-directory').
> I found two messages that refer to the same problem on 'help-gnu-emacs' archive for the Emacs 30 
> series:
> * "Maximum buffer size exceeded when running package-list-packages"
>    https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2025-03/msg00343.html
> * "Maximum buffer size message on Emacs 30.1"
>    https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2025-03/msg00187.html

Any reason why you use null-device for this purpose?  If you don't
want to save your customizations between sessions, simply don't select
the "Save for future sessions" action.

Message #20 received at 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, jb <at> jeremybryant.net
Subject: Re: bug#79308: 30.2; Maximum buffer size exceeded when running
 package-list-packages
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 16:07:41 +0200

Il 27/08/25 14:33, Eli Zaretskii ha scritto:
>> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:01:39 +0200
>> Cc: 79308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
>> From: Enrico Rivarola <henry_thebuilder <at> yahoo.it>
>>
>> Thanks for response,
>> I tried recompiling Emacs, but I still have the problem.
>> Maybe the problem is related to something on my system, but I don't know.
>> For now, I've solved it by setting 'custom-file' to a 'real' file (e.g "my-custom.el" in
>> 'user-emacs-directory').
>> I found two messages that refer to the same problem on 'help-gnu-emacs' archive for the Emacs 30
>> series:
>> * "Maximum buffer size exceeded when running package-list-packages"
>>     https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2025-03/msg00343.html
>> * "Maximum buffer size message on Emacs 30.1"
>>     https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2025-03/msg00187.html
> 
> Any reason why you use null-device for this purpose?  If you don't
> want to save your customizations between sessions, simply don't select
> the "Save for future sessions" action.

I made this choice a long time ago. If I remember correctly, it was mainly because I keep my 
Emacs configuration in a git repo and to prevent certain updates or changes from modifying the 
init.el file, and to make sure that any customization was made in my configuration files (some 
configuration files are shared between 'normal' Emacs and 'Doom Emacs').
This specific configuration has remained the same because it's never given me any problem until 
I update to version 30.2, hence the notification to the mailing list.
However, as I said, I updated my configuration to have a dedicated 'custom' file (manageable 
separately), and this is fine for me too.

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