Invalid function: async-start

[binxboll]

On Mac OS X 10.8.5, I am running GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.5.0, Carbon Version 1.6.0 AppKit 1187.4). I have installed the latest version of org, including the org-download from contrib, Org-mode version 8.2.5h (release_8.2.5h-653-g64adcc). I have also installed the latest async via melpa.

When I drag and drop a png file onto an org buffer, I get the following error:
Invalid function: async-start

I get the same error when I invoke
M-x org-download-image
and enter a valid image url at the prompt.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

[abo-abo]

Try to eval (require 'async) in *scractch* with C-j. Tell me the result.

[binxboll]

(require 'async)^J
async

The error message still occurs after I do this.

[abo-abo]

Eval this in *scratch* and try again:

(defun org-download--image/command (command link filename)
  "Using COMMAND, save LINK to FILENAME.
COMMAND is a format-style string with two slots for LINK and FILENAME."
  (let ((cur-buf (current-buffer)))
    (shell-command
     (format command link
             (expand-file-name filename)))
    (with-current-buffer cur-buf
      (org-display-inline-images))))

[binxboll]

It works! Does this mean the problem is with async?

[abo-abo]

Yes, you should try to find help at https://github.com/jwiegley/emacs-async/issues if you want async.

Or you can keep using it like this, but Emacs will become stuck for the duration of
image download (which shouldn't be too long).

[mistrey]

I just ran into the same problem on a Linux computer when I tried to insert a local file. I tracked the problem down until the point where I detected that there is a difference in using org-download.el and org-download.elc. If I load the compiled file, I get the error message Invalid function: async-start. If I load the uncompiled file, everything works fine.

Maybe John Wiegley's mail introducing async can help here (see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2012-06/msg00306.html).

[abo-abo]

Can you try to re-compile org-download.elc?
I can't reproduce the issue with emacs-24.3 or 24.3.50.1 on Linux.
I can load just the elc file and it works fine.

[binxboll]

What about putting a file-local variable binding ;; -*-no-byte-compile: t; -*- at the top of org-download.el ?

[abo-abo]

What about putting a file-local variable binding ;; --no-byte-compile: t; -- at the top of org-download.el ?

I could add a work-around, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem. How did you get org-download.elc anyway?
The org install script only installs the core, and contrib/ remain uncompiled.

[mistrey]

I use make up2 to update org-mode from the Git branch master. This process creates compiled files from the contrib path as well and installs everything to /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/org/, where I have both .el and .elc files after the installation. I just tried to compile org-download.el manually in my home directory using (byte-compile-file "/home/strey/Software/org-mode/contrib/lisp/org-download.el"). Then, after loading the compiled file with (load "/home/strey/Software/org-mode/contrib/lisp/org-download.elc") everything works fine.

The strange thing is, that the compiled files produced by make up2 and the manual process are different.

[strey@mischka org-mode]$ ls -lh /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/org/org-download.elc /home/strey/Software/org-mode/contrib/lisp/org-download.elc
-rw-r--r-- 1 strey users 9,2K 26. Feb 17:07 /home/strey/Software/org-mode/contrib/lisp/org-download.elc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root  8,6K 26. Feb 17:23 /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/org/org-download.elc

For the moment I live with the workaround

(require 'org-download "org-download.el")

but, of course, I would like to understand what make up2 really does.

[abo-abo]

Interesting. The elc file sizes differ for me as well. Could you raise this question on org's mailing list?

[binxboll]

Normally .el files in contrib/lisp are not installed with make up2. I followed the recommended procedure of inluding this line is local.mk:

ORG_ADD_CONTRIB = org-download.el*

I just tried modifying it to:

ORG_ADD_CONTRIB = org-download.el

This did not help.

I just compiled with this line in local.mk:

ORGCM = single 

This gave me a different error when invoking M-x org-download-image:

org-download--dir-2: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, nil

Now when I go back to the original local.mk file, I get this same error, not Invalid function: async-start, as in the original Issue report. I don't know what is going on.

Correction: I was making a mistake in trying to insert a picture before the first headline. When I fixed that, I still got the same async error when loading the .elc file. Removing the .elc file from the org install directory fixes the problem.

[abo-abo]

Try the workaround mentioned above:

(require 'org-download "org-download.el")

[mistrey]

I have

ORG_ADD_CONTRIB = org-checklist org-collector org-contacts org-contribdir org-dial org-eval org-mime org-notmuch org-registry ox-koma-letter org-expiry org-index org-pomodoro org-download

in my local.mk and no further options.

BTW: With this setup binxboll's proposal of a workaround by suppressing the compilation doesn't work. It leads to an error message during the make test process.

[abo-abo]

Can't reproduce on my laptop.
I've put

 ORG_ADD_CONTRIB = org-download

and did

make up2

Everything works.

[binxboll]

Perhaps byte-compiling expressions of the form

    (async-start (lambda () ...)
                 'function-to-call-when-done)

is forbidden precisely because it causes unpredictable results that may work in some cases but not in others.

[abo-abo]

Where does it say that it's forbidden?

[mistrey]

I did some more experiments with byte-compile and batch-byte-compile.
If I put

(eval-when-compile
  (require 'async))

into org-download.el and afterwards compile with emacs-async in the load path like this

emacs -Q -batch --eval '(add-to-list '"'"'load-path ".")' --eval '(add-to-list '"'"'load-path "~/.emacs.d/emacs-async")' --eval '(batch-byte-compile)' ../contrib/lisp/org-download.el

I get a working org-download.elc with 9.2 K size. In every other case the size of the compiled file is only 8.6 K and I get the Invalid function: async-start error message.

My final conclusion is to abide by

(require 'org-download "org-download.el")

[abo-abo]

So eval-when-compile will solve the problem?

[abo-abo]

I see that it doesn't since make up2 doesn't know about async.

[binxboll]

Where does it say that it's forbidden?

In the link the Mistry posted:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2012-06/msg00306.html

Am I interpreting that right?

[abo-abo]

As I understand it, it's the lambda that must not be compiled (not the file).

This is a byte compiled lambda:

 (async-start (mapcar #'(lambda (x) (* x x)) '(1 2 3)))

This is not:

 (async-start (mapcar (lambda (x) (* x x)) '(1 2 3)))

[loochao]

Does org-download work under Mac OSX?
I believe I've installed org-download.el correctly, but when I'm dragging and drop the image into an org buffer, all I get is the link address inserted into the buffer, no downloading events trigger.

I double checked a few things before coming here:

• My system has both curl and download.
• I've set the download image dir to ~/Downloads/Foo
• The value of dnd-protocol-alist contains ("^(https?|ftp|file|nfs)://" . org-download-dnd)

The emacs I'm using is "GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.36) of 2013-03-13 on bob.porkrind.org"

Could someone help? Thanks a lot.

[abo-abo]

I don't have OSX, so I can't test it. However, it should work in
theory, since all tools used are portable.

Try using org-download-yank first: this one does everything except
dnd. Just right click and copy image url in the browser, and call
org-download-yank in Emacs. If it doesn't work, the issue is with
dnd, otherwise it's with the downloading itself.

The default org-download-backend uses url-retrieve, which is part of
Emacs, so if it doesn't work then it's a bug.

[abo-abo]

It seems that this issue is fixed for Emacs 24.4.1.

[mankoff]

I just ran into this issue using Org (latest git head), org-download (latest melpa) and emacs-mac. The solution was to delete the ELC files from the elp/org-download folder.