Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p, nil

[rekado]

I use emacs on Windows XP, version 24.1.50.1 from the official GNU builds. I fetched the prelude and unpacked it in ~/.emacs.d, overwriting the original init.el.

Emacs freezes when executing runemacs.exe, but with (setq debug-on-error t) I can see this:

Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading `d:/home/.emacs.d/init.el':

Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p, nil

With --debug-init the following error is displayed:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument char-or-string-p nil)
  url-http-handle-authentication(t)
  url-http-parse-headers()
  url-http-content-length-after-change-function(4085 4408 323)
  url-http-generic-filter(#<process my.company.proxy> "ccess to the Web Proxy filter is denied. (12209)
\n<LI id=L_default_12>IP \345\234\260\345\235\200: 139.24.234.29
\n<LI id=L_default_13>\346\227\245\346\234\237: 5/17/2012 3:44:31 AM [GMT]
\n<LI id=L_default_14>\346\234\215\345\212\241\345\231\250: my.company.proxy
\n<LI id=L_default_15>\346\272\220: \344\273\243\347\220\206
\n
\n      </UL>
\n    </TD>
\n  </TR>
\n  </TBODY>
\n</TABLE>
\n
\n</BODY>
\n</HTML>
\n
\n")
  accept-process-output(#<process my.company.proxy>)
  #[0 "\302�\303\300@!)\207" [(#<process my.company.proxy>) inhibit-quit nil accept-process-output] 2 "\n\n(fn)"]()
  funcall(#[0 "\302�\303\300@!)\207" [(#<process my.company.proxy>) inhibit-quit nil accept-process-output] 2 "\n\n(fn)"])
  url-retrieve-synchronously("http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/archive-contents")
  package--download-one-archive(("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") "archive-contents")
  #[nil "\301�\302\"\207" [archive package--download-one-archive "archive-contents"] 3]()
  package-refresh-contents()
  (if (prelude-packages-installed-p) nil (message "%s" "Emacs Prelude is now refreshing its package database...") (package-refresh-contents) (message "%s" " done.") (dolist (p prelude-packages) (unless (package-installed-p p) (package-install p))))
  (unless (prelude-packages-installed-p) (message "%s" "Emacs Prelude is now refreshing its package database...") (package-refresh-contents) (message "%s" " done.") (dolist (p prelude-packages) (unless (package-installed-p p) (package-install p))))
  prelude-install-packages()
  eval-buffer(#<buffer  *load*<2>> nil "d:/home/.emacs.d/prelude/prelude-packages.el" nil t)  ; Reading at buffer position 2234
  load-with-code-conversion("d:/home/.emacs.d/prelude/prelude-packages.el" "d:/home/.emacs.d/prelude/prelude-packages.el" nil t)
  require(prelude-packages)
  eval-buffer(#<buffer  *load*> nil "d:/home/.emacs.d/init.el" nil t)  ; Reading at buffer position 2338
  load-with-code-conversion("d:/home/.emacs.d/init.el" "d:/home/.emacs.d/init.el" t t)
  load("d:/home/.emacs.d/init" t t)
  #[0 "�\205\262

Could this possibly be a proxy-related issue? Here at work I'm behind an ISA proxy ("my.company.proxy" in the snippet above).

[bbatsov]

Yep, given the stacktrace it's certainly a proxy issue.

[rekado]

Okay, I'll play around with proxy settings then. Is there any way to make this fail gracefully?

[bbatsov]

Sure - there could be a connectivity check and depending on it only parts of Prelude can be loaded. Since most people are always connected and I haven't implemented one yet.