Infinite "Contacting host: stable.melpa.org:80"

[nbro]

I'm trying to install this mode. I added the following code (as explained in the README)

(require 'package)
(custom-set-variables
 ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(package-archives
   (quote
    (("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
     ("melpa-stable" . "http://stable.melpa.org/packages/")))))

to the file ~/emacs. Then I re-open Emacs and I type M-x package-refresh-contents, and the following appears in a buffer:

Contacting host: elpa.gnu.org:80
Contacting host: stable.melpa.org:80

and it seems that it never terminates.

I'm not very familiar in general with Emacs but I would like to try it with this mode.

[ivan-m]

This has nothing to do with Haskell mode and is more to do with Emacs not being able to connect to the internet to get package descriptions (let alone package).

As a start: are you behind a proxy?

[nbro]

@ivan-m I don't think I'm behind a proxy server. (I'm using Passive FTP mode).

[ivan-m]

Well, let's try debugging the connection.

Does M-x eww let you browse to a website?

[nbro]

@ivan-m Yes, it lets me do it.

[ivan-m]

Which OS are you using?

And just to clarify: which file did you put this in? Do you mean ~/.emacs?

[ivan-m]

Also, you say you're using Passive FTP mode; how exactly? AFAIK, FTP isn't used for this at all...

[nbro]

@ivan-m I'm using macOS Sierra (10.12.3). I put that content in the file ~/.emacs, yes.

Here's what I meant when I'm using Passive FTP mode:

[ivan-m]

OK, I've got that box ticked on my Mac as well (but I haven't upgraded to Sierra yet).

Which version of Emacs are you using? (If it has package.el I'm guessing it's not the one that ships with MacOS.)

Maybe just double-check your network settings in whichever browser you use to make sure you don't have any settings there.

Is this a corporate network (which might have some kind of filtering somewhere)?

Possibly try with Emacs with no init file (emacs -Q) and see if package-list-packages works there using the default settings.

[nbro]

@ivan-m I'm not using the Emacs which possibly came with the OS. I'm using one that I installed as an app, and its version is 24.5.1.

I use Chrome usually. The proxy settings there lead to the system proxy settings.

package-list-packages works, it's package-refresh-packages that doesn't seem to work...

[ivan-m]

How did you install it? From where? (In case you're using a tweaked build that changes something.)

No other network specific settings in Chrome?

package-list-packages (which is an alias for list-packages) calls package-refresh-contents (via package-menu-refresh) unless you specify the optional NO-FETCH variable.

[nbro]

@ivan-m Solved, I think, at least now it highlights the Haskell code, which before wasn't doing it. Tomorrow I will play more with it.

I basically searched for this haskell-mode library from the list returned by package-list-packages and then I click [Install] on the buffer that appear when I click on the item of the list corresponding to haskell-mode.

Anyway, I installed Emacs some time ago, not sure from where.

[ivan-m]

Yes, that's what you want to do.

Try and upgrade if you can; 25.1 is now out which has a few new goodies (including concurrent connections for package.el to make installations faster). Homebrew has it, with a flag to add extra integrations.

But if this is solved, please close the issue.

[nbro]

@ivan-m I've installed the new version of Emacs using brew (in my case) from https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/download.html#macos and now when I tried to do the same thing, i.e. placing the lisp code above on .emacs and running package-refresh-contents, I got the famous "Failed to download melpa' archive.". I tried then to install haskell-mode by going to package-list-packages (as I did with my previous version of Emacs), and it worked.

I think this issue should remain opened, since it's not actually explainable the behaviour I'm having, and it should be solved or at least explained why this is happening.