[ESS] Emacs 24 + ESS + auto-complete-mode crashing on Ubuntu

[Christian Zang]

Christian Zang <christian.zang at wzw.tum.de> writes:

> Dear list,
>
> I have some serious issues with Emacs 24 crashing on Ubuntu 12.04 during ESS
> sessions.  I use emacs-snapshot (currently version 24.2.50.1 from
> ppa:cassou/emacs) and latest ESS from git (12.09, c3990d7859).
> Everything works fine and as expected as long as I do not turn on
> auto-complete-mode.  If auto-complete-mode is turned on, Emacs quickly
> crashes in an unpredictable fashion in midst of auto completion.  As
> all other things I use auto-completion for (python, org-mode,
> latex...) work fine, I suspect ESS to be the culprit.
>
> I use latest auto-complete-mode and popup.el from git, and also tried
> several downgrades for Emacs, ESS, and auto-complete-mode without
> success.
>
> Is anyone experiencing the same problem? Any help appreciated, thanks!
>
> Here is the minimal init.el that reproduces the crash:
>
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> ;;; popup
>
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elisp/popup/")
> (require 'popup)
>
> ;;; auto-complete
>
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elisp/autocomplete/")
> (require 'auto-complete)
>
> ;;; ESS
>
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elisp/ESS/")
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elisp/ESS/lisp/")
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elisp/ess-tracebug/")
> (require 'ess-site)
>
> ;;; enable autocomplete in ESS mode
>
> (add-hook 'ess-mode-hook 'auto-complete-mode)
> (add-hook 'inferior-ess-mode-hook 'auto-complete-mode)
> (setq ess-use-auto-complete t)
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
>
> Kind regards,
> Christian

... to answer my own question: I dumped Emacs 24 from the ppa in favour
of a self-built one (instructions here [1]), and everything is now
working as expected (fingers crossed...). 

Sorry for the noise & blaming ESS,
Christian

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://thornydev.blogspot.de/2012/06/setting-up-emacs-24-on-ubuntu-to-use.html

-- 
Dr. Christian Zang
Technische Universität München / Chair of Ecoclimatology
Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz 2 / 85354 Freising / Germany
Email: christian.zang at wzw.tum.de
Phone: +49 (0) 8161-714743
Fax: +49 (0) 8161-714753
http://oekoklimatologie.wzw.tum.de/
http://znag.github.com/