[ESS] ?':::' hangs

[Ross Boylan]

On Thu, 2013-12-05 at 15:16 +0100, Martin Maechler wrote:
.....
>     >> I've had a string of quirky, only semi-reproducible
>     >> errors; maybe this is another one.  I did restart emacs
>     >> and the error persisted (actually, before that I also
>     >> couldn't get any help at all--help is working generally
>     >> in the new session).
> 
>     > No, not for me.  Help is working fine.
> 
> Actually, I've also seen occasional "break down" of help...
> but then I'm running R sessions in an open emacs sometimes for
> days, and in the mean time recompile the version of R running
> inside emacs,.... so I'm used to occasional breakage of my
> particular setup, and as I work with the principle "the source
> is real" {and hence all expensive computations are  save()d and
> subsequently load()ed},
> killing R (C-c C-q; no question asked with my default
> '--no-save') and restarting it (M-x R) happen within a few
> seconds as part of the reflexes my fingers learnt long ago... 

The general breakdown of help (as opposed to the ::: problem) also seems
to happen for me in long-running sessions.  Most recently, help stopped
working in a session that had been open for days; I opened a new session
to get help--which worked.  The next day, help didn't work in the new
session either.

Does help depend on some temporary file that might get cleaned up by
routine system housekeeping?

Ross