Bbdb stopped working for me today. Not sure how to get it to work in the future.
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (invalid-read-syntax ". in wrong context") read(#<buffer .bbdb>) parse-bbdb-read() parse-bbdb-internal() bbdb-records() bbdb("a" nil) * call-interactively(bbdb) execute-extended-command(nil) call-interactively(execute-extended-command) It seems my .bbdb had been rewitten into a different charset then its original big5. Had to restore from backup. OK, back on track with minimal loss. Tip: never ever allow something to happen to cause (emacs to ask "unable to save in default charset, try xxx instead?") changing .bbdb saving charsets. Emacs : GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i386-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2004-10-17 on raven, modified by Debian Package: BBDB 2.35 current state: ============== (setq emacs-version "21.3.1" bbdb-version-date "$Date: 2004/05/28 14:47:14 $" bbdb-file-format 6 bbdb-no-duplicates-p nil bbdb-address-editing-function 'bbdb-address-edit-default bbdb-address-formatting-alist '((bbdb-address-is-continental . bbdb-format-address-continental) (nil . bbdb-format-address-default)) bbdb-addresses-label-list '("Home" "Office" "Mobile" "Other") bbdb-after-change-hook '(bbdb/gnus-score-invalidate-alist) bbdb-after-read-db-hook nil bbdb-always-add-addresses 'ask bbdb-auto-revert-p nil bbdb-canonicalize-net-hook nil bbdb-canonicalize-redundant-nets-p t bbdb-case-fold-search t bbdb-change-hook 'bbdb-timestamp-hook bbdb-check-zip-codes-p nil bbdb-complete-name-allow-cycling nil bbdb-complete-name-hooks nil bbdb-completion-display-record t bbdb-completion-type nil bbdb-continental-zip-regexp "^\\s *[A-Z][A-Z]?\\s *-\\s *[0-9][0-9][0-9]" bbdb-create-hook 'bbdb-creation-date-hook bbdb-default-area-code nil bbdb-default-country "Emacs" bbdb-default-domain nil bbdb-default-label-list '("Home" "Office" "Mobile" "Other") bbdb-define-all-aliases-field 'mail-alias bbdb-define-all-aliases-mode 'first bbdb-dial-local-prefix nil bbdb-dial-local-prefix-alist '(((if (integerp bbdb-default-area-code) (format "(%03d)" bbdb-default-area-code) (or bbdb-default-area-code "")) "") ) bbdb-dial-long-distance-prefix nil bbdb-display-layout 'multi-line bbdb-display-layout-alist '((one-line (order phones mail-alias net notes) (name-end . 24) (toggle . t)) (multi-line (omit creation-date timestamp) (toggle . t)) (pop-up-multi-line) (full-multi-line)) bbdb-dwim-net-address-allow-redundancy 'netonly bbdb-electric-p nil bbdb-expand-mail-aliases t bbdb-extract-address-component-handler 'message bbdb-extract-address-component-ignore-regexp "\\(\\(undisclosed\\|unlisted\\)[^,]*recipients\\)\\|no To-header on input" bbdb-extract-address-component-regexps '(("\"\\([^\"]*\\)\"\\s-*<\\([^>]+\\)>" (car (mail-extract-address-components (concat "\"" (match-string 1 adstring) "\"")) ) 2) ("\\([^<>, ][^<>,]+[^<>, ]\\)\\s-*<\\([^>]+\\)>" 1 2) ("<\\([^>,]+\\)>" nil 1) ("\\(\\b[^<\",()]+\\b\\)\\s-*(\\([^)]+\\))" (car (mail-extract-address-components (concat "\"" (match-string 2 adstring) "\""))) 1) ("\\b\\(\\([^@ \n.]+\\.[^@ \n.]+\\)@[^@ \n]+\\)\\b" (car (mail-extract-address-components (concat "\"" (match-string 2 adstring) "\""))) 1) ("\\b\\(\\([^@ \n]+\\)@[^@ \n]+\\)\\b" nil 1) ("\\b\\([^@ \n]+\\)\\b" nil 1)) bbdb-extract-address-components-func 'bbdb-rfc822-addresses bbdb-file "~/.bbdb" bbdb-file-remote nil bbdb-file-remote-save-always t bbdb-finger-buffer-name "*finger*" bbdb-finger-host-field 'finger-host bbdb-get-addresses-headers '((authors "From" "Resent-From" "Reply-To") (recipients "Resent-To" "Resent-CC" "To" "CC" "BCC") ) bbdb-get-only-first-address-p t bbdb-gui t bbdb-hashtable-size 1021 bbdb-info-file nil bbdb-initialize-hook nil bbdb-lastname-prefixes '("von" "Von" "de" "De") bbdb-legal-zip-codes '("^$" "^[ \n]*[0-9][0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[ \n]*$" "^[ \n]*\\([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]\\)[ \n]*-?[ \n]*\\([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]?\\)[ \n]*$" "^[ \n]*\\([A-Za-z0-9]+\\)[ \n]+\\([A-Za-z0-9]+\\)[ \n]*$" "^[ \n]*\\([A-Z]+\\)[ \n]*-?[ \n]*\\([0-9]+ ?[A-Z]*\\)[ \n]*$" "^[ \n]*\\([A-Z]+\\)[ \n]*-?[ \n]*\\([0-9]+\\)[ \n]+\\([0-9]+\\)[ \n]*$") bbdb-list-hook nil bbdb-load-hook nil bbdb-mail-abbrev-expand-hook nil bbdb-message-caching-enabled t bbdb-message-marker-field 'mark-char bbdb-mode-hook nil bbdb-modem-device "/dev/modem" bbdb-modem-dial nil bbdb-multiple-buffers nil bbdb-new-nets-always-primary nil bbdb-north-american-phone-numbers-p nil bbdb-notes-default-separator ", " bbdb-notes-sort-order '((notes . 0) (www . 1) (ftp . 2) (gopher . 3) (telnet . 4) (mail-alias . 5) (mail-folder . 6) (lpr . 7) (creation-date . 1000) (timestamp . 1001)) bbdb-notice-auto-save-file nil bbdb-notice-hook nil bbdb-offer-save 1 bbdb-phones-label-list '("Home" "Office" "Mobile" "Other") bbdb-pop-up-display-layout 'pop-up-multi-line bbdb-pop-up-target-lines 5 bbdb-quiet-about-name-mismatches nil bbdb-readonly-p nil bbdb-refile-notes-default-merge-function 'bbdb-refile-notes-default-merge-function bbdb-refile-notes-generate-alist '((creation-date . bbdb-refile-notes-string-least) (timestamp . bbdb-refile-notes-string-most)) bbdb-save-db-timeout nil bbdb-send-mail-style 'compose-mail bbdb-silent-running nil bbdb-snarf-web-prop 'www bbdb-sound-files nil bbdb-sound-player nil bbdb-sound-volume 50 bbdb-time-display-format "%d %b %Y" bbdb-update-records-mode 'annotating bbdb-use-alternate-names t bbdb-use-pop-up nil bbdb-user-mail-names nil bbdb-write-file-hooks '(bbdb-write-file-hook-fn) bbdb/gnus-lines-and-from-length 18 bbdb/gnus-score-default nil bbdb/gnus-score-field 'gnus-score bbdb/gnus-split-crosspost-default nil bbdb/gnus-split-default-group "mail.misc" bbdb/gnus-split-myaddr-regexp "^jidanni$\\|[EMAIL PROTECTED]([-a-z0-9]+\\.\\)*jidanni.org$" bbdb/gnus-split-nomatch-function nil bbdb/gnus-split-private-field 'gnus-private bbdb/gnus-split-public-field 'gnus-public bbdb/gnus-summary-in-bbdb-format-letter "b" bbdb/gnus-summary-known-poster-mark "+" bbdb/gnus-summary-mark-known-posters t bbdb/gnus-summary-prefer-bbdb-data t bbdb/gnus-summary-prefer-real-names t bbdb/gnus-summary-show-bbdb-names t bbdb/gnus-summary-user-format-letter "B" bbdb/gnus-update-records-mode 'annotating bbdb/mail-auto-create-p t bbdb/news-auto-create-p nil bbdb/vm-set-auto-folder-alist-field 'vm-folder bbdb/vm-set-auto-folder-alist-headers '("From:" "To:" "CC:") features '(newcomment gnus-msg reporter debug view flyspell nndir byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile nnml nndraft nnmh bbdb-gnus gnus-art mm-uu mml2015 pgg pgg-parse pgg-def mm-view gnus-sum gnus-group gnus-undo nnmail mail-source format-spec bbdb-snarf mail-extr bbdb-com nntp nnoo bbdb timezone gnus-toggle gnus-start gnus-spec gnus-int gnus-range message rfc822 mml mml-sec mml-smime smime dig mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mailcap mail-parse rfc2045 rfc2231 rfc2047 qp ietf-drums mailabbrev sendmail mailheader canlock sha1 executable hex-util gnus-win gnus gnus-ems nnheader gnus-util netrc time-date parse-time mail-utils mm-util mule-util mail-prsvr wid-edit ffap jka-compr uniquify paren server header advice advice-preload ibuffer jit-lock font-lock derived easymenu backup-dir w3-auto bitmap bitmap-ci poem poem-e20 poem-e20_3 pces pces-e20 pces-20 broken pcustom poe pym static apel-ver product mmm-auto mmm-vars mmm-compat regexp-opt cl cl-19 emacs-goodies-el emacs-goodies-custom emacs-goodies-loaddefs ispell debian-el debian-el-loaddefs bbdb-autoloads gnus-init tooltip image tool-bar disp-table china-util fontset ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type lisp-mode page menu-bar timer select scroll-bar mldrag mouse facemenu faces cus-face frame ucs-tables misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai lao korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic devanagari indian cyrillic chinese case-table help overlay md5 base64 format mule env backquote custom widget x-toolkit) ) ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595&alloc_id=14396&op=click _______________________________________________ bbdb-info@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bbdb-info BBDB Home Page: http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/