Yesterday I updated elpa-ess:amd64 (17.11-4~ubuntu16.04.1~ppa1, 18.10-1xenial0)
from the package repository at https://cran.wu.ac.at/bin/linux/ubuntu/xenial I now have the same symptoms as described by Zack previosly. Running emacs -q, evaluating (require 'ess-site), and checking the value of the variable ess-etc-directory gives me /usr/share/ess/etc/ However, there is no /usr/share/ess directory on my system. ess-etc-directory is defined in ess-site.el at /usr/share/emacs24/site-lisp/elpa/ess-18.10/ess-site.el -> /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa-src/ess-18.10//ess-site.el which contains > (defvar ess-etc-directory "/usr/share/ess/etc/" > "Location of the ESS etc/ directory. > The ESS etc directory stores various auxillary files that are useful > for ESS, such as icons.") This differs from the upstream file, which defines the value as nil, see https://github.com/emacs-ess/ESS/blob/v18.10/lisp/ess-site.el#L70 My knowledge of the Debian packaging mechanisms is rudimentary, but searching for the /usr/share/ess path I found a corresponding overwrite in debian/rules, see https://salsa.debian.org/edd/ess/blob/master/debian/rules#L72 Is this intended? Thanks a lot and best regards, Sebastian -- Dr. Sebastian Meyer Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) Institut für Medizininformatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie (IMBE)