running latex on remote host with tramp

Question

I'm trying to run latex on remote host from the local host with tramp. But it seems that it cannot find the file. To be more specific:

Update

1. start emacs on localhost:
2. /ssh:user@remotehost:/tmp/test.tex
3. compile latex on remote host using C-c C-c
4. error cannot find the file test.tex " ! I can't find file `test.tex'."

so I guess it's trying to find /ssh:user@remotehost:/tmp/test.tex but somehow cannot find it. May be it should look for /tmp/test.tex

I've tried knitr as well and found that it tries to execute /ssh:user@remotehost:foobar.rnw".

I think it should use the /ssh command since the program is running locally but I can't grasp what's happening.

Any help?

Update 2 Works fine when using emacs -Q. See comment below. will keep you posted once I have found what's wrong in the .emacs.

Update 3 The problem does not lies in the .emacs file though. I commented out everything in the .emacs and still got the same issue. I'll continue the investigation. But we are getting there.

Update 4 As suggested in the comments below firing emacs with the -Q option works find. I've got good results even with emacs -q.

Launching emacs -q is supposed to prevent loading the .emacs and the default.el files at startup. I place (setq inhibit-default-init 1) in my .emacs file and commented the rest of the commands. Therefore only the command (setq inhibit-default-init 1) is active in my .emacs file.

I launch emacs without any options and load tramp by hand (require 'tramp) and tried latex again but still no success.

I must be missing something that the -q option does not load but I can't figure it out right now.

Answer 1

I had the same issue: and I learned this patch from this mailing list:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/auctex/2008-05/msg00007.html

The fix requires changing one line in the file tex-buf.el which I was able to find in .emacs.d/elpa/auctex-12.2.0/tex-buf.el, although the location of the file may depend on your particular set-up.

as you can see, the one function changed was: start-process to start-file-process

*** 577,584 ****
          (lambda (process name)
            (message (concat name ": done."))))
      (if TeX-process-asynchronous
!       (let ((process (start-process name buffer TeX-shell
!                                     TeX-shell-command-option command)))
          (if TeX-after-start-process-function
              (funcall TeX-after-start-process-function process))
          (TeX-command-mode-line process)
--- 577,584 ----
          (lambda (process name)
            (message (concat name ": done."))))
      (if TeX-process-asynchronous
!       (let ((process (start-file-process name buffer TeX-shell
!                                          TeX-shell-command-option command)))
          (if TeX-after-start-process-function
              (funcall TeX-after-start-process-function process))
          (TeX-command-mode-line process)