wrong-type-argument stringp nil when trying to run flycheck

Question

I'm new to emacs (coming from vim) and wanted to try flycheck with jshint. I have jshint installed and available in my path. However, when I try to check a buffer, I get the error:

Error while checking syntax automatically: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil)

I already set debug-on-error and got the following trace:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil)
  signal(wrong-type-argument (stringp nil))
  #[257 "\300 \210\301@A\"\207" [flycheck-report-failed-syntax-check signal] 4 "\n\n(fn ERR)"]((wrong-type-argument stringp nil))
  funcall(#[257 "\300 \210\301@A\"\207" [flycheck-report-failed-syntax-check signal] 4 "\n\n(fn ERR)"] (wrong-type-argument stringp nil))
  flycheck-buffer()
  #[0 "\300 \207" [flycheck-buffer] 1 "\n\n(fn)"]()
  funcall(#[0 "\300 \207" [flycheck-buffer] 1 "\n\n(fn)"])
  flycheck-buffer-automatically(idle-change)
  flycheck-handle-idle-change()
  apply(flycheck-handle-idle-change nil)
  byte-code("r\301\302H\303H\"\210)\301\207" [timer apply 5 6] 4)
  timer-event-handler([t 22506 35301 253712 nil flycheck-handle-idle-change nil nil 115000])

But that's about far as I can go with my limited understanding of elisp...

I am able to run jshint from my terminal (and from emacs) without problems.

Answer 1

I've run into this same issue and can trace it back to this commit which in turn was a solution for having no eslint config from this issue. Downgrading to the previous version of flycheck worked for me, but it sounds like the real solution is to provide an eslint config somewhere on your path where your emacs can find it.

Updated - I just opened an issue for this to see what the proper fix is.