I just installed a fresh Ubuntu 17.10 on a Dell XPS 15, and then installed Emacs from the repos with apt-get in the normal way.
The moment I start Emacs, I get the error message
Error running timer 'blink-cursor-start': (wrong-type-argument listp 0.5)
It then refuses all keyboard input; for example C-x d gets the error message Wrong type argument: listp 10
Is there a way to disable (from outside Emacs) whatever it is that calls blink-cursor-start so that I can at least try using Emacs to find and fix the problem? I have not installed my .emacs file yet, so this is raw behaviour as-installed.
Has anyone seen this behaviour before? Or know what the problem might be?
[Edit] I managed to run Emacs without the suggested -Q just enough to open the messages buffer with the mouse and grab the contents. Then quit and run again with -Q and paste the message contents into a file to save it. This is what it says:
Loading 00debian-vars...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50asymptote.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50autoconf.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)...
Loading debian-ispell...
Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-default.el (source)...done
Loading debian-ispell...done
Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-dicts.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50latex-cjk-common.el (source)...
Loading cjk-enc...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50latex-cjk-common.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50latex-cjk-thai.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50texlive-lang-english.el (source)...done
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
setq: Wrong type argument: listp, 10
Error running timer ‘blink-cursor-start’: (wrong-type-argument listp 0.5) [2 times]
setq: Wrong type argument: listp, 0.7
Error running timer ‘blink-cursor-start’: (wrong-type-argument listp 0.5) [5 times]
Mark set
Error running timer ‘blink-cursor-start’: (wrong-type-argument listp 0.5)
setq: Wrong type argument: listp, 0.7 [2 times]
Error running timer ‘blink-cursor-start’: (wrong-type-argument listp 0.5)
setq: Wrong type argument: listp, 0.7
Error running timer ‘blink-cursor-start’: (wrong-type-argument listp 0.5) [4 times]
Anyone know where blink-cursor-start is called?
blink-cursor-startis called, a quick grep of the source code should give you all references. And, we can see that is only called one time inframe.elat the tail end ofblink-cursor--start-idle-timer. Since all current versions of Emacs haveblink-cursor-modeenabled by default, it is reasonable to assume that you have a user-configuration somewhere that is loading and causing the problem, or you have a broken installation of Emacs. If it is not a big deal, then just remove your Emacs installation and build a new one.M-x emacs-version. Some computers may have several versions installed at different locations, and people think they are using one version when in fact they are using a different version. If there is no good reason to use an older version of Emacs, then you should be using the latest stable release -- i.e., Emacs 25. The next version (Emacs 26) will hopefully be released soon. Creating a recipe starting fromemacs -Qis necessary so that others can replicate your issue and also for you to verify configuration is not the culprit.