`#+NAME:` is ignored unless running Emacs with `-q`

Question

I am trying to export an .org buffer with the following contents:

#+CAPTION: My subgraph.
#+NAME: fig:subgraph
[[/tmp/image-4383FmT.png]]

The following latex output is produced:

% Created 2018-01-30 Tue 09:32
% Intended LaTeX compiler: pdflatex
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{grffile}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{wrapfig}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{capt-of}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\author{meir}
\date{\today}
\title{}
\hypersetup{
 pdfauthor={meir},
 pdftitle={},
 pdfkeywords={},
 pdfsubject={},
 pdfcreator={Emacs 24.5.1 (Org mode 9.1.4)}, 
 pdflang={English}}
\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=.9\linewidth]{/tmp/image-4383FmT.png}
\caption{\label{fig:org39390dd}
My subgraph.}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

The #+NAME: command was ignored. It works properly when I start Emacs with emacs -q. In the search for the guilty line in my configuration, I commented out lines in init.el until nothing remained, but the problem persists. What is going on? What is the difference between -q and empty init file? (I compared the *Messages* buffer after starting Emacs both ways and did not find any difference)

Answer 1

There is a bit of differences between emacs -q and emacs with no init.el. See "Summary: Sequence of Actions at Startup".

Do you happen to have Emacs 25.2.2 with Org mode 8.2.10? Because that's what I have on my Debian System. When you run emacs -q, do you run that older version of org mode? Post the good output if you don't know what you are running.

Org version 8.3 or later introduced org-latex-prefer-user-labels, which is nil as a default. With this variable set to non-nil, you can use your custom ID, which is taken from #+NAME.

C-h v org-latex-prefer-user-labels to see more detail.

Here is the one I got from Org 8.2.10:

\begin{figure}[htb]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=.9\linewidth]{/tmp/image-4383FmT.png}
\caption{\label{fig:subgraph}My subgraph.}
\end{figure}
% Emacs 25.2.2 (Org mode 8.2.10)

And with default Org 9.1.6:

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=.9\linewidth]{/tmp/image-4383FmT.png}
\caption{\label{fig:org15c1279}
My subgraph.}
\end{figure}

And this is Org 9.1.6 with org-latex-prefer-user-labels set to t:

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=.9\linewidth]{/tmp/image-4383FmT.png}
\caption{\label{fig:subgraph}
My subgraph.}
\end{figure}
\end{document}