Cannot connect to MELPA

Question

Right now, when I do M-x package-refresh-contents I get: Failed to download Melpa archive

I tried toggling debug and doing the command again, and I get:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument stringp \"https://melpa\.org/packages/\")
  string-match("\\`https?:" \"https://melpa\.org/packages/\" nil)
  package--with-response-buffer-1(\"https://melpa\.org/packages/\" #f(compiled-function () #<bytecode 0xec69cd>) :file "archive-contents" :async nil :error-function #f(compiled-function () #<bytecode 0xec69d$
  package--download-one-archive((\"melpa\" . \"https://melpa\.org/packages/\") "archive-contents" nil)
  package--download-and-read-archives(nil)
  package-refresh-contents()
  funcall-interactively(package-refresh-contents)
  call-interactively(package-refresh-contents record nil)
  command-execute(package-refresh-contents record)
  execute-extended-command(nil "package-refresh-contents" "package-refr")
  funcall-interactively(execute-extended-command nil "package-refresh-contents" "package-refr")
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command nil nil)
  command-execute(execute-extended-command)

I'm not sure how to parse this error.

I frequently have problems connecting with Melpa, but occasionally it does work without me having to change anything, so... I don't know.

In my .emacs file this is how I configured it:

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '(\"melpa\" . \"https://melpa.org/packages/\") t)

I really need to figure out why MELPA only works for me like 10% of the time... It's awesome when it works!

The question is: How do I get MELPA working consistently for me?

Emacs version 27.

Answer 1

String syntax in lisp is "this is a string": a string of characters in double quotes. If you want to include a double quote as part of the string, you have to escape it: "this is a string that include a \" character". That prevents the included double quote character from being interpreted as the closing quote that delimits the string. But conversely, \"abc\" is not a string, since it is not surrounded by double quotes: it is actually a symbol whose name is "abc".

Try evaluating the following forms to see the difference:

(symbolp '"abc")
nil
(stringp '"abc")
t

(symbolp '\"abc\")
t
(stringp '\"abc\")
nil

Since package-archives is a list of pairs, each pair consisting of two strings, not two symbols, you really need to say ...'("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") with the double quotes unescaped and acting as string delimiters.