starting emacs takes forever

timblech · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

hi all,

... i've got a strange problem with my emacs ...
when running it (even as root) it takes several minutes to start...

but this is only when the network connection is running. emacs starts normal if either the computer is connected to the internet or all network connections except the loopback device are disabled ...

any hints? ... thanks...

meowsqueak · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 10:04 am Post subject:

These sorts of delays, especially when a network is involved, often come back to DNS resolution. Make sure you have an entry in your /etc/hosts that associates 127.0.0.1 with your host name as well as "localhost" (just list your hostname after localhost, e.g. '127.0.0.1 localhost myhostname').

Now, why would emacs be doing DNS lookups? Perhaps you're using emacs mail or news or something?

timblech · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

RangerDude · Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Posts: 301

I've got the same thing on my notebook. Without network, emacs never starts. Maybe it does after a long time, I've never waited so long.

Also X takes about 15 sec at start looking something up if networks isn't there. The two thing gives me that windows spyware feeling when something want to use the internet without me asking me first.

meowsqueak · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 10:34 am Post subject:

Well, if emacs is trying to match your hostname with an ip address, and you haven't specified it in /etc/hosts, then it's going to try DNS. If the network interface is down, this query will fail quickly. If the interface exists but no DNS servers are able to provide you with a resolution, you might get a long delay.

As for why emacs might try a DNS - lots of reasons:

- network-mode CVS
- email
- newsgroups
- local hostname lookup
- X tcp connections
- lots of other reasons depending on what you're loading into your ~/.emacs

I'm not 100% sure the problem is /etc/hosts - but try it and see.

credmp · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 12:02 pm Post subject:

You might want to run strace when starting emacs... it will show you what it hangs on:

timblech · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

meowsqueak · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 9:03 pm Post subject:

That means it's trying to resolve a name to an IP - it's trying DNS resolution, as I mentioned right at the start. If it can't find it in /etc/hosts it moves on to /etc/resolv.conf. If we assume it's trying to find the IP address of your local host, then it's trying to look up 'myhostname' - Simply change your /etc/hosts file as I've already suggested and see if that helps.

Alternatively, there's a file somewhere in /etc that defines the DNS search order - can't remember which one it is - you might need to put hosts before dns if changing the hosts file doesn't help.

RangerDude · Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Posts: 301

How do we prevent emacs from resolving the hostname? What part of emacs is needing it. I run the default emacs just after a clean merge.

meowsqueak · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 9:36 pm Post subject:

Don't know if you can - a lot of programs like to know what interface address they are running on - the quickest and easiest way to satisfy the request is to modify your /etc/hosts:

timblech · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

meowsqueak · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2003 9:13 pm Post subject:

Glad to be of assistance :lol: