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I have a problem with org-mode's agenda view. While I've set org-agenda-files to '("~/org/") invariably when I finally spin up M-x org-agenda I find that org-agenda-files just points to one org-file. Obviously something is deciding just to include the last org-file I viewed but I'm having trouble working out what. Is there any way to trap when this variable is changed and display or log some sort of backtrace?

Drew
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stsquad
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  • From the `org-agenda-files` docstring, "If an entry is a directory, all files in that directory that are matched by `org-agenda-file-regexp` will be part of the file list." By default, that regexp matches all files with `.org` extension in that directory. Can you tell how you have your .org files organized? Do they belong in the `~/org/` folder directly? Or are they in sub-directories under that? – Kaushal Modi Sep 26 '14 at 12:28
  • ageneda -> agenda – Faheem Mitha Sep 26 '14 at 13:14
  • @kaushalmodi: yeah, my ~/org/ is full of org files each with a bunch of TODOs in them (I have one per "topic" with an index.org). – stsquad Sep 26 '14 at 13:25
  • What version of `org` are you using? Also could you do the following to test: Run `emacs -q` then in scratch point to your installation of Org `(add-to-list 'load-path "path/to/org")` if from ELPA or Git, if using built-in you can disregard. Then in scratch `(require 'org)` `(setq org-agenda-files "~/org/")` `(org-agenda nil "t")`. See if your TODOs all show up. – Jonathan Leech-Pepin Sep 26 '14 at 14:25
  • @JonathanLeech-Pepin: Latest org for the org ELPA archive (current 8.2.7c on this box). – stsquad Sep 28 '14 at 18:22

4 Answers4

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In this situation, I find that the best way to figure out what's going on into is to visit my ~/.emacs.d/ and run rgrep.

Searching your configs

The following snippet, taken from here, makes sure that rgrep doesn't go into the elpa/ subdir (since you're sure to find dozens of useless hits in there).

(eval-after-load 'grep
  '(progn
     (add-to-list 'grep-find-ignored-directories "auto")
     (add-to-list 'grep-find-ignored-directories "elpa")))

Then I just run

M-x rgrep RET org-agenda-files RET *.el RET ~/.emacs.d/

which will find any reference to org-agenda-files in my configuration. If it's a problem with my configs, this will find it.

Searching Elsewhere

If the above doesn't find anything, it means there's an Elpa package causing trouble. So I do

M-x rgrep RET org-agenda-files RET *.el RET ~/.emacs.d/elpa/

This will usually yield a lot of results, but there are ways to go through them quickly. For instance, it's very unlikely that org-mode itself is causing this problem. So it's safe to ignore all hits that come from inside org-modes installation directory.

Malabarba
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    Sadly the only place I find it referenced (apart from my config set-up) is in the ELPA version of org. Hence wondering if there was a better way to trap when org updated it. – stsquad Sep 26 '14 at 13:29
  • Mystery solved! In the end I found the offending line in ~/.emacs.d/my-custom.el which is what _custom-file_ points at. As this is loaded at the end of my init.el it was over-writing what my-org.el had set up. Also as my elisp files are in a sub-dir why I didn't find it earlier. – stsquad Oct 29 '14 at 14:53
3

Another option you have is to track the value of this variable throughout the execution of org-agenda, that has to tell you where the problem is.

  1. Evaluate the following code:

    (global-set-key [f1] (lambda () (interactive) (message "%s" org-agenda-files)))

  2. Visit the function with M-x find-function RET org-agenda.

  3. Edebug it with C-u C-M-x.
  4. Call the function, M-x org-agenda.
  5. Gradually step through it by pressing n, and monitor the value of the variable by hitting F1.

At some point inside the org-agenda function, you'll hit F1 and the value of org-agenda-files will have changed. That will tell you where to look.

Malabarba
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3

Since 26.1, you can use add-variable-watcher to track the variable where and how be changed.

 Function: add-variable-watcher symbol watch-function

Because the watch-function will be called with 4 arguments: symbol, newval, operation, and where, you can simply add a watcher in your init.el, for example,

(add-variable-watcher 'tab-width (lambda (&rest x) (message "Oops! tab-width changed: %S" x)))

which gives you some messages like

Oops! tab-width changed: (tab-width 2 set #<buffer xxx.el>)
angeldsWang
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2

Are you ever using C-c [ (org-agenda-file-to-front) or C-c ] (org-remove-file) while in an org file?

These overwrite the current org-agenda-files with a hardcoded list of files that will no longer use your defined ~/org/ as a source.

Also if you are setting it to ~/org/ please ensure that the agenda files you want are in that folder with .org for the extension. Otherwise they will not be detected.

Jonathan Leech-Pepin
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  • I'd like to add that if you don't expect the list of agenda files to change very frequently, it's better to add that list of files to something like `~/org/agenda.files` and set `org-agenda-files` to `~/org/agenda.files`. – Kaushal Modi Sep 26 '14 at 12:38
  • Not consciously. Indeed they are not mapped to useful keys for me. – stsquad Oct 16 '14 at 11:57