corfu gets stuck with certain words

[uliw]

I have the following strange observation: With certain words, corfu seems to get stuck.. E.g., if I type

curf

I am offered to complete it with curfew, not a bad suggestion, but for the sake of the argument, lets assume I wanted to type
curfurance (a non word). If I do this the 'u' and the 'r' get swallowed, and I and end up with curfance

Sometimes, this would result in a situation where no further input is accepted and until I hit C-g multiple times. Quite possible that I approach this the wrong way, but would be grateful for any pointers.

I have the following settings:

  (corfu-auto t)                 ;; Enable auto completion
  (corfu-auto-prefix 3)
  (corfu-auto-delay 0.2)
  (corfu-popupinfo-delay '(0.4 . 0.2))
  (corfu-quit-no-match t)
  (corfu-popupinfo-mode t)

[minad]

Hi!

I don't recall having observed such a behavior. It is not clear what is interfering - could be anything which leads to Emacs being stuck for a short time. Can you reproduce this problem in a minimal recipe starting from emacs -Q? Which Capf and mode do you use?

[uliw]

ah ok, it appears the problem is caused by

 (add-hook 'completion-at-point-functions #'cape-dict)

if I remove this capf all is well. How would I go about this?

[jdtsmith]

if I remove this capf all is well. How would I go about this?

See where it is added and remove that?

I wonder if it's the exit function hanging. Do we while-no-input the exit function?

[minad]

Iirc cape-dict doesn't have an exit function. I suspect this is a problem with the process handling. @uliw Which OS do you use? Do you use a very large dictionary?

[uliw]

yup, for now I simply removed it

[uliw]

I am on linux, but i just noticed that the problem re-appeared even when cape-dict is disabled. I currently use

(add-hook 'completion-at-point-functions #'cape-dabbrev)
(add-hook 'completion-at-point-functions #'cape-abbrev)
(add-hook 'completion-at-point-functions #'cape-keyword)
(add-hook 'completion-at-point-functions #'cape-file)

I will remove most of them and only work with #'cape-dabbrev, and see if the it happens again. This will take however a while since the problems appears at random.

[minad]

cape-dabbrev can also be slow. See cape-dabbrev-check-other-buffers.

[uliw]

Ok, so it happens with dabbrev as well. Not sure if it speed related, as the completion candidates pop up immidiately, and even waiting for a longer time, does not change the fact that I cannot enter any more characters after col (see below). Hitting tab works however without delay.

[uliw]

ok, here a minimal example that consistently reproduces the problem.

init.el

(package-initialize)
(use-package corfu
   :custom
  (corfu-auto t)                 ;; Enable auto completion
  (corfu-auto-prefix 3)
  (corfu-auto-delay 0.2)
  (corfu-popupinfo-delay '(0.4 . 0.2))
  (corfu-quit-no-match t)
  (corfu-popupinfo-mode t)
   :init
  (global-corfu-mode))

(use-package cape
   :init
    (add-hook 'completion-at-point-functions #'cape-dabbrev))

the example text, below contains org syntax but the problem persists even if it is opened as a text file.

When working with real-world data, it is common to encounter missing information. Pandas provides the =dropna()= method, which allows us to filter out rows or columns with missing (=NaN=) values. Below is a generic example:

now, typing col in the last line, will come up with a completion candidate suggesting columns, but it won;t take any further input so it is impossible to type column . Note that all tests have been done with a single buffer, using only the above minimal init file.

[minad]

To me this sounds like a child frame focus issue, where the keyboard events are sent to the wrong frame and not interpreted correctly. It may be a problem with your window manager, X server, the X input system (xinput2?), the X toolkit used by your Emacs, ...

Corfu is implemented such that events are redirected to the original frame and not handled by the Corfu child frame. I am on Linux, Emacs 30, with the Lucid toolkit, without such problems.

[uliw]

I don't have easy access to emacs 30, but I did try using different window managers (KWIN, TWM), and different toolkits (X11, GTK, PGTK), and the result is always the same.

[minad]

Interesting. It is odd though that I have not seen such reports before, given that Corfu is used widely. However it could also be that people who try Corfu and stumble over such issues early on move to some other package, such that reports are biased.

[uliw]

ok I quickly compiled emacs 30, I now get

Error running timer  corfu--auto-complete-deferred : (error "ispell-lookup-words: No plain word-list found at systemdefault locations.  Customize  ispell-alternate-dictionary  to set yours.")
Corfu completion error: Symbol s function definition is void: nil

[uliw]

I lie it much better than company. Happy to help

[uliw]

linux 6.12.8-1-default
GNU Emacs 29.4 (build 2, x86_64-suse-linux-gnu, X toolkit, cairo version 1.18.2, Xaw3d scroll bars)
cape-20250103.1744 melpa
corfu-20250103.2029 melpa