vm-read-index-file-maybe error for gmail

[Uday Reddy]

Torstein Johansen reports (viewmail-info, 5-Aug-2011):

I'm having problems displaying my GMail inbox and was hoping you could
help me out as I'd really like to start using VM for my IMAP folders
again.

VM logs me into GMail and displays my folders, however when I select
one to view it gives me:

  Reading folder INBOX... done
  vm-read-index-file-maybe: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, nil

I would really appreciate some help on this because I don't know how
to proceed with this and I'm certain that it "should work" with
GMail/IMAP as others are bound to use this combination too.

[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

I'm using VM 8.2.0a downloaded from launchpad and installed in
/usr/local bin with the normal ./configure && make && make install and
GNU Emacs 23.3.1 installed using the Debian testing packages.

My .vm is (including everything in case there's something obvious
I've missed):

(setq
 mail-signature t
 mail-signature-file "~/.signature"
 message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
 send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
 smtpmail-auth-credentials (expand-file-name "~/.authinfo")
 smtpmail-debug-info t
 smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
 smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
 smtpmail-smtp-service 587
 smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 nil nil))
 starttls-use-gnutls t
 vm-enable-external-messages t
 vm-folder-directory "~/mail"
 vm-imap-folder-cache-directory "~/mail/cache"
 vm-imap-max-message-size 512
 vm-index-file-suffix ".vm"
 vm-init-file "~/.vm"
 vm-load-headers-only nil
 vm-mime-attachment-save-directory "~/tmp"
 vm-mutable-frames nil
 vm-mutable-windows nil
 vm-pop-folder-cache-directory "~/mail/cache"
 vm-preview-lines nil
 vm-primary-inbox "~/mail/inbox"
 vm-stunnel-program "/usr/bin/stunnel4"

 vm-imap-account-alist
 '(
   ("imap-ssl:imap.googlemail.com:993:inbox:login:myuser.com:*"
    "gmail-work")
   )
 )

;; Set sent folder to the current year/month every time a new message
;; is composed.
(defun gse-set-mail-archive-file-name()
  "Set the sent folder to be based on the current year/month."
  (setq mail-archive-file-name
        (concat
         "~/mail/sent/"
         (format-time-string "%Y-%m"))))
(add-hook 'mail-mode-hook 'gse-set-mail-archive-file-name)

;; Nice colours
(require 'u-vm-color)
(add-hook 'vm-summary-mode-hook 'u-vm-color-summary-mode)
(add-hook 'vm-select-message-hook 'u-vm-color-fontify-buffer)
(defadvice vm-decode-mime-message (after u-vm-color activate)
  (u-vm-color-fontify-buffer-even-more))

VM is loaded with the following snippet in my .emacs:

(defun tkj-load-vm ()
  (interactive)
  (add-to-list 'load-path (expand-file-name
                           "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/vm"))
  (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list
               (expand-file-name
                "/usr/local/share/info/vm"))
  (require 'vm-autoloads)
  (require 'vm)
  (require 'starttls)
  (require 'smtpmail)
  (vm)
)

[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

Couldn't reproduce this error.

[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

Bug 823269 handles the general problems with index files.