Error using conky.conf

[slumbergod]

Following a clean install of Xubuntu 15.10, my old, reliable conky configuration file no longer works. I presume conky is a new version and it is supposed to be backward compatible but something isn't working and I don't know enough about lua to work out what its.

Regardless of whether I use a conky.conf file in /etc/conky/ or a .conkyrc file in my home directory I get this error.

"conky: Syntax error (/home/slumbergod/.conkyrc:2: unexpected symbol near '#') while reading config file.
conky: Assuming it's in old syntax and attempting conversion.
conky: [string "..."]:138: attempt to index local 'settings' (a nil value)"

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: conky (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-16.19-generic 4.2.3
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Sat Oct 24 15:48:03 2015
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-10-22 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Release amd64 (20151021)
SourcePackage: conky
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[slumbergod (slumbergod)]

I decided to do a complete reinstall, downloading a new copy of the Xubuntu image, checking its signature, making a new bootable flash drive, verifying its integrity.

While the second clean install did eliminate a couple of other weird issues, the error with conky is still present for me.

[Hig Hurtenflurst (gate-five)]

It may actually be a very tiny error in your conky.conf file.

I was plagued by this as well and went into the convert.lua (in 15.10, it's at /usr/share/doc/conky-std) to see what was going on. The line above 138 where the configuration file was split in two caught my eye, because the regular expression looked like so:

  ^(.-)TEXT\n(.*)$

And sure enough, when checking my configuration file, there were extra spaces after the word TEXT but before the line break; deleting those allowed conky to process my configuraton file and properly start.

(To be pedantic, the regular expression could be changed to the following to make my old configuration file work:

  ^(.-)TEXT *\n(.*)$

But it'd be just easier to fix the config file. :)