[Bug/Support]: Elpaca hangs when running behind a firewall

[eflanigan00]

Confirmation

• I have checked the documentation (README, Wiki, docstrings, etc)
• I am checking these without reading them.
• I have searched previous issues to see if my question is a duplicate.

Elpaca Version

Elpaca 1d299d7 grafted, HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD
installer: 0.11
emacs-version: GNU Emacs 30.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.33, cairo version 1.16.0)
of 2025-08-17, modified by Debian
git --version: git version 2.34.1

Operating System

RHEL 8

Description

I'm trying to run elpaca behind a firewall. I can bootstrap elpaca and elpaca-use-package. Both show up with elpaca-log command. When I try to install other packages (see code below) emacs hangs. Also when I try to run elpaca-manager it hangs. Any advice for how to debug this? Want to see if it is trying to reach out to the internet or something else. Note my setup works fine on a machine that isn't firewalled.

(use-package with-editor           ;;; Use the Emacsclient as $EDITOR
  :ensure `(:repo ,(concat my-emacs-package-directory "with-editor")))

[progfolio]

Confirmation

• I have checked the documentation (README, Wiki, docstrings, etc)
• I am checking these without reading them.
• I have searched previous issues to see if my question is a duplicate.

Elpaca Version

Elpaca 1d299d7 grafted, HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD installer:
0.11 emacs-version: GNU Emacs 30.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
3.24.33, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2025-08-17, modified by Debian git --version:
git version 2.34.1

Operating System

RHEL 8

Description

I'm trying to run elpaca behind a firewall. I can bootstrap elpaca and
elpaca-use-package. Both show up with elpaca-log command. When I try to install
other packages (see code below) emacs hangs. Also when I try to run
elpaca-manager it hangs. Any advice for how to debug this? Want to see if it is
trying to reach out to the internet or something else. Note my setup works fine
on a machine that isn't firewalled.

(use-package with-editor           ;;; Use the Emacsclient as $EDITOR
  :ensure `(:repo ,(concat my-emacs-package-directory "with-editor")))

For debugging, I would use the elpaca-test macro and see what menu is causing the hang.
e.g.

(elpaca-test
  :interactive t
  :early-init
  (setq elpaca-menu-functions '(elpaca-menu-extensions))
  :init
  (elpaca-manager))

Evaluating the above should give you a test environment to debug in.
Then you can close out Emacs and add back each of the default menu functions (listed below) one at time.

Default menu functions:

(elpaca-menu-lock-file elpaca-menu-extensions elpaca-menu-org elpaca-menu-melpa
elpaca-menu-nongnu-elpa elpaca-menu-gnu-elpa elpaca-menu-declarations)

The only menus which make network calls to download recipe data are:

(elpaca-menu-melpa elpaca-menu-nongnu-elpa elpaca-menu-gnu-elpa) 

Does that help?

[eflanigan00]

@progfolio I get an error with elpaca-test.

"error: Eager macro-expansion failure: (user-error "Lexical binding required for elpaca-test")

[progfolio]

Are you evaluating the test from the *scratch* buffer in lisp-interaction-mode?

[eflanigan00]

Are you evaluating the test from the scratch buffer in lisp-interaction-mode?

I had it in my .emacs files. I just tried from scratch and ran eval-region on it. Emacs is hanging.

[eflanigan00]

I tried to run elpaca-manager and I get an error with gnutls.el error #<process melpa.org>, -54

[progfolio]

It looks like the hang is happening when the elpaca-menu-melpa is trying to download recipes. What happens if you remove that from elpaca-menu-functions in the test declaration and re-run?

[eflanigan00]

I tried with this code you posted. I assume there is only elpaca-menu-extensions and not melpa?

(elpaca-test
  :interactive t
  :early-init
  (setq elpaca-menu-functions '(elpaca-menu-extensions))
  :init
  (elpaca-manager))

[progfolio]

I tried with this code you posted. I assume there is only elpaca-menu-extensions and not melpa?

That's correct, but I'm unsure how else we'd arrive at the error message:

process melpa.org>, -54

[progfolio]

Is eww able to display websites?

[eflanigan00]

Is eww able to display websites?

I've never used eww. It shows loading an html file and emacs continues to run but there is no display like firefox would.