dropbox.el does not work with Helm

[mgttlinger]

After setting up dropbox.el (configuring access-token and calling dropbox-connect) I can list contents in my dropbox using dropbox--list but trying to access files with the documented prefix /db: only results in the following error:

Error running timer: (user-error "Not a Tramp file name: \"/db:\"")

Is this a bug or a configuration issue?

[pavpanchekha]

It sounds like this is a configuration issue, though I'm not sure why. Make sure you call dropbox-connect on every startup. If that's not the issue, could you give me the contents of the file-name-handler-alist variable?

(You can do that by opening up the *scratch* buffer, typing in that variable name, and hitting C-j, or by any number of other methods.)

[mgttlinger]

file-name-handler-alist is a variable defined in ‘C source code’.
Its value is
(#1=("\\`/db:" . dropbox-handler)
    ("\\(?:\\.tzst\\|\\.zst\\|\\.dz\\|\\.txz\\|\\.xz\\|\\.lzma\\|\\.lz\\|\\.g?z\\|\\.\\(?:tgz\\|svgz\\|sifz\\)\\|\\.tbz2?\\|\\.bz2\\|\\.Z\\)\\(?:~\\|\\.~[-[:alnum:]:#@^._]+\\(?:~[[:digit:]]+\\)?~\\)?\\'" . jka-compr-handler)
    ("\\.gpg\\(~\\|\\.~[0-9]+~\\)?\\'" . epa-file-handler)
    ("\\`/\\(\\([^/|:]+:[^/|:]*|\\)*[^/|:]+\\(:[^/|:]*\\)?\\)?\\'" . tramp-completion-file-name-handler)
    ("^/\\(\\(?:\\([a-zA-Z0-9-]+\\):\\(?:\\([^/|: 	]+\\)@\\)?\\(\\(?:[a-zA-Z0-9_.%-]+\\|\\[\\(?:\\(?:\\(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+\\)?:\\)+[a-zA-Z0-9.]+\\)?]\\)\\(?:#[0-9]+\\)?\\)?|\\)+\\)?\\([a-zA-Z0-9-]+\\):\\(?:\\([^/|: 	]+\\)@\\)?\\(\\(?:[a-zA-Z0-9_.%-]+\\|\\[\\(?:\\(?:\\(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+\\)?:\\)+[a-zA-Z0-9.]+\\)?]\\)\\(?:#[0-9]+\\)?\\)?:\\(.*$\\)" . tramp-file-name-handler)
    #1#
    ("\\`/:" . file-name-non-special))

This looks alright (at least to my untrained eyes)

About the automated running of dropbox-connect: That should be the case due to my config:

(use-package dropbox
  :ensure t
  :after (request password-store)
  :custom
  (dropbox-access-token (password-store--run-show "cloud/dropbox-token"))
  (dropbox-verbose t)
  :config
  (dropbox-connect)
  :demand t)

[pavpanchekha]

Yep, that file-name-handler-alist is fine. In particular I was looking for a dropbox-handler entry, and you have one. What happens if you try to execute (directory-files "/db:")? If that also raises an error message, can you try to execute (dropbox-handle-directory-files "/db:")?

The first of these is an Emacs function which should call the second if the Dropbox file name handler is set up correctly. If the first fails and the second succeeds, something is going wrong in the handler configuration. If the first succeeds, then it seems the handler is set up correctly, and there's some bad interaction with some higher-up component (possibly due to some package you're using—we'll have to debug further). If both fail, there's some problem in dropbox.el.

[mgttlinger]

Ok, so the problem seems to be in combination with helm-find-file the first function as well as plain old find-file managed to open my files.

Is that a bug or an incompatability that should be documented?

However revert-buffer and saving files did not perform as expected.
I'll investigate and open a separate issue for that as that seems unrelated to the original issue.

[pavpanchekha]

Hmm, OK, I will have to look into what's up with Helm. (I use Ivy.) I'll document Helm as an incompatibility for now, and perhaps look into it later.

Please file a bug for revert-buffer and saving.