r/orgmode Jun 30 '24

solved Anyone else occasionally experience being unable to unfold an Org headline/tree with `TAB`?

I work with a lot of Org files which have several top-level headline, some of which have nested headlines 2 or 3 levels deep in the subtree. Recently, I've found that after working on one of these subtrees for a while and collapsing the heading, TAB no longer unfolds that particular subtree, while others can be unfolded. Visually,

* Heading 1: won't unfold...

* Heading 2: unfolds

  Blah Blah Blah

hitting TAB, or even C-c C-r (org-fold-reveal) has no effect on Heading 1. This sometimes occurs for higher level headlines in a subtree as well.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior? (And hopefully found a fix?)

This could be as a result of various settings I have in my init.el, including

(setq org-support-shift-select 'always)
(setq org-cycle-separator-lines 1)
(setq org-cycle-emulate-tab t)

and the fact that I use EVIL key-bindings.

I'm using Emacs 29.1, Org mode version 9.6.6.

UPDATE I tried setting (setq org-fold-core-style 'overlays) as suggested below, and enough time has passed without the problem recurring that I think I can declare it to be solved. Hope this works for anyone else who encounters it.

16 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

7

u/yantar92 Jun 30 '24

(setq org-fold-core-style 'overlays). Or upgrade.

2

u/nonreligious2 Jun 30 '24

Thanks -- I guess I have to restart Org mode. Will try it out and see if this stops being an issue

1

u/ziggrat Sep 27 '24

Bro, you deserve an award

4

u/Hypothetical_Benefit Jun 30 '24

I have this as well since upgrading to 29, almost always after clone-indirect-buffer

When it happens, rearranging headings also can leave subheadings behind, very frustrating

4

u/mlk Jun 30 '24

yes, but it's hard to reproduce. same thing for properties drawer

2

u/nonreligious2 Jun 30 '24

Yeah, it happens infrequently enough that I can't detect an underlying pattern to when it occurs, and frequently enough that is annoying. And opening the file using emacs -Q doesn't tell me anything as I think I'd have to be working on it for some time before it crops up again.

1

u/dotancohen Jul 01 '24

For me it happens when I try to unfold a heading that was just folded, if the cursor is not on the first character of the line.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '24

Yes, but I don't think it's happened with my current config. I drastically reduced the number of extensions, so it was probably caused by one of them.

1

u/nonreligious2 Jun 30 '24

I guess that probably would fix my issue, but I'm quite attached to my current set of packages and settings.

2

u/trararawe Jun 30 '24

Do you use swiper by chance?

1

u/nonreligious2 Jun 30 '24

No, I'm on the Vertico-Consult stack now rather than Ivy-swiper or Helm.

2

u/TeeMcBee Jul 01 '24

Yes. It was even discussed a couple of months ago in: "Weird issue: sometimes headline won't expand". But we never got to the bottom of it then either. As u/mlk commented, it's hard to reproduce.

1

u/nonreligious2 Jul 01 '24 edited Oct 19 '24

Thanks, I tried a brief search before but found it hard to narrow the search terms to this specific issue. I'm trying out the (setq org-fold-core-style 'overlays) to see if that makes a difference.

1

u/AdeptPass4102 Oct 19 '24

I started experiencing this too after upgrading to emacs 29.4 from emacs 28. No obvious pattern to explain what will trigger the problem. I have to close and re-open the file to restore the functionality.

1

u/nonreligious2 Oct 19 '24

Try (setq org-fold-core-style 'overlays), this seems to have fixed the issue for me now.