emacs error cannot save customizations

Question

When setting the home screen of emacs, a failure message was displayed "cannot save customizations"

Loading 00debian-vars...
No /etc/mailname. Reverting to default...
Loading 00debian-vars...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)...
Loading debian-ispell...
Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-default.el (source)...done
Loading debian-ispell...done
Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-dicts.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50global.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50psvn.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50python-guppy.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50ruby1.8-elisp.el (source)...done
Loading cua-base...done
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
custom-save-all: Cannot save customizations; init file was not fully loaded

Please help

Answer 1

If we look at at the source for custom-save-all in cus-edit.el we find:

(defun custom-save-all ()
  "Save all customizations in `custom-file'."
  (when (and (null custom-file) init-file-had-error)
    (error "Cannot save customizations; init file was not fully loaded"))

So it would appear an error is occurring when your init file is being loaded. Try starting emacs with the --debug-init option which enables the Emacs Lisp debugger to help you find the errors in your init file.

Answer 2

I had mis-spelled a path in my .emacs file.

Please check for spelling mistakes in your .emacs file.

EDIT: Keep in mind that UNIX paths are case sensitive. That has been for me the main source of error so far.