helm-ag--propertize-candidates: Buffer is read-only: #<buffer *helm-ag*>

[amasover]

It looks like a recent change in helm to make the helm buffer read-only broke helm-do-ag somewhat in emacs.

See: emacs-helm/helm#2755

Calling helm-do-ag and inputting text causes slowdown and many repeated errors:

helm-ag--propertize-candidates: Buffer is read-only: #<buffer *helm-ag*>

As a workaround I have added the following to my .spacemacs, and am including it here in case it helps anyone else. Note that this snippet was generated by an LLM:

  ;; Workaround for helm-ag propertizing a read-only Helm buffer.
  (with-eval-after-load 'helm-ag
    (defun dotfiles/helm-ag--do-ag-propertize-inhibit-read-only (orig-fun input)
      (let ((inhibit-read-only t))
        (funcall orig-fun input)))
    (unless (advice-member-p #'dotfiles/helm-ag--do-ag-propertize-inhibit-read-only
                             'helm-ag--do-ag-propertize)
      (advice-add 'helm-ag--do-ag-propertize
                  :around #'dotfiles/helm-ag--do-ag-propertize-inhibit-read-only)))

Long-term I guess Spacemacs could use helm-do-grep-ag? I'm not incredibly familiar with Spacemacs internals though.

[sunlin7]

It's a helm issue, upgrade your help package will be able to resolve the issue.

[viviicat]

My (somewhat naive) understanding based on the linked gh issue, is that Spacemacs is using a deprecated package which is outdated and should be replaced.

specifically this comment: emacs-helm/helm#2755 (comment)

[svenpanne]

A bit more background why this really a spacemacs issue: At

spacemacs/layers/+completion/helm/packages.el

Lines 30 to 32 in a34310e

	(helm-ag :location (recipe
	:fetcher github
	:repo "smile13241324/helm-ag"))

spacemacs uses a fork of the deprecated helm-ag package, which already contains some fixes. @smile13241324: Perhaps the easiest way to fix the problem is to do what the helm people propose (" let-bind inhibit-read-only around your code") in that fork.

In the long run, using helm's own code would probably better, but I'm not 100% sure if that is feature-identical.