xemacs 21.4, running on Gentoo. I've emerged xemacs-base, efs and xemacs-packages-sumo.

I'm having problems with the package tools. I can update my package index, but only when I don't have a download site selected. I can also use "list and install", although this wasn't always the case - I'm not sure what got it working, but it may have been getting either efs or sumo. What I can't do is actually install anything - it gives me a syntax error if I have no download site selected, and if I do, it says "Process not open for writing: #<process "*ftp anonymous@server.xemacs.org*" pid xxxxx state:exit>" after some loading messages. I get the same message regardless of the ftp program I give when customizing efs (at any rate, it's the same whether I use ftp or ncftp). This is also the message I get if I try to update my package list with a download site selected, and what I used to get with a list and install. I suspect it may be caused by the fact that they don't accept the user@server syntax, but that seems like the sort of thing that would be noticed before ftp was made the default client, and I can't see any way to change how it communicates with the process.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.