Thanks for the repro. I wanted to clarify: when you say "the header-line",
do you mean the "* headline 1" line or do you mean the menu bar?  I've
tried reproducing this with the text you provided but I haven't hit any
changes to either yet. How often is this happening?

Cheers,

Derek

On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 10:53 AM stardiviner <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> The reproduce steps:
>
> With a test org file:
>
> #+begin_src org
> #+TITLE: this is title
> |
> * headline 1
> #+end_src
>
> The "|" represent the point, when you put point before the first
> heading, the evaluate the bellowing code:
>
> ╭────
> │ (org-display-outline-path nil t " 〉 " t)
> ╰────
>
> You will got error:
>
> ╭────
> │ Debugger entered--Lisp error: (user-error "Before first headline at
> position 21 in buffer Code Tasks.org")
> │   user-error("Before first headline at position %d in buffer %s" 21
> #<buffer Code Tasks.org>)
> │   org-back-to-heading(t)
> │   org-display-outline-path(nil t " 〉 " t)
> │   eval((org-display-outline-path nil t " 〉 " t) t)
> │   #f(compiled-function () #<bytecode 0x134accd5971ee056>)()
> │   #f(compiled-function () #<bytecode -0x5db3e1955cb81d1>)()
> │   eval-expression((org-display-outline-path nil t " 〉 " t) nil nil 127)
> │   funcall-interactively(eval-expression (org-display-outline-path nil t
> " 〉 " t) nil nil 127)
> │   command-execute(eval-expression)
> ╰────
>
> Even I use `ignore-errors` and `with-denoted-errors`, the upper error
> still caused the header-line disappeared sometimes.
>
> Derek Chen-Becker <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > Hi Christopher,
> >
> > Thanks for sharing this report. Is the bug intermittent, or can you put
> > together a reproducible example? Also, when you add the
> > "with-demoted-errors", do you get an error message you could share?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Derek
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 26, 2026 at 10:38 PM Christopher M. Miles <
> [email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I have bellowing config in my Emacs to show heading outline path in
> >> header-line.
> >>
> >> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
> >> (setq-mode-local org-mode
> >>                  header-line-format
> >>                  '(:eval (ignore-errors
> >>                            (concat
> >>                             " " (nerd-icons-faicon "nf-fa-heading" :face
> >> 'nerd-icons-red) "  "
> >>                             ;; FIXME: user-error: "Before first headline
> >> at position 30 in buffer discourse-graphs.org"
> >>                             (org-display-outline-path nil t " 〉 " t)))))
> >> #+end_src
> >>
> >> I found the header-line Org heading outline path will disappeared
> >> sometimes.
> >> Then I debug it show figure out why with `with-demoted-errors`:
> >>
> >> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
> >> (setq-mode-local org-mode
> >>                  header-line-format
> >>                  '(:eval (with-demoted-errors
> >>                              "Error: display Org mode heading outline
> path
> >> error: %S"
> >>                            (concat
> >>                             ;; " " (nerd-icons-icon-for-mode 'org-mode)
> " "
> >>                             " " (nerd-icons-faicon "nf-fa-heading" :face
> >> 'nerd-icons-red) "  "
> >>                             ;; FIXME: user-error: "Before first headline
> >> at position 30 in buffer discourse-graphs.org"
> >>                             (ignore-errors (org-display-outline-path
> nil t
> >> " 〉 " t))))))
> >> #+end_src
> >>
> >> I hope org-mode can fix this error.
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> [ stardiviner ]
> >> I try to make every word tell the meaning that I want to express without
> >> misunderstanding.
> >>
> >> Blog: https://stardiviner.github.io/
> >> IRC(libera.chat, freenode): stardiviner, Matrix: stardiviner
> >> GPG: F09F650D7D674819892591401B5DF1C95AE89AC3
> >>
>
> --
>
> [ stardiviner ]
> I try to make every word tell the meaning that I want to express without
> misunderstanding.
>
> Blog: https://stardiviner.github.io/
> IRC(libera.chat, freenode): stardiviner, Matrix: stardiviner
> GPG: F09F650D7D674819892591401B5DF1C95AE89AC3
>


-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Derek Chen-Becker                                             |
| GPG Key available at https://keybase.io/dchenbecker and       |
| https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=derek%40chen-becker.org |
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