I was bitten by this and it took me a while to figure out what was going on, so maybe I can save somebody some time by recording the problem here.
I'm using bbdb 2.36devo (i.e. an old bbdb version - see below for my 3.0 troubles), and although org-bbdb-anniversaries was working fine, bbdb links did not: C-c l on a bbdb entry would raise an error about void function bbdb-record-get-field. Now org-bbdb-store-link contains the following code (if org-bbdb-old (bbdb-record-getprop rec 'company) (car (bbdb-record-get-field rec 'organization)) so clearly org-bbdb-old was nil - but why? It seemed to me that it should be t since my bbdb was old. It turns out that org-bbdb.el contains a line that sets org-bbdb-old thus: (defvar org-bbdb-old (fboundp 'bbdb-record-get-field-internal)) Check whether an "old" bbdb function is present and if so, set org-bbdb-old to t. Basically, the variable tells the rest of org-bbdb.el whether one's bbdb is old (< 3.0) or not, so that it can use the proper compatibility layer. This was not working in my case : the variable resolutely held the value nil, no matter what requires/load-library/ etc tricks I threw at it. The problem was that org-bbdb is part of org-modules by default and that was loading org-bbdb way too early, certainly before bbdb itself was loaded. That would set the value to nil and nothing I would do could change it (short of whacking it with a setq). My solution was to change the customization of org-modules to get rid of org-bbdb there. I do things in the proper sequence in my initialization files in any case, so there is no need to have it in org-modules. But maybe there's a better solution? Re: the bbdb 3.0 troubles. I have tried switching to bbdb 3.0 (specifically "BBDB version 3.02 ($Date: 2012/01/02 10:08:06 $)") but I've been stymied so far with org-bbdb-anniversaries blowing up (a far worse scenario than the link problem above - that's why I'm still using 2.36devo and went after the link fix first). The error I get is "Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function bbdb-record-getprop)" in org-bbdb-anniv-hash (see backtrace below), but I haven't chased down that problem yet. But it seems there are people using bbdb 3.0 so I'm wondering what's wrong with my setup. Nick --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function bbdb-record-getprop) (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field) (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (if (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (progn (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun (car split))) (setq tmp (gethash (list m d) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons (list y (bbdb-record-name rec) (cadr split)) tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash))))) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun (car split))) (setq tmp (gethash (list m d) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons (list y (bbdb-record-name rec) (cadr split)) tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))) (while --cl-dolist-temp-- (setq rec (car --cl-dolist-temp--)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun (car split))) (setq tmp (gethash (list m d) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons (list y (bbdb-record-name rec) (cadr split)) tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))) (setq --cl-dolist-temp-- (cdr --cl-dolist-temp--))) (let ((--cl-dolist-temp-- (bbdb-records)) rec) (while --cl-dolist-temp-- (setq rec (car --cl-dolist-temp--)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun (car split))) (setq tmp (gethash (list m d) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons (list y ... ...) tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))) (setq --cl-dolist-temp-- (cdr --cl-dolist-temp--)))) (catch (quote --cl-block-nil--) (let ((--cl-dolist-temp-- (bbdb-records)) rec) (while --cl-dolist-temp-- (setq rec (car --cl-dolist-temp--)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun ...)) (setq tmp (gethash ... org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons ... tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))) (setq --cl-dolist-temp-- (cdr --cl-dolist-temp--))))) (cl-block-wrapper (catch (quote --cl-block-nil--) (let ((--cl-dolist-temp-- (bbdb-records)) rec) (while --cl-dolist-temp-- (setq rec (car --cl-dolist-temp--)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split ...)) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list ...) (setq tmp ...) (puthash ... ... org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))) (setq --cl-dolist-temp-- (cdr --cl-dolist-temp--)))))) (block nil (let ((--cl-dolist-temp-- (bbdb-records)) rec) (while --cl-dolist-temp-- (setq rec (car --cl-dolist-temp--)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun ...)) (setq tmp (gethash ... org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons ... tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))) (setq --cl-dolist-temp-- (cdr --cl-dolist-temp--))))) (dolist (rec (bbdb-records)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun (car split))) (setq tmp (gethash (list m d) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons (list y (bbdb-record-name rec) (cadr split)) tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash))))) (let (split tmp annivs) (clrhash org-bbdb-anniv-hash) (dolist (rec (bbdb-records)) (when (setq annivs (bbdb-record-getprop rec org-bbdb-anniversary-field)) (setq annivs (bbdb-split annivs "\n")) (while annivs (setq split (org-bbdb-anniv-split (pop annivs))) (multiple-value-bind (m d y) (values-list (funcall org-bbdb-extract-date-fun (car split))) (setq tmp (gethash (list m d) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)) (puthash (list m d) (cons (list y ... ...) tmp) org-bbdb-anniv-hash)))))) org-bbdb-make-anniv-hash() (progn (org-bbdb-make-anniv-hash)) (if (or org-bbdb-updated-p (= 0 (hash-table-count org-bbdb-anniv-hash))) (progn (org-bbdb-make-anniv-hash))) (when (or org-bbdb-updated-p (= 0 (hash-table-count org-bbdb-anniv-hash))) (org-bbdb-make-anniv-hash)) org-bbdb-anniversaries()