I have borrowed some code for using org-capture to take notes on elfeed entries. I press v on an elfeed entry I want to save to an Org file and it creates an entry with a link to the article in the headline.

It works quite well for almost all of my elfeed sources, except the ones that come from ScienceDirect. For these entries, pressing b in elfeed goes to the correct page, and the link inserted in the Org file appears right (works if I copy and paste the URL into Firefox, or call browse-url directly), but following the Org-mode link doesn't work (i.e. clicking the link or RET with org-return-follows-link set to t).

Here's an example (sorry about the long link, it's much nicer looking in org):

**** [[http://rss.sciencedirect.com/action/redirectFile?&zone=main&currentActivity=feed&usageType=outward&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%3F_ob%3DGatewayURL%26_origin%3DIRSSSEARCH%26_method%3DcitationSearch%26_piikey%3DS1090780717301180%26_version%3D1%26md5%3D1f7dfc606454d64bd8ab5e855b764438][A special JMR issue: Methodological advances in EPR spectroscopy and imaging]]
 :CREATED:  [2017-06-03 Sat 23:37]

At least for me, clicking the above link in org takes me to an error page, and the URL makes it look like Org is clipping the URL short. The behavior persists using emacs -q.

My question is, what is causing this behavior, and how can I fix it?

In case it's relevant: I'm using Emacs 26.0.5 and Org 9.0.5 (Org 8.2.10 with emacs -q).


Use (org-make-link-string link title) instead of (concat "[[" link "][" title "]]") to create an Org link. Org will escape and unescape your link when creating and opening. Thus, if you don't let org escape your link, org might not be able to open your link correctly.

  • Thank you indeed. I fixed this oversight in the source blog page as well. – Heikki Jun 7 '17 at 5:48

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