I have configured under "Configure Excerpts / Custom read more" the default link that should appear under excerpts take the user to the post itself , but this link does not appear , even the default link/text does not appear - <p>Continue reading <a href="%permalink%">%title%</a></p>.

Is this a known issue ?

what version of Atahualpa are you using?

3.4.2 and WP 8.2 , but this has been the issue since 3.4.1 and WP 2.7

any input on this one ?
It is quite an issue ...

I'm seeing the same problem with Atahualpa 3.4.2 and Wordpress 2.8.3 (and 2.8.2). Changing the excerpt length works, but changing the "read more" string does not. The "read more" text always remains "[...]". I don't think any of the other plugins I have are conflicting with it, and I'm running most things out of the box (no custom code changes).

This works for me, please try disabling plugins one by one.

@ 3ukman: make sure you've set "Only Excerpts" for the page type in question, at "Configure EXCERPTS"

gene, I've had the same issue with Event Calendar 3...

The problem is that Event Calendar 3 actually removes the wp_trim_excerpt filter and replaces it with its own filter called ec3_get_the_excerpt (check out line 595 in eventcalendar3.php).

Unfortunately, this is just a bad design decision on the part of the plugin's author in which a core Wordpress filter gets removed.