Cannot make commits when Emacs is running in a terminal

[skeeto]

Maybe this was recent intentional change, but magit is now trying to launch a separate editor for entering commit messages rather than accept it in a buffer like before. This completely fails in a non-gui environment and many other setups.

To demonstrate, run this in the magit source repository:

DISPLAY='' emacs -Q -L . -l magit.el

Try to make a commit and magit attempts to launch a terminal version of emacsclient within Emacs, which fails:

$ git --no-pager commit
Waiting for Emacs...
*ERROR*: Terminal type "dumb" is not powerful enough to run Emacs
error: There was a problem with the editor '/usr/bin/emacsclient'.
Please supply the message using either -m or -F option.
git exited abnormally with code 1.

Edit: I see now that #675 and 6142abf is what lead to this new behavior. As it stands right now, magit no longer supports terminal Emacs.

[praet]

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:40:27 -0700, Christopher Wellons notifications@github.com wrote:

Maybe this was recent intentional change, but magit is now trying to
launch a separate editor for entering commit messages rather than
accept it in a buffer like before. This completely fails in a non-gui
environment and many other setups.
[...]

Works here, both from X using DISPLAY='' and from a TTY, running
Magit with `magit-git-editor' == t (making ${,GIT}EDITOR irrelevant).

However I could trigger the issue in two cases:

• setting `magit-git-editor' to "emacs -nw"
• setting ${,GIT}EDITOR to "emacs -nw" and `magit-git-editor' to 'any

You don't happen to be using such a configuration?

Peace

Pieter

[skeeto]

It turns out it was due a similar configuration. I had EDITOR set to
emacsclient -t which fails like the two cases you listed, but if I
drop the -t it works fine. Using -c also triggers this issue.

[praet]

On Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:11:29 -0700, Christopher Wellons notifications@github.com wrote:

It turns out it was due a similar configuration. I had EDITOR set to
emacsclient -t which fails like the two cases you listed, but if I
drop the -t it works fine. Using -c also triggers this issue.

Hmm, so it blows up when emacsclient(1) tries to open a new frame.

When running magit-with-git-editor-setup' withmagit-git-editor' set to t,
we should not only ensure that ${,GIT_}EDITOR contains "emacsclient", but also
that it doesn't contain one of '("-nw" "-t" "--tty" "-c" "--create-frame").

Would you be so kind as to give the patches in #792 a spin?

Thanks!

Peace

Pieter

[skeeto]

@praet Thanks, your git-editor-tty-fix branch fixes it for me. But I see it was rejected for the moment.

[tarsius]

I think my fix in #797 is better. Could you please try that too.

[skeeto]

@tarsius
Yup, 09bbd97 works with everything I try on my end.

[praet]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2013 18:44:59 -0700, Christopher Wellons notifications@github.com wrote:

@praet Thanks, your git-editor-tty-fix branch fixes it for me. But I
see it was rejected for the moment.

Yeah, #797 is a much better overall solution for the emacsclient(1)-related stuff.

Peace

Pieter