bug: emacs service needs restart on first login for emacsclient

[shlevy]

Are you following the right branch?

• My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versions are in sync

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Issue description

If I try to launch emacsclient from the (gnome) application toolbar on first login, nothing shows up and the logs for emacs.service have:

Nov 26 09:53:24 darter6 bash[2073]: Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

If I try emacsclient -c from the shell, I get an error about :0 not being available to open.

Restarting the emacs user service fixes the issue until next login.

Maintainer CC

@tadfisher @DamienCassou

System information

- system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.0.9, NixOS, 22.11 (Raccoon), 22.11.20221125.8690906`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.11.0`
 - channels(root): `"nixos-22.05"`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

Note that channel info is not meaningful, here's flake.lock:

{
  "nodes": {
    "home-manager": {
      "inputs": {
        "nixpkgs": [
          "nixpkgs"
        ],
        "utils": "utils"
      },
      "locked": {
        "lastModified": 1669071065,
        "narHash": "sha256-KBpgj3JkvlPsJ3duOZqFJe6tgr+wc75t8sFmgRbBSbw=",
        "owner": "nix-community",
        "repo": "home-manager",
        "rev": "f7641a3ff398ccce952e19a199d775934e518c1d",
        "type": "github"
      },
      "original": {
        "owner": "nix-community",
        "ref": "release-22.11",
        "repo": "home-manager",
        "type": "github"
      }
    },
    "nixpkgs": {
      "locked": {
        "lastModified": 1669379897,
        "narHash": "sha256-XM3xBfQD5tOtV4KAhQHyh53cJdqkLwotZa5JJIUjbQc=",
        "owner": "NixOS",
        "repo": "nixpkgs",
        "rev": "8690906c4d80db5d85f52313a8487bf2e7b8d4c5",
        "type": "github"
      },
      "original": {
        "owner": "NixOS",
        "ref": "nixos-22.11",
        "repo": "nixpkgs",
        "type": "github"
      }
    },
    "root": {
      "inputs": {
        "home-manager": "home-manager",
        "nixpkgs": "nixpkgs"
      }
    },
    "utils": {
      "locked": {
        "lastModified": 1667395993,
        "narHash": "sha256-nuEHfE/LcWyuSWnS8t12N1wc105Qtau+/OdUAjtQ0rA=",
        "owner": "numtide",
        "repo": "flake-utils",
        "rev": "5aed5285a952e0b949eb3ba02c12fa4fcfef535f",
        "type": "github"
      },
      "original": {
        "owner": "numtide",
        "repo": "flake-utils",
        "type": "github"
      }
    }
  },
  "root": "root",
  "version": 7
}

[shlevy]

Config: https://github.com/shlevy/config/tree/92b2fa48fcf524aab442018c81d82bad1f39a657

[DamienCassou]

Could you please try again without any .emacs.d/ directory or other Emacs configuration file?

[shlevy]

Will report back when I've checked.

[futile]

Ran into this issue as well, so can confirm it's happening. What solved the issue for me was putting this into my home-manager config:

  systemd.user.services.emacs = lib.mkIf config.services.emacs.enable {
    Unit = {
      After = [ "graphical-session-pre.target" ];
      PartOf = [ "graphical-session.target" ];
    };

    Install.WantedBy = lib.mkForce [ "graphical-session.target" ];
  };

Home-manager currently sets Install.WantedBy to default.target, which might/will be before the graphical session has started. Thus, only a non-graphical emacs server will be able to start up. The solution of restarting the user emacs service works because during the restart the graphical session is already there.

My workaround/solution configures the home-manager service to use "graphical-session.target" instead of "default.target", so the emacs server is only started once the graphical session has begun.

However, I think I notice a delay when logging in now, which might be due to my desktop waiting until emacs has fully started? Although I'm not really sure about this. Also, "default.target" can still be correct, for example on machines that don't have a graphical session running. My systemd/service knowledge is also not that great, so there might be better solutions here.

[jian-lin]

FYI, I created a PR three months before this issue was opened.

[DamienCassou]

@shlevy @futile have you tried PR #3010? Does it help you?

[shlevy]

I haven't.

[stale]

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[shlevy]

Funnily enough I'd started a rebuild with the latest home-manager before seeing the stale notification. Should know soon enough if it works.

[shlevy]

Alas, this doesn't suffice, I'm still having to restart on login.

[jian-lin]

Do you set services.emacs.startWithUserSession = "graphical"?

[shlevy]

🤦 whoops.

Working now (using socket-activation, which is a better way to do it anyway)