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  • OS X 10.11
  • Emacs 24.5: /Applications/Emacs.app
  • emacsclient: /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_9/emacsclient
  • (server-start) in my .emacs file
  • % emacsclient some-file

Result is:

/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_9/emacsclient: can't find socket; have you started the server? To start the server in Emacs, type "M-x server-start".

/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_9/emacsclient: No socket or alternate editor. Please use:

--socket-name --server-file (or environment variable EMACS_SERVER_FILE) --alternate-editor (or environment variable ALTERNATE_EDITOR)

I have also tried this running Emacs and emacsclient as installed with MacPorts with the same result.

This is been happening for many years. I can't even remember the last time I was able to use emacsclient. I have searched extensively for information about this, but all I can find is information I already know as a sophisticated Emacs user of many decades.

I am not looking to run Emacs as a daemon.

Suggestions?

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3
  • 1
    You want an emacs server to run, but not as a daemon? Isn't this the whole point of an emacs server?
    – Kaligule
    Commented Aug 30, 2016 at 20:33
  • Not at all. All documentation says you can run it either way and which way you do it is a matter of preference. As an experiment I guess I should try it as a daemon, but it shouldn't be necessary.
    – Mitchell Model
    Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 16:03
  • Try running M-x server-force-delete. If the server is really running, you should see a message like Connection file "/tmp/emacs101/server" deleted". If you don't see a message like that, you may not have a running server after all.
    – nispio
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 3:25

2 Answers 2

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1

emacsclient with no option contacts a running Emacs. You need to either start Emacs with your session (presumably as a daemon) or instruct emacsclient to start Emacs if there isn't one already.

To instruct emacsclient to start Emacs if it isn't already running, run either

emacsclient --alternate-editor=''

or

emacsclient -a ''

(You can put this in a shell alias or in a wrapper script.)

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1
  • I neglected to say in my OP that Emacs.app is running, but I did say that (server-start) is in my .emacs` file. So indeed, I want emacsclient to contacts my running Emacs.app.
    – Mitchell Model
    Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 16:05
0

I had the same issue because I was running emacsclient from /usr/bin/emacsclient, now I use this:

export EDITOR='/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/emacsclient --no-wait --alternate-editor=/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs'
alias e=$EDITOR
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