Magit error during commit on Windows

Question

I have been getting an error when trying to commit using magit. I stage my change with a, then on commit cc I get the message:

Opening output file: No such file or directory, c:/Users/myuname/.emacs.d/server/server

If I ignore the message and attempt the commit cc again I get the message:

There was a problem with the editor '"c:/ProgramData/chocolately/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe"'. ... [Hit $ to see buffer magit-process: .emacs.d for details]

After pressing $ I see the magit process buffer containing:

1 C:/ProgramData/chocolately/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe ... "commit" "--"

error: There was a problem with the editor '"c:/ProgramData/chocolately/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe"'. Please suply the message using either -m or -F option.

I've found similar problems around the web (such as this one) but they usually state that it is a bug which has been fixed in more recent versions of emacs/magit. I'm running versions that are more recent than when these answers were posted, so they haven't been helpful to me.

My current system is:

• Windows 10
• GNU Emacs 25.3.1 (x86_64-mingw32) of 2017-09-13 (emacs64 package from chocolatey)
• Magit 20180517.1345, Git 2.17.0.windows.1, Emacs 25.2.1, windows-nt

Please let me know if there is any other useful information that I can provide. I'm not very experienced with debugging in emacs, so please excuse anything basic that I've overlooked.

---

EDIT

Here is the with-editor-debug buffer:

with-editor: c:/Users/jrm978/.emacs.d/elpa/with-editor-20180414.757/with-editor.el
emacs: c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacs (25.3.1)
system:
  system-type: windows-nt
  system-configuration: x86_64-w64-mingw32
  system-configuration-options: --prefix=/tmp/emacs --without-imagemagick --without-dbus --with-modules 'CFLAGS=-O2 -g0'
server:
  server-running-p: nil
  server-process: #<process server>
  server-use-tcp: t
  server-name: server
  server-socket-dir: nil
    WARNING: not an accessible directory
  server-auth-dir: ~\.emacs.d\server\
    ERROR: not an accessible directory
with-editor-emacsclient-executable:
 value:   c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe (25.3)
 default: c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe (25.3)
 funcall: c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe (25.3)
path:
  $PATH: "C:\\Program Files\\ImageMagick-7.0.7-Q16;C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2\\Bin\\;C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Common Files\\Oracle\\Java\\javapath;;C:\\Program Files\\Tcl\\bin;C:\\ProgramData\\Oracle\\Java\\javapath;C:\\WINDOWS\\system32;C:\\WINDOWS;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\Wbem;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\;C:\\Program Files\\MiKTeX 2.9\\miktex\\bin\\x64\\;C:\\ProgramData\\chocolatey\\bin;C:\\Program Files (x86)\\vim\\vim80;C:\\tools\\miniconda3;C:\\tools\\miniconda3\\Scripts;C:\\Program Files\\OpenSees;C:\\ProgramData\\chocolatey\\lib\\mpv.install\\tools;C:\\Program Files\\Git\\cmd;C:\\SIMULIA\\Abaqus\\Commands;C:\\Strawberry\\c\\bin;C:\\Strawberry\\perl\\site\\bin;C:\\Strawberry\\perl\\bin;C:\\Users\\jrm978\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps;C:\\Users\\jrm978\\AppData\\Local\\Pandoc\\;C:\\Users\\jrm978\\hunspell\\bin;C:\\Program Files\\Oracle\\VirtualBox;;C:\\Program Files (x86)\\clisp-2.49"
  exec-path: (c:/Program Files/ImageMagick-7.0.7-Q16 C:/Program Files/Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2/Bin/ C:/Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Oracle/Java/javapath . C:/Program Files/Tcl/bin C:/ProgramData/Oracle/Java/javapath C:/WINDOWS/system32 C:/WINDOWS C:/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem C:/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/ C:/Program Files/MiKTeX 2.9/miktex/bin/x64/ C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/bin C:/Program Files (x86)/vim/vim80 C:/tools/miniconda3 C:/tools/miniconda3/Scripts C:/Program Files/OpenSees C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/mpv.install/tools C:/Program Files/Git/cmd C:/SIMULIA/Abaqus/Commands C:/Strawberry/c/bin C:/Strawberry/perl/site/bin C:/Strawberry/perl/bin C:/Users/jrm978/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps C:/Users/jrm978/AppData/Local/Pandoc/ C:/Users/jrm978/hunspell/bin C:/Program Files/Oracle/VirtualBox . C:/Program Files (x86)/clisp-2.49 c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/libexec/emacs/25.3/x86_64-w64-mingw32)
  with-editor-emacsclient-path:
    c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin (t)
      c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/bin/emacsclient.exe (25.3)
    c:/Program Files/ImageMagick-7.0.7-Q16 (t)
    C:/Program Files/Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2/Bin/ (t)
    C:/Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Oracle/Java/javapath (t)
    C:/Program Files/Tcl/bin (t)
    C:/ProgramData/Oracle/Java/javapath (t)
    C:/WINDOWS/system32 (t)
    C:/WINDOWS (t)
    C:/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem (t)
    C:/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/ (t)
    C:/Program Files/MiKTeX 2.9/miktex/bin/x64/ (t)
    C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/bin (t)
      C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/bin/emacsclient.exe (25.3)
    C:/Program Files (x86)/vim/vim80 (t)
    C:/tools/miniconda3 (t)
    C:/tools/miniconda3/Scripts (t)
    C:/Program Files/OpenSees (t)
    C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/mpv.install/tools (t)
    C:/Program Files/Git/cmd (t)
    C:/SIMULIA/Abaqus/Commands (t)
    C:/Strawberry/c/bin (t)
    C:/Strawberry/perl/site/bin (t)
    C:/Strawberry/perl/bin (t)
    C:/Users/jrm978/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps (t)
    C:/Users/jrm978/AppData/Local/Pandoc/ (t)
    C:/Users/jrm978/hunspell/bin (t)
    C:/Program Files/Oracle/VirtualBox (t)
    . (t)
    C:/Program Files (x86)/clisp-2.49 (t)
    c:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/emacs64/tools/emacs/libexec/emacs/25.3/x86_64-w64-mingw32 (t)

With M-x toggle-debug-on-error nothing happens.

Regarding the different versions, I added the magit package when using 25.2.1, but after hitting this problem updated first emacs and then the magit package. I just removed and reinstalled magit. M-x magit-version now gives:

• Magit 20180517.1345, Git 2.17.0.windows.1, Emacs 25.3.1, windows-nt

But the problem persists.

Answer 1

After checking the results of M-x with-editor-debug it is evident that emacs could not access ~\.emacs.d\server

The problem was that this directory didn't exist. After creating this as an empty directory the problem is solved.

Answer 2

I had the same issue on macOS 10.15.5 Catalina. From a quick debug session I discovered that the server directory was also missing on my machine, like the other answer mentions.

I created it by hand, but this didn’t fix the issue.

In my case I had a Git project setup with submodules, and the submodule had .git/gitdir & .git/gitfile configurations with relative paths that were no longer present (due to a refactoring which also moved directories around). The path configured there was the same one as in the Magit error message, so I deleted the files and now I can commit again.

You’ll eventually have to check your Git submodule configuration afterwards.