Reloading files from disk in frame with emacsclient

Question

This may be user error, but if I open a file with

emacsclient -c file.tex

then if I try to reload the file using C-x C-v, then I get the usual

Find alternate file:

but if I press enter on that, I get

Buffer: `file.tex` still has clients: kill it? (yes or no)

If I say yes to that, the frame exits. If I say 'no', then nothing happens.

This seems to happen when the same file is open in multiple frames, using emacsclient everywhere. So presumably the same process is being used for these multiple frames.

Can someone explain what is going on here? What is the meaning of the message, and why does the frame exit instead of updating the file buffer in that frame?

Answer 1

Essentially, find-alternate-file kills the current buffer and immediately opens another file (creating a new buffer in its stead). Normally, this is fine. When the buffer is killed, Emacs switches to the last most recent buffer, and then immediately switches to the new buffer.

In emacsclient, things work differently. If you kill all buffers created by that editing session (e.g. by answering yes in your example) then emacsclient deems that you are done with whatever editing you were doing and kills the frame. If you say no than find-alternate-file cannot continue (it failed to kill the buffer it's trying to replace) and halts.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug, and should be fixed.

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However you still really should be using revert-buffer if you possibly can.