bug#55070: 28.1; desktop-load doesn't work in -nw (non-gui) emacs

[Eric Swenson]

I start emacs with a single frame. I create three windows by doing, for 
example, C-x 2, and C-x 3. In each window, I read in a file. Then I invoke M-x 
desktop-save, and select a directory. I always use ~/.emacs.d.  Then I exit 
emacs with C-x C-c.

Then I renter emacs and invoke C-x desktop-load.

If for both sessions, I invoke emacs with “-Q” only, on either macOS or Linux 
with Gnome desktop, everything works fine. However, if I invoke emacs with “-nw 
-Q”, when I run M-x desktop-load, I only get a single window with one of the 
files loaded. The other two files are loaded into buffers, but their windows 
were not restored.

I haven’t tried a case where I ran a GUI session first and saved the desktop 
and then ran the non-GUI (-nw) session for the restore, but I’m pretty sure it 
would also fail. 

I think the “issue” is that desktop-load doesn’t work in the -nw session.

And yes, you can set up the windows using C-x 4 f <filename> as well as the 
explicitly creating a second window and splitting and then loading files into 
each. It doesn’t really matter. 

-- Eric (KN6SIJ)


> On Apr 22, 2022, at 23:13, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2022 16:27:47 -0700
>> From: Eric Swenson <eric@swenson.org>
>> Cc: "Eric Swenson via groups.io" <eric=swenson.org@groups.io>
>> 
>> I've tried the following in versions 26.3, 27.1, and 28.1.  If you use
>> desktop-save in a non-GUI (-nw) run of emacs, with no init.el loaded
>> (-Q), and then exit emacs, upon reentry, while the files that were
>> loaded in buffers at the time of the save are present, the windows are
>> not restored properly. Only one window is correct -- and only one window
>> is present.  If you start emacs without the "-nw" option, however,
>> everything works just fine.
>> 
>> For some of us who SSH into servers, we have no option but to use the
>> non-GUI version of emacs.
>> 
>> Note, I started this ticket in an emacs invocation with "-nw" but
>> without specifying "-Q", so my minimal, test init.el was executed. It appears
>> below:
>> 
>>  (desktop-save-mode 1)
>>  (setq desktop-load-locked-desktop nil)
>>  (desktop-read)
> 
> Please tell more about the symptoms:
> 
> . what do you mean by "only one window"? do you mean "frame" or do
>   you mean "window"?
> . what does one need to do before exiting the first session to
>   observe the results in the next one? for example, if you indeed
>   mean "only one window", then I guess in the first session one needs
>   to do something like "C-x 2" or maybe "C-x 4 f SOME-FILE"? please
>   describe those actions.
> . is the second session also a -nw session or is it a GUI session?
> 
> Thanks.