bug#81666: 31.1; browse-url fails in emacsclient -nw

Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]> writes:

>> From: Abdulnafé Toulaïmat
>>  <[email protected]>
>> Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2026 21:53:24 +0200
>> 
>> ‘browse-url’ gives an error "funcall-interactively: Frames are not in use or
>> not initialized", but only when called in an emacsclient TTY frame. It
>> works fine in GUI frames, for both emacs and emacsclient, as well as in
>> emacs TTY frames.
>> 
>> Steps to reproduce:
>> 
>> 1) emacs --daemon -Q
>> 2) emacsclient -nw
>> 3) M-x browse-url RET
>> 4) https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ RET
>> 
>> With ‘toggle-debug-on-error’, I get this trace:
>> 
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Frames are not in use or not initialized")
>>   browse-url("https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/" nil)
>>   funcall-interactively(browse-url "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/" nil)
>>   command-execute(browse-url record)
>>   #<subr execute-extended-command>(nil "browse-url" nil)
>>   apply(#<subr execute-extended-command> (nil "browse-url" nil))
>>   execute-extended-command(nil "browse-url" nil)
>>   funcall-interactively(execute-extended-command nil "browse-url" nil)
>>   command-execute(execute-extended-command)
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> This error is specific to a PGTK build, and comes from browse-url here:
>
>     ;; When connected to various displays, be careful to use the display of
>     ;; the currently selected frame, rather than the original start display,
>     ;; which may not even exist any more.
>     (let ((dpy (frame-parameter nil 'display))
>           classname)
>       (if (stringp dpy)
>         (cond
>          ((featurep 'pgtk)
>           (setq classname (pgtk-backend-display-class))  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>           (if (equal classname "GdkWaylandDisplay")
>               (progn
>                 ;; The `display' frame parameter is probably wrong.
>                 ;; See bug#53969 for some context.
>                 ;; (setenv "WAYLAND_DISPLAY" dpy)
>                 )
>             (setenv "DISPLAY" dpy)))
>
> All this is conditioned on "(frame-parameter nil 'display)" returning
> a string, which AFAIU is not expected in the -nw case.  So the first
> question is: what does "(frame-parameter nil 'display)" yield in your
> case, in the scenario you describe, just before you invoke browse-url
> from the client frame?
>
> (FWIW, I tried to reproduce this in a PGTK build I have here, but
> couldn't: I see no error in this case.  And frame-parameter returns
> nil in my case, as expected.)

Hello, thanks for looking into this.

In the emacsclient TTY frame, I get ":0". This does indeed appear to be
the main culprit, because in an *emacs* TTY frame, I get nil, as you
describe.

-- 
Abdulnafé Toulaïmat