Comment 22 for bug 1355274

I'm stunned. This was reported in 2014 and it's still not fixed! Today I tried ElementaryOS 0.4 and emacs was the very first package I installed and to my astonishment, I can't even edit a file without resorting to searching the web for a fix!

$ emacs

(emacs:1944): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:2045:14: 'min-height' is not a valid property name

(emacs:1944): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:2046:13: 'min-width' is not a valid property name

(emacs:1944): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:2051:13: 'min-width' is not a valid property name
X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes) on protocol request 139
When compiled with GTK, Emacs cannot recover from X disconnects.
This is a GTK bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715
For details, see etc/PROBLEMS.

(emacs:1944): GLib-WARNING **: g_main_context_prepare() called recursively from within a source's check() or prepare() member.

(emacs:1944): GLib-WARNING **: g_main_context_check() called recursively from within a source's check() or prepare() member.
Fatal error 6: Aborted
Backtrace:
emacs[0x5036d3]
emacs[0x4e9d6e]
emacs[0x503713]
emacs[0x4bd9ef]
emacs[0x4bf9dc]
emacs[0x4bfa3d]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XError+0x11d)[0x7f6e91914c4d]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x3cad7)[0x7f6e91911ad7]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x3cb95)[0x7f6e91911b95]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XEventsQueued+0x55)[0x7f6e91912555]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(XPending+0x57)[0x7f6e91903f47]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk-3.so.0(+0x5ae9e)[0x7f6e930f9e9e]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_prepare+0x15d)[0x7f6e9207a91d]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x4a2bb)[0x7f6e9207b2bb]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_pending+0x27)[0x7f6e9207b447]
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-3.so.0(gtk_events_pending+0xd)[0x7f6e9358b40d]
emacs[0x4bdb1b]
emacs[0x4f0fa1]
emacs[0x4f0945]
emacs[0x4594e5]
emacs[0x41c148]
emacs[0x41df02]
emacs[0x41f3bb]
emacs[0x42182d]
emacs[0x451e1f]
emacs[0x451fa6]
emacs[0x452172]
emacs[0x452790]
emacs[0x58158e]
emacs[0x55cc3d]
emacs[0x56026e]
emacs[0x593f2f]
emacs[0x55d3af]
emacs[0x55d74b]
emacs[0x55da6a]
emacs[0x564742]
emacs[0x5665b2]
emacs[0x55d92c]
emacs[0x592b23]
emacs[0x55d3af]
emacs[0x55d74b]
...
Aborted (core dumped)

I tried the above recommendation of inserting the Exec line into the .desktop file, it did not work. I tried both in my own .local version and in the system one.

It does work to execute emacs using this command however I get all these warning messages:

XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 /usr/bin/emacs

(emacs:2545): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:2045:14: 'min-height' is not a valid property name

(emacs:2545): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:2046:13: 'min-width' is not a valid property name

(emacs:2545): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:2051:13: 'min-width' is not a valid property name

Why is this so difficult to fix?