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I've recently updated SLIME from package-list-packages in Emacs. However, when I try to run it using M-x slime, I get this:

(progn (load "/home/koz/.emacs.d/elpa/slime-20140913.730/swank-loader.lisp" :verbose t) (funcall (read-from-string "swank-loader:init")) (funcall (read-from-string "swank:start-server") "/tmp/slime.3081")) * ; loading #P"/home/koz/.emacs.d/elpa/slime-20140913.730/swank-loader.lisp" ;; ;; Error while compiling /home/koz/.emacs.d/elpa/slime-20140913.730/swank/backend.lisp: ;; Failed to find the TRUENAME of /home/koz/.emacs.d/elpa/slime-20140913.730/swank/backend.lisp: ;; No such file or directory ;; Aborting. ;; *

I still have a REPL afterwards, but I think this is very strange, and I'd like to know what's going on and why.

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  • What kind of Lisp are you using? Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 20:15
  • @echristopherson: SBCL. Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 23:37
  • I'm getting exactly the same error using that version of SLIME and SBCL 1.2.1. Perhaps downgrading SLIME would help. Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 6:22
  • Oh well, guess I'll have to try that, then. Probably should log a bug or something with the maintainer of SLIME. Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 6:26

2 Answers 2

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On Freenode's #lisp channel, I talked to one person who agreed that the current version of SLIME in MELPA (20140913.730) is broken. On my system, the whole $HOME/.emacs.d/elpa/slime-20140913.730/swank/ directory is missing, which presumably is why it can't compile Lisp files found therein.

Other members of the channel suggested installing SLIME from Quicklisp; I did that and it worked, although the SLIME version there is slightly older (dated 2014-08-01). Here is what I did (I didn't already have Quicklisp installed); adjust to match your system and preferences:

  1. Uninstall SLIME from Emacs's package list (do M-x list-packages, go to the line for SLIME, press d, then press x).
  2. Visit http://www.quicklisp.org/beta/ and download the file in the green box (in my case, it went in ~/Downloads).
  3. Upgrade SBCL to 1.2.2 or later. This is probably overkill.
  4. Launch sbcl.
  5. Evaluate (load "~/Downloads/quicklisp.lisp").
  6. Evaluate (quicklisp-quickstart:install); optionally, if you don't want it to go in ~/quicklisp, add :path "~/.quicklisp/" (substituting whatever directory you actually do want it installed in).
  7. Install SLIME and SWANK by evaluating (ql:quickload "swank").
  8. Optional: evaluate (ql:add-to-init-file) to patch your .sbclrc to always load Quicklisp in SBCL.
  9. Exit SBCL with Ctrl+D.
  10. Adjust your Emacs config file as shown in SLIME's readme. For the path entry, use "~/quicklisp/dists/quicklisp/software/slime-2.9" (adjusted for whatever path you installed Quicklisp in).
  11. Restart Emacs and M-x slime should work.
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2 Comments

Thanks for the help! Was just looking for the exact same answer. I found that removing the original slime package was necessary (M-x list-packages, cursor over Slime, d to mark then x to remove)
@tomwalker Thanks. I've edited that into the answer.
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This is caused by losing the swank sub-directory in your slime folder. To fix it, you can simple download slime from github and copy the folder swank to your slime installed path, for your situation is /home/koz/.emacs.d/elpa/slime-20140913.730/ then restart your slime. it will be load correctly.

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