Unclear error message when starting beets without `EDITOR` set

[fullerth]

Problem

Running this command in verbose (-vv) mode without EDITOR set

$ beet -vv config -e

Led to this problem:

error: Could not edit configuration: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

I would expect to see the message be: https://github.com/beetbox/beets/blob/d446e10fb0a863ff5fad0d6106fd4acaad306fc2/beets/ui/commands/config.py#L61

May be related to #2847?

Setup

• OS: Debian v13.2
• Python version: 3.13.5 (main, Jun 25 2025, 18:55:22) [GCC 14.2.0]
• Installed with pipx
• beets version: beets version 2.5.1
• Turning off plugins made problem go away (yes/no): no

My configuration (output of beet config) is:

disabled_plugins: []
musicbrainz:
    search_limit: 5
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.5
    host: musicbrainz.org
    https: no
    ratelimit: 1
    ratelimit_interval: 1
    genres: no
    external_ids:
        discogs: no
        bandcamp: no
        spotify: no
        deezer: no
        tidal: no
    extra_tags: []

[semohr]

Thank you for the bug report! I agree the error message is pretty confusing as the file does exist!

I think the issue is not that the environment variables are not set/none but that the set string is nonsensical.

Try for instance

VISUAL="foo" EDITOR="" beet -vv config -e
> error: Could not edit configuration: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

[semohr]

To what values are your VISUAL and EDITOR variable set?

For me setting both to none still opens my standard editor because of the open_aynthing fallback. https://github.com/beetbox/beets/blob/d446e10fb0a863ff5fad0d6106fd4acaad306fc2/beets/util/init.py#L948

[fullerth]

Yep, to be clear, the bug is the unhelpful error message. The system this is running on was not correctly configured, so an error was appropriate. This is a fairly bare headless Debian VM, with EDITOR and VISUAL both unset and xdg-open not installed.

Setting any of the environment variables correctly causes the config file to open in the specified editor.

Installing xdg-utils, (but without configuring xdg as I don't currently have a desktop environment) also changes to a more coherent error:

$ unset EDITOR
$ unset VISUAL
$ beet config -e
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 1032: www-browser: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 1032: links2: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 1032: elinks: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 1032: links: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 1032: lynx: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 1032: w3m: not found
xdg-open: no method available for opening '/mnt/unraid/media/beets.d/config.yaml'

If you'd like, I think I can fix this. The open_anything call gives me enough to go on to propagate a better error message, but it'll take me a few days to get a dev environment setup.

[semohr]

Sure, please go ahead and give it a try! We’re always excited to welcome new contributors. You can find our getting-started guide here.

If you run into any issues with the setup or have any questions in general, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re happy to help!