Emacs does not find package `emacsql-sqlite3`

Troubleshooting
1

Hello, intrepid org-roamers!

I’m trying to up an AWS Debian EC2 instance to keep a (git-managed) copy of my org-roam notes, so that I can use them from my phone (by sshing into the instance from Termux). (I was excited to learn today that running an AWS t3.micro instance full-time only costs about 7.5 dollars per month.)

I’m running into dependency problems. In a nutshell, when I start Emacs I get a Warnings buffer that says:

 ■  Error (use-package): Failed to install emacsql-sqlite3: Package ‘emacsql-sqlite3’ is unavailable
 ■  Error (use-package): Cannot load emacsql-sqlite3
 ■  Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/admin/.emacs’:

File is missing: Cannot open load file, No such file or directory, emacsql-sqlite3

When I run package-list-packages I can confirm that emacsql-sqlite3 is absent.

I’ve set up Emacs to use these repos, in this priority:

(setq package-archives
      '(("Org"          . "https://orgmode.org/elpa/")
        ("Elpa"         . "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
        ("Melpa Stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/")
        ("Melpa"        . "https://melpa.org/packages/")))
(setq package-archive-priorities
      '(("Org"          . 20)
        ("Melpa"        . 15)
        ("Melpa Stable" . 10)
        ("Elpa"         . 5)))

The EC2 instance already has emacs, sqlite, gcc and some other stuff installed. In Emacs, I’ve already got these things installed:

  org-roam                       20250111.252   installed
  use-package                    2.4.6          installed
  bind-key                       2.4.1          dependency
  compat                         30.0.2.0       dependency
  dash                           20240510.1327  dependency
  emacsql                        20241201.1551  dependency
  magit-section                  20250109.1854  dependency
  seq                            2.24           dependency

On ChatGPT’s suggestion I even tried explicitly defining the path to sqlite3:

(setq emacsql-sqlite3-executable "/usr/bin/sqlite3")

So I’m stumped. Any ideas?

Thanks for listening,
Jeff

2

Very quickly to suggest:

  • Remove config that sets your Emacs to use emacsql-sqlite3 — it is not default and I don’t know if this package actually exists or is current now
  • Ensure Emacs version is 29 or higher — you didn’t mention your Emacs version (?)
  • Ensure sqlite is built to (compiled in) your Emacs (there are a couple of posts in this forum, which a search should find, I think)
  • Install emacsql-sqlite-builtin (is it not automatic?)
3

Hi, I think emacsql-sqlite3 is a separate package to emacsql. Also if we see the documentation to the variable org-roam-database-connector we see the following

For the time being `sqlite3' is also supported.  Do not use this.
This uses the third-party `emacsql-sqlite3' package, which uses
the official `sqlite3' cli tool, which is not intended
to be used like this.  See https://nullprogram.com/blog/2014/02/06/."
  :package-version '(forge . "0.3.0")
  :group 'org-roam
  :type '(choice (const sqlite)
                 (const sqlite-builtin)
                 (const sqlite-module)
                 (const :tag "libsqlite3 (OBSOLETE)" libsqlite3)
                 (const :tag "sqlite3 (BROKEN)" sqlite3)))

Do not install this package since its broken.

As @nobiot suggested compile emacs with sqlite builtin - this requires OS level dependencies to be satisfied. In debian for example the relevant dependency is libsqlite3-dev, I think if you have sqlite3 installed - it should work too, but I am not sure currently.

Remove all references to this package. Let know if the problem was solved successfully.
Best.

4

It works! Thanks, @nobiot and @akashp!

The org-roam manual (Org-roam User Manual) includes a lot of mentions of emacsql-sqlite, and some even of emacsql-sqlite3. Does that need changing? Also, in section 6.1 (“How to cache”) sqlite-builtin is mentioned last, after emacsql-sqlite3. Perhaps it should be first?

I only had to remove all mentions of sqlite3, and change the connector line to (setq org-roam-database-connector 'sqlite-builtin). The standard Snap installation of Emacs worked for me – I didn’t have to build it from scratch.

5

I’d agree. I am sure the project will welcome your PR if you get round to it.

This is what I expect – Emacs, version 29 and onward, should be built with sqlite by default. And when this is the case, Org-roam defaults to sqlite-builtin (You should not need to set it explicitly).

6

Also I think emacsql-sqlite is obsolete too.

I tried to use it a few days ago and it wouldn’t compile the required files like it used to, I had to downgrade the enacsql package for it to work.

So in all, most of the information regarding sqlite connectors have become out dated.

7

This should all be resolved and up-to-date on main now!

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