[Emacs 25.3.1] Running emacs daemon via systemd does not load GUI elements

[Gabriel Szasz]

Hi folks,

I'm executing emacs daemon via systemd using the following unit file:

[Unit]
Description=Emacs: the extensible, self-documenting text editor
Documentation=man:emacs(1) info:Emacs

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/emacs --daemon
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/emacsclient --eval "(progn (setq kill-emacs-hook 
'nil) (kill-emacs))"
Environment=DISPLAY=:%i
TimeoutStartSec=0
Restart=on-failure
User=%i

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Everything works flawlessly, but I still cannot figure out how to 
convince my emacsclient to display graphic elements such as the raised 
buttons in Custom and image icons in Speedbar.  I understand that emacs 
daemon has no way to predict whether I am going to use graphical 
environment so it fallbacks to the safe text-only settings.  What I do 
not understand is why adding following code into my ~/.emacs.d/init.el 
file does not solve the problem.

(when (daemonp)
  (add-hook 'after-make-frame-functions
        '(lambda (frame) (when (display-graphic-p frame)
                   (setq custom-raised-buttons t)
                   (setq speedbar-use-images t)))))

Both custom-raised-buttons and speedbar-use-images are indeed correctly 
set to "t" when "emacsclient -c" creates a frame, but graphic elements 
are not rendered anyway.

Cheers,

Gabriel Szasz