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5e14abf8 KS |
1 | Known Problems with GNU Emacs |
2 | ||
9a00bed5 | 3 | Copyright (C) 1987-1989, 1993-1999, 2001-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
5b87ad55 GM |
4 | See the end of the file for license conditions. |
5 | ||
6 | ||
a933dad1 | 7 | This file describes various problems that have been encountered |
2de04022 GM |
8 | in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs. Try doing C-c C-t |
9 | and browsing through the outline headers. (See C-h m for help on | |
f995538b GM |
10 | Outline mode.) Information about systems that are no longer supported, |
11 | and old Emacs releases, has been removed. Consult older versions of | |
12 | this file if you are interested in that information. | |
a933dad1 | 13 | |
0d3c6661 | 14 | * Mule-UCS doesn't work in Emacs 23 onwards |
2c311b39 DL |
15 | |
16 | It's completely redundant now, as far as we know. | |
17 | ||
9dc15871 | 18 | * Emacs startup failures |
32364f49 | 19 | |
9dc15871 | 20 | ** Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts. |
32364f49 | 21 | |
9dc15871 | 22 | A typical error message might be something like |
32364f49 | 23 | |
9dc15871 | 24 | No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1' |
6b61353c | 25 | |
9dc15871 | 26 | This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for |
79baa30b | 27 | Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be are: |
6b61353c | 28 | |
9dc15871 | 29 | - in your ~/.Xdefaults file |
6b61353c | 30 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
31 | - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or |
32 | /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or | |
33 | /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs | |
6b61353c | 34 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
35 | One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a |
36 | fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find | |
37 | the problematic line(s) and correct them. | |
6b61353c | 38 | |
9dc15871 | 39 | ** Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X. |
6b61353c | 40 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
41 | This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was |
42 | installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to | |
43 | specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes | |
44 | corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use | |
45 | the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers. | |
46 | Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header | |
47 | files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the | |
48 | original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs | |
49 | not to work. | |
6b61353c | 50 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
51 | The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir |
52 | when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir | |
53 | is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the | |
54 | same directory where system header files are kept. | |
6b61353c | 55 | |
9dc15871 | 56 | ** Emacs does not start, complaining that it cannot open termcap database file. |
6b61353c | 57 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
58 | If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern |
59 | systems do), this could happen if the proper version of | |
60 | ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it | |
61 | cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for | |
79baa30b | 62 | libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is |
9dc15871 | 63 | obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries. |
6b61353c | 64 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
65 | The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in |
66 | the developer's form (header files, static libraries and | |
67 | symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian) | |
68 | it constitutes a separate package. | |
6b61353c | 69 | |
9dc15871 | 70 | ** Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup. |
5b4ffca2 | 71 | |
9dc15871 | 72 | The typical error message might be like this: |
5b4ffca2 | 73 | |
9dc15871 | 74 | "Cannot open load file: fontset" |
c763d515 | 75 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
76 | This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file |
77 | tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp | |
78 | files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the | |
79 | Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later, | |
80 | when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is | |
81 | required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and | |
82 | it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.) | |
f1c231c4 | 83 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
84 | Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc |
85 | file could fail to load if it is compressed. | |
fc2938d1 | 86 | |
c64233b2 | 87 | The solution is to uncompress all .el files that don't have a .elc file. |
6b61353c | 88 | |
9dc15871 | 89 | Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files |
b7bd8478 | 90 | lurking somewhere on your load-path -- see the next section. |
f0f62f71 | 91 | |
9dc15871 | 92 | ** Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version. |
f0f62f71 | 93 | |
9dc15871 | 94 | An example of such an error is: |
f0f62f71 | 95 | |
9dc15871 | 96 | x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil" |
fc1bfc2a | 97 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
98 | This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your load-path. |
99 | The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are | |
100 | present in load-path: | |
fc1bfc2a | 101 | |
16eea16b | 102 | emacs -batch -f list-load-path-shadows |
fc1bfc2a | 103 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
104 | If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale, |
105 | and should be deleted or their directories removed from your | |
106 | load-path. | |
60f553d2 | 107 | |
9dc15871 | 108 | * Crash bugs |
cc305a60 | 109 | |
9978c06c | 110 | ** Emacs crashes when running in a terminal, if compiled with GCC 4.5.0 |
5a7f1eb1 CY |
111 | This version of GCC is buggy: see |
112 | ||
9a00bed5 | 113 | http://debbugs.gnu.org/6031 |
5a7f1eb1 CY |
114 | http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=43904 |
115 | ||
116 | You can work around this error in gcc-4.5 by omitting sibling call | |
117 | optimization. To do this, configure Emacs with | |
118 | ||
119 | CFLAGS="-g -O2 -fno-optimize-sibling-calls" ./configure | |
120 | ||
f9888580 EZ |
121 | ** Emacs compiled with GCC 4.6.1 crashes on MS-Windows when C-g is pressed |
122 | ||
123 | This is known to happen when Emacs is compiled with MinGW GCC 4.6.1 | |
124 | with the -O2 option (which is the default in the Windows build). The | |
125 | reason is a bug in MinGW GCC 4.6.1; to work around, either add the | |
126 | `-fno-omit-frame-pointer' switch to GCC or compile without | |
127 | optimizations (`--no-opt' switch to the configure.bat script). | |
128 | ||
9dc15871 | 129 | ** Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog. |
cc305a60 | 130 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
131 | This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to |
132 | use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with | |
133 | an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that | |
134 | happens to exist on your X server). | |
fc2938d1 | 135 | |
9dc15871 | 136 | ** Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode. |
fc2938d1 | 137 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
138 | This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can |
139 | prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit') | |
140 | to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs. | |
177c0ea7 | 141 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
142 | Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main' |
143 | (src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated. | |
fc2938d1 | 144 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
145 | ** Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by |
146 | a segmentation fault and core dump. | |
c93bdf05 | 147 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
148 | This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously |
149 | added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code: | |
c93bdf05 | 150 | |
9dc15871 | 151 | x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks |
c93bdf05 | 152 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
153 | If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to |
154 | untar it :-). | |
c93bdf05 | 155 | |
e9b4dbdc | 156 | ** Emacs can crash when displaying PNG images with transparency. |
9a00bed5 GM |
157 | This is due to a bug introduced in ImageMagick 6.8.2-3. The bug should |
158 | be fixed in ImageMagick 6.8.3-10. See <URL:http://debbugs.gnu.org/13867>. | |
19151a7f | 159 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
160 | ** Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version |
161 | libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1. | |
162 | Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur | |
163 | if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an | |
164 | older version. | |
4593687f | 165 | |
9dc15871 | 166 | ** Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'. |
9272ccfc | 167 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
168 | This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the |
169 | terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo. | |
170 | If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your | |
171 | version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses | |
172 | and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this. | |
9272ccfc | 173 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
174 | All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the |
175 | problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses | |
176 | terminfo when built. | |
9272ccfc | 177 | |
0d774907 | 178 | ** Emacs crashes when using some version of the Exceed X server. |
7aa70236 | 179 | |
0d774907 CY |
180 | Upgrading to a newer version of Exceed has been reported to prevent |
181 | these crashes. You should consider switching to a free X server, such | |
182 | as Xming or Cygwin/X. | |
7aa70236 | 183 | |
9dc15871 | 184 | ** Emacs crashes with SIGSEGV in XtInitializeWidgetClass. |
7c22dc9d | 185 | |
9dc15871 | 186 | It crashes on X, but runs fine when called with option "-nw". |
7c22dc9d | 187 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
188 | This has been observed when Emacs is linked with GNU ld but without passing |
189 | the -z nocombreloc flag. Emacs normally knows to pass the -z nocombreloc | |
190 | flag when needed, so if you come across a situation where the flag is | |
191 | necessary but missing, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug. | |
7c22dc9d | 192 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
193 | On platforms such as Solaris, you can also work around this problem by |
194 | configuring your compiler to use the native linker instead of GNU ld. | |
7c22dc9d | 195 | |
365dc66c | 196 | ** When Emacs is compiled with Gtk+, closing a display kills Emacs. |
1437ec2b | 197 | |
365dc66c CY |
198 | There is a long-standing bug in GTK that prevents it from recovering |
199 | from disconnects: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715. | |
1437ec2b | 200 | |
365dc66c CY |
201 | Thus, for instance, when Emacs is run as a server on a text terminal, |
202 | and an X frame is created, and the X server for that frame crashes or | |
203 | exits unexpectedly, Emacs must exit to prevent a GTK error that would | |
204 | result in an endless loop. | |
c4c122cb | 205 | |
365dc66c CY |
206 | If you need Emacs to be able to recover from closing displays, compile |
207 | it with the Lucid toolkit instead of GTK. | |
c4c122cb | 208 | |
538044ed GM |
209 | ** Emacs crashes when you try to view a file with complex characters. |
210 | For example, the etc/HELLO file (as shown by C-h h). | |
211 | The message "symbol lookup error: /usr/bin/emacs: undefined symbol: OTF_open" | |
212 | is shown in the terminal from which you launched Emacs. | |
213 | This problem only happens when you use a graphical display (ie not | |
214 | with -nw) and compiled Emacs with the "libotf" library for complex | |
215 | text handling. | |
216 | ||
217 | This problem occurs because unfortunately there are two libraries | |
218 | called "libotf". One is the library for handling OpenType fonts, | |
219 | http://www.m17n.org/libotf/, which is the one that Emacs expects. | |
220 | The other is a library for Open Trace Format, and is used by some | |
221 | versions of the MPI message passing interface for parallel | |
222 | programming. | |
223 | ||
224 | For example, on RHEL6 GNU/Linux, the OpenMPI rpm provides a version | |
225 | of "libotf.so" in /usr/lib/openmpi/lib. This directory is not | |
226 | normally in the ld search path, but if you want to use OpenMPI, | |
227 | you must issue the command "module load openmpi". This adds | |
228 | /usr/lib/openmpi/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH. If you then start Emacs from | |
229 | the same shell, you will encounter this crash. | |
0d3c6661 | 230 | Ref: <URL:https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=844776> |
538044ed GM |
231 | |
232 | There is no good solution to this problem if you need to use both | |
233 | OpenMPI and Emacs with libotf support. The best you can do is use a | |
234 | wrapper shell script (or function) "emacs" that removes the offending | |
235 | element from LD_LIBRARY_PATH before starting emacs proper. | |
236 | Or you could recompile Emacs with an -Wl,-rpath option that | |
237 | gives the location of the correct libotf. | |
238 | ||
9dc15871 | 239 | * General runtime problems |
7c22dc9d | 240 | |
9dc15871 | 241 | ** Lisp problems |
677e7496 | 242 | |
9dc15871 | 243 | *** Changes made to .el files do not take effect. |
677e7496 | 244 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
245 | You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files. |
246 | Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes | |
247 | will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory | |
248 | and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files. | |
677e7496 | 249 | |
0d3c6661 | 250 | Emacs prints a warning when loading a .elc file which is older |
9dc15871 | 251 | than the corresponding .el file. |
677e7496 | 252 | |
0d3c6661 GM |
253 | Alternatively, if you set the option `load-prefer-newer' non-nil, |
254 | Emacs will load whichever version of a file is the newest. | |
255 | ||
256 | *** Watch out for the EMACSLOADPATH environment variable | |
677e7496 | 257 | |
c64233b2 | 258 | EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function "load" will search. |
677e7496 | 259 | |
0d3c6661 GM |
260 | If you observe strange problems, check for this variable in your |
261 | environment. | |
9ed04369 | 262 | |
9dc15871 | 263 | *** Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error. |
9ed04369 | 264 | |
9dc15871 | 265 | The error message might be something like this: |
b87207a0 | 266 | |
9dc15871 | 267 | "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth" |
b87207a0 | 268 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
269 | This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a |
270 | built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch | |
271 | for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3 | |
272 | corrects that. | |
177c0ea7 | 273 | |
9dc15871 | 274 | *** Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode. |
177c0ea7 | 275 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
276 | Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause |
277 | problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's | |
278 | documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem. | |
177c0ea7 | 279 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
280 | *** The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in |
281 | Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using | |
79baa30b GM |
282 | `add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook 'help-mode-finish)' |
283 | after loading Hyperbole should fix this. | |
177c0ea7 | 284 | |
9dc15871 | 285 | ** Keyboard problems |
b87207a0 | 286 | |
e1602f7b CY |
287 | *** Unable to enter the M-| key on some German keyboards. |
288 | Some users have reported that M-| suffers from "keyboard ghosting". | |
289 | This can't be fixed by Emacs, as the keypress never gets passed to it | |
290 | at all (as can be verified using "xev"). You can work around this by | |
291 | typing `ESC |' instead. | |
292 | ||
9dc15871 | 293 | *** "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key. |
61638355 | 294 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
295 | If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you |
296 | will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked" | |
297 | in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions | |
298 | did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do | |
299 | character composition in the standard X way. This means that you | |
300 | must pick one meaning or the other for any given key. | |
61638355 | 301 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
302 | You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign |
303 | them to two different keys. | |
a47a639f | 304 | |
9dc15871 | 305 | *** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs. |
a47a639f | 306 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
307 | You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even |
308 | though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell, | |
309 | or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value. | |
a47a639f | 310 | |
9dc15871 | 311 | ** Mailers and other helper programs |
61638355 | 312 | |
9dc15871 | 313 | *** movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server. |
61638355 | 314 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
315 | Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services |
316 | NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the | |
317 | entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be | |
318 | listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while | |
319 | the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the | |
320 | old POP protocol. | |
61638355 | 321 | |
9dc15871 | 322 | *** RMAIL gets error getting new mail. |
61638355 | 323 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
324 | RMAIL gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program |
325 | called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using | |
326 | the protocol defined by /bin/mail. | |
61638355 | 327 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
328 | There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses |
329 | the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file; | |
330 | `movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do | |
331 | this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining, | |
611ac47b | 332 | the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h. |
9dc15871 EZ |
333 | IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR |
334 | SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL! | |
61638355 | 335 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
336 | If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions |
337 | prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail, | |
338 | you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as | |
339 | `mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the | |
340 | make install. | |
61638355 | 341 | |
3256a475 RC |
342 | chgrp mail movemail |
343 | chmod 2755 movemail | |
61638355 | 344 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
345 | Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an |
346 | installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The | |
347 | installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory | |
348 | /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and | |
349 | mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build | |
350 | directory copy is ineffective. | |
61638355 | 351 | |
9dc15871 | 352 | *** rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields". |
61638355 | 353 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
354 | This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk. |
355 | The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk). | |
61638355 | 356 | |
9dc15871 | 357 | ** Problems with hostname resolution |
61638355 | 358 | |
9dc15871 | 359 | *** Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name. |
3c418e54 | 360 | |
53b30c38 GM |
361 | For example, (system-name) returns some variation on |
362 | "localhost.localdomain", rather the name you were expecting. | |
363 | ||
9dc15871 | 364 | You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name, |
53b30c38 | 365 | (i.e. a name with at least one ".") either in /etc/hosts, |
c64233b2 | 366 | /etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system calls for specifying this. |
f9130829 | 367 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
368 | If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable |
369 | mail-host-address to the value you want. | |
f9130829 | 370 | |
05834033 | 371 | ** NFS |
f9130829 | 372 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
373 | *** Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually |
374 | appear on disk. | |
f9130829 | 375 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
376 | This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the |
377 | remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS | |
378 | implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to | |
379 | detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system | |
380 | calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case | |
381 | where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails. | |
f9130829 | 382 | |
b7bd8478 | 383 | ** PSGML conflicts with sgml-mode. |
d0cf6c7d | 384 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
385 | PSGML package uses the same names of some variables (like keymap) |
386 | as built-in sgml-mode.el because it was created as a replacement | |
387 | of that package. The conflict will be shown if you load | |
388 | sgml-mode.el before psgml.el. E.g. this could happen if you edit | |
389 | HTML page and then start to work with SGML or XML file. html-mode | |
390 | (from sgml-mode.el) is used for HTML file and loading of psgml.el | |
391 | (for sgml-mode or xml-mode) will cause an error. | |
d0cf6c7d | 392 | |
73639601 EZ |
393 | ** PCL-CVS |
394 | ||
395 | *** Lines are not updated or new lines are added in the buffer upon commit. | |
396 | ||
397 | When committing files located higher in the hierarchy than the examined | |
398 | directory, some versions of the CVS program return an ambiguous message | |
399 | from which PCL-CVS cannot extract the full location of the committed | |
400 | files. As a result, the corresponding lines in the PCL-CVS buffer are | |
401 | not updated with the new revision of these files, and new lines are | |
402 | added to the top-level directory. | |
403 | ||
404 | This can happen with CVS versions 1.12.8 and 1.12.9. Upgrade to CVS | |
405 | 1.12.10 or newer to fix this problem. | |
406 | ||
9dc15871 | 407 | ** Miscellaneous problems |
f936978f | 408 | |
e1bf8792 GM |
409 | *** Editing files with very long lines is slow. |
410 | ||
411 | For example, simply moving through a file that contains hundreds of | |
412 | thousands of characters per line is slow, and consumes a lot of CPU. | |
413 | This is a known limitation of Emacs with no solution at this time. | |
414 | ||
f5578c7f EZ |
415 | *** Emacs uses 100% of CPU time |
416 | ||
05834033 GM |
417 | This was a known problem with some old versions of the Semantic package. |
418 | The solution was to upgrade Semantic to version 2.0pre4 (distributed | |
419 | with CEDET 1.0pre4) or later. Note that Emacs includes Semantic since | |
420 | 23.2, and this issue does not apply to the included version. | |
f5578c7f | 421 | |
9dc15871 | 422 | *** Self-documentation messages are garbled. |
6fb6f3ac | 423 | |
6e911150 | 424 | This means that the file `etc/DOC' doesn't properly correspond |
9dc15871 EZ |
425 | with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the |
426 | corresponding pair of files should fix the problem. | |
b87207a0 | 427 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
428 | *** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs' |
429 | terminal type. | |
b87207a0 | 430 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
431 | The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP |
432 | environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to | |
c64233b2 | 433 | provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs emulates. |
b87207a0 | 434 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
435 | Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP |
436 | in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets | |
437 | it only if it is undefined. | |
b87207a0 | 438 | |
9dc15871 | 439 | if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file |
e085efdb | 440 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
441 | Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not |
442 | happen in a non-login shell. | |
fa99e2a4 | 443 | |
9dc15871 | 444 | *** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line. |
c8d9b4ee | 445 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
446 | This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too |
447 | smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns | |
448 | on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the | |
449 | problem by adding this to your .cshrc file: | |
fe445893 | 450 | |
9dc15871 | 451 | if ($?EMACS) then |
4b1aaa8b | 452 | if ("$EMACS" =~ /*) then |
9dc15871 EZ |
453 | unset edit |
454 | stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z | |
455 | endif | |
456 | endif | |
c8d9b4ee | 457 | |
9dc15871 | 458 | *** Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow. |
d9810886 | 459 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
460 | This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the |
461 | full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the | |
462 | /etc/hosts file, something like this: | |
a408ce18 | 463 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
464 | 127.0.0.1 localhost |
465 | 129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04 | |
a408ce18 | 466 | |
9dc15871 | 467 | The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems. |
a38f41c4 | 468 | |
9dc15871 | 469 | *** Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails. |
a38f41c4 | 470 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
471 | If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not |
472 | representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the | |
473 | ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux, kernel | |
474 | version 2.4.3, with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other | |
475 | systems as well. To avoid this problem, switch to using the standard | |
476 | ftp client. On a Debian system, type | |
a38f41c4 | 477 | |
9dc15871 | 478 | update-alternatives --config ftp |
a38f41c4 | 479 | |
9dc15871 | 480 | and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp. |
a38f41c4 | 481 | |
9dc15871 | 482 | *** Dired is very slow. |
4e0bd469 EZ |
483 | |
484 | This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long | |
485 | time. Possible reasons for this include: | |
486 | ||
487 | - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df' | |
488 | response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds); | |
489 | ||
490 | - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix; | |
491 | ||
492 | - slow operation of some versions of `df'. | |
493 | ||
494 | To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable | |
495 | `directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from | |
496 | invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or | |
497 | (c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase. | |
498 | ||
9dc15871 | 499 | *** ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps. |
cc2f2825 EZ |
500 | |
501 | This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it | |
502 | defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it | |
503 | runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory. | |
504 | ||
505 | The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version. | |
506 | ||
9dc15871 | 507 | *** On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors |
f4f4ee4d GM |
508 | from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some |
509 | shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support. | |
510 | These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared | |
511 | library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker. | |
512 | ||
0cb26e21 EZ |
513 | Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build |
514 | process invokes Emacs several times. | |
515 | ||
f4f4ee4d GM |
516 | On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your |
517 | environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries | |
518 | can be found. | |
519 | ||
520 | Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before | |
521 | Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a | |
522 | specified run-time search path in the executable. | |
523 | ||
8643647c | 524 | On some systems, Emacs can crash due to problems with dynamic |
c31138a1 EZ |
525 | linking. Specifically, on SGI Irix 6.5, crashes were reported with |
526 | backtraces like this: | |
527 | ||
528 | (dbx) where | |
529 | 0 strcmp(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2) ["/xlv22/ficus-jan23/work/irix/lib/libc/libc_n32_M3_ns/strings/strcmp.s":35, 0xfb7e480] | |
530 | 1 general_find_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2) | |
531 | ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":2140, 0xfb65a98] | |
532 | 2 resolve_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x0, 0xfbdd438, 0x0, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2) | |
533 | ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":1947, 0xfb657e4] | |
534 | 3 lazy_text_resolve(0xd18, 0x1a3, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2) | |
535 | ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":997, 0xfb64d44] | |
536 | 4 _rld_text_resolve(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0) | |
537 | ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld_bridge.s":175, 0xfb6032c] | |
538 | ||
79baa30b | 539 | (`rld' is the dynamic linker.) We don't know why this |
8643647c | 540 | happens, but setting the environment variable LD_BIND_NOW to 1 (which |
c31138a1 EZ |
541 | forces the dynamic linker to bind all shared objects early on) seems |
542 | to work around the problem. | |
543 | ||
f4f4ee4d GM |
544 | Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details. |
545 | ||
9dc15871 | 546 | *** When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error. |
b1739b51 | 547 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
548 | This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII |
549 | characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII | |
550 | characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with | |
551 | support for 8-bit characters. | |
b1739b51 | 552 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
553 | To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type |
554 | this at your shell's prompt: | |
b1739b51 | 555 | |
9dc15871 | 556 | ispell -vv |
b1739b51 | 557 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
558 | and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says |
559 | "!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it | |
560 | does not. | |
e9a52cfe | 561 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
562 | To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file |
563 | in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT. | |
564 | Then rebuild the speller. | |
e9a52cfe | 565 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
566 | Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the |
567 | version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade. | |
e9a52cfe | 568 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
569 | Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word |
570 | in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by | |
571 | Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because | |
572 | it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are | |
573 | spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other. | |
e9a52cfe | 574 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
575 | If your spell-checking program is Aspell, it has been reported that if |
576 | you have a personal configuration file (normally ~/.aspell.conf), it | |
577 | can cause this error. Remove that file, execute `ispell-kill-ispell' | |
578 | in Emacs, and then try spell-checking again. | |
e9a52cfe | 579 | |
9dc15871 | 580 | * Runtime problems related to font handling |
e9a52cfe | 581 | |
b1446261 CY |
582 | ** Characters are displayed as empty boxes or with wrong font under X. |
583 | ||
584 | *** This can occur when two different versions of FontConfig are used. | |
585 | For example, XFree86 4.3.0 has one version and Gnome usually comes | |
586 | with a newer version. Emacs compiled with Gtk+ will then use the | |
587 | newer version. In most cases the problem can be temporarily fixed by | |
588 | stopping the application that has the error (it can be Emacs or any | |
589 | other application), removing ~/.fonts.cache-1, and then start the | |
590 | application again. If removing ~/.fonts.cache-1 and restarting | |
591 | doesn't help, the application with problem must be recompiled with the | |
592 | same version of FontConfig as the rest of the system uses. For KDE, | |
593 | it is sufficient to recompile Qt. | |
594 | ||
595 | *** Some fonts have a missing glyph and no default character. This is | |
596 | known to occur for character number 160 (no-break space) in some | |
597 | fonts, such as Lucida but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte | |
598 | and Latin-1 version of this character to display a space. | |
599 | ||
600 | *** Some of the fonts called for in your fontset may not exist on your | |
601 | X server. | |
e9a52cfe | 602 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
603 | Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs |
604 | supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires | |
b1446261 CY |
605 | many different fonts, collected into a fontset. You can remedy the |
606 | problem by installing additional fonts. | |
f25eb4f7 | 607 | |
9dc15871 | 608 | The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can |
9222ba5e EZ |
609 | display all the characters Emacs supports. The etl-unicode collection |
610 | of fonts (available from <URL:ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/fonts/> and | |
611 | <URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/mirror/X.Org/contrib/fonts/>) includes | |
612 | fonts that can display many Unicode characters; they can also be used | |
613 | by ps-print and ps-mule to print Unicode characters. | |
f25eb4f7 | 614 | |
9dc15871 | 615 | ** Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines. |
f25eb4f7 | 616 | |
9222ba5e | 617 | You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution |
b1446261 CY |
618 | or the etl-unicode collection (see above). |
619 | ||
620 | ** Under X, an unexpected monospace font is used as the default font. | |
621 | ||
622 | When compiled with XFT, Emacs tries to use a default font named | |
623 | "monospace". This is a "virtual font", which the operating system | |
624 | (Fontconfig) redirects to a suitable font such as DejaVu Sans Mono. | |
625 | On some systems, there exists a font that is actually named Monospace, | |
626 | which takes over the virtual font. This is considered an operating | |
627 | system bug; see | |
f25eb4f7 | 628 | |
b1446261 | 629 | http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-10/msg00696.html |
edd7d3be | 630 | |
b1446261 CY |
631 | If you encounter this problem, set the default font to a specific font |
632 | in your .Xresources or initialization file. For instance, you can put | |
633 | the following in your .Xresources: | |
634 | ||
635 | Emacs.font: DejaVu Sans Mono 12 | |
636 | ||
637 | ** Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it should. | |
638 | ||
639 | This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller than | |
640 | the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that lines do not | |
641 | overlap. | |
edd7d3be | 642 | |
9dc15871 | 643 | ** Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces. |
42303132 | 644 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
645 | By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace |
646 | `{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of | |
647 | any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the | |
648 | vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such | |
649 | parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations | |
650 | in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some | |
651 | pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification | |
652 | introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling | |
653 | through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping | |
654 | to the end of a very large buffer. | |
42303132 | 655 | |
bf247b6e | 656 | Beginning with version 22.1, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero |
9dc15871 EZ |
657 | is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment, |
658 | to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with | |
659 | indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash. | |
42303132 | 660 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
661 | If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which |
662 | makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect | |
663 | fontification by setting the variable | |
664 | `font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must | |
665 | be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.) | |
f3d6f4ee | 666 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
667 | Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example, |
668 | in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash. | |
f3d6f4ee | 669 | |
9dc15871 | 670 | ** Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font. |
9f83d8b3 | 671 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
672 | This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE |
673 | 2.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify | |
674 | event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send. | |
675 | Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds. | |
f29d1e75 | 676 | |
9dc15871 | 677 | A workaround for this is to add something like |
f29d1e75 | 678 | |
9dc15871 | 679 | emacs.waitForWM: false |
c24be289 | 680 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
681 | to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a |
682 | frame's parameter list, like this: | |
c24be289 | 683 | |
9dc15871 | 684 | (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil))) |
b35319bf | 685 | |
9dc15871 | 686 | (this should go into your `.emacs' file). |
b35319bf | 687 | |
9dc15871 | 688 | ** Underlines appear at the wrong position. |
b35319bf | 689 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
690 | This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property. |
691 | Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk | |
6fc3871e GM |
692 | neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package prior to version 3.0.17. |
693 | To circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties | |
694 | to nil in your `.emacs'. | |
b35319bf | 695 | |
9dc15871 | 696 | To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font, |
c64233b2 | 697 | type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION property. |
787994b7 | 698 | |
9dc15871 | 699 | ** When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall. |
0a2eeca1 | 700 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
701 | When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified |
702 | (either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources) | |
703 | then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are | |
704 | correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which | |
705 | gives the appearance of "double spacing". | |
0a2eeca1 | 706 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
707 | To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution" |
708 | feature (in the font part of the configuration window). | |
0a2eeca1 | 709 | |
405b495f GM |
710 | ** Subscript/superscript text in TeX is hard to read. |
711 | ||
712 | If `tex-fontify-script' is non-nil, tex-mode displays | |
713 | subscript/superscript text in the faces subscript/superscript, which | |
714 | are smaller than the normal font and lowered/raised. With some fonts, | |
715 | nested superscripts (say) can be hard to read. Switching to a | |
716 | different font, or changing your antialiasing setting (on an LCD | |
717 | screen), can both make the problem disappear. Alternatively, customize | |
718 | the following variables: tex-font-script-display (how much to | |
719 | lower/raise); tex-suscript-height-ratio (how much smaller than | |
720 | normal); tex-suscript-height-minimum (minimum height). | |
721 | ||
9dc15871 | 722 | * Internationalization problems |
0a2eeca1 | 723 | |
de25ebb8 RS |
724 | ** M-{ does not work on a Spanish PC keyboard. |
725 | ||
726 | Many Spanish keyboards seem to ignore that combination. Emacs can't | |
727 | do anything about it. | |
728 | ||
b2d98113 CY |
729 | ** International characters aren't displayed under X. |
730 | ||
731 | *** Missing X fonts | |
0a2eeca1 | 732 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
733 | XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have |
734 | minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font | |
735 | name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire | |
736 | according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display | |
737 | characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be | |
738 | able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u | |
739 | C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the | |
740 | font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont, | |
741 | include in the fontset spec: | |
0a2eeca1 | 742 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
743 | mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\ |
744 | mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\ | |
745 | mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1 | |
0a2eeca1 | 746 | |
9dc15871 | 747 | ** The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters. |
0a2eeca1 | 748 | |
ce9b56fe KH |
749 | Emacs directly supports the Unicode BMP whose code points are in the |
750 | ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff, and indirectly supports the parts of | |
751 | CJK characters belonging to these legacy charsets: | |
752 | ||
753 | GB2312, Big5, JISX0208, JISX0212, JISX0213-1, JISX0213-2, KSC5601 | |
754 | ||
755 | The latter support is done in Utf-Translate-Cjk mode (turned on by | |
756 | default). Which Unicode CJK characters are decoded into which Emacs | |
757 | charset is decided by the current language environment. For instance, | |
758 | in Chinese-GB, most of them are decoded into chinese-gb2312. | |
119d3665 | 759 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
760 | If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the |
761 | characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8 | |
762 | (composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back | |
763 | correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences. | |
764 | If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are | |
765 | substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose | |
766 | information. | |
119d3665 | 767 | |
9dc15871 | 768 | ** Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _. |
a933dad1 | 769 | |
d6b7de9b EZ |
770 | Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with |
771 | other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software | |
772 | that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font | |
773 | size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts | |
79baa30b | 774 | when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean |
d6b7de9b | 775 | fonts have this bug in some versions of X. |
a933dad1 | 776 | |
d6b7de9b | 777 | To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this: |
a933dad1 | 778 | |
d6b7de9b | 779 | xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1 |
a933dad1 | 780 | |
c64233b2 | 781 | If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the problem. |
a933dad1 | 782 | |
d6b7de9b EZ |
783 | The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate |
784 | `fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run | |
785 | `xset fp rehash'. | |
177c0ea7 | 786 | |
9dc15871 | 787 | ** The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21. |
a933dad1 | 788 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
789 | This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free |
790 | slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more | |
791 | flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK | |
792 | support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't | |
793 | generally read correctly by Emacs 21. | |
a933dad1 | 794 | |
9dc15871 | 795 | * X runtime problems |
de121241 | 796 | |
9dc15871 | 797 | ** X keyboard problems |
de121241 | 798 | |
9dc15871 | 799 | *** You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key. |
a933dad1 | 800 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
801 | This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym |
802 | Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11 | |
803 | character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key | |
804 | to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap. | |
a933dad1 | 805 | |
9dc15871 | 806 | For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key: |
177c0ea7 | 807 | |
9dc15871 | 808 | xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L" |
a933dad1 | 809 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
810 | If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to |
811 | Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the | |
812 | xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display. | |
a933dad1 | 813 | |
9dc15871 | 814 | *** Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang. |
a933dad1 | 815 | |
9dc15871 | 816 | Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work. |
a933dad1 | 817 | |
9f4f9273 | 818 | *** C-SPC fails to work on Fedora GNU/Linux (or with fcitx input method). |
09352e8f RS |
819 | |
820 | Fedora Core 4 steals the C-SPC key by default for the `iiimx' program | |
821 | which is the input method for some languages. It blocks Emacs users | |
822 | from using the C-SPC key for `set-mark-command'. | |
823 | ||
824 | One solutions is to remove the `<Ctrl>space' from the `Iiimx' file | |
825 | which can be found in the `/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults' directory. | |
826 | However, that requires root access. | |
827 | ||
828 | Another is to specify `Emacs*useXIM: false' in your X resources. | |
829 | ||
830 | Another is to build Emacs with the `--without-xim' configure option. | |
831 | ||
2fb18d13 KH |
832 | The same problem happens on any other system if you are using fcitx |
833 | (Chinese input method) which by default use C-SPC for toggling. If | |
834 | you want to use fcitx with Emacs, you have two choices. Toggle fcitx | |
835 | by another key (e.g. C-\) by modifying ~/.fcitx/config, or be | |
836 | accustomed to use C-@ for `set-mark-command'. | |
837 | ||
9dc15871 | 838 | *** M-SPC seems to be ignored as input. |
a933dad1 | 839 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
840 | See if your X server is set up to use this as a command |
841 | for character composition. | |
a933dad1 | 842 | |
9dc15871 | 843 | *** The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X. |
a933dad1 | 844 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
845 | This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t |
846 | combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending | |
847 | definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there | |
848 | might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar | |
849 | purposes. | |
a933dad1 | 850 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
851 | We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if |
852 | you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 853 | |
9dc15871 | 854 | *** Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work. |
a933dad1 | 855 | |
79baa30b GM |
856 | These may have been intercepted by your window manager. |
857 | See the WM's documentation for how to change this. | |
a933dad1 | 858 | |
9dc15871 | 859 | *** Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window. |
a933dad1 | 860 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
861 | This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know |
862 | a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured | |
863 | --without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work. | |
a933dad1 | 864 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
865 | *** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating |
866 | directly with an X server. | |
a933dad1 | 867 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
868 | If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it |
869 | does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is | |
870 | whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c | |
871 | followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event | |
872 | it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you | |
873 | have made the key binding correctly. | |
a933dad1 | 874 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
875 | If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may |
876 | be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X | |
c64233b2 | 877 | server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by default. |
a933dad1 | 878 | |
9dc15871 | 879 | If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows: |
a933dad1 | 880 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
881 | xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L' |
882 | xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R' | |
a933dad1 | 883 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
884 | If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those |
885 | commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you | |
886 | are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any | |
887 | modifier bit not otherwise used. | |
a933dad1 | 888 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
889 | If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other |
890 | keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or | |
891 | some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the | |
892 | commands show above to make them modifier keys. | |
a933dad1 | 893 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
894 | Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt |
895 | into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 896 | |
9dc15871 | 897 | ** Window-manager and toolkit-related problems |
a933dad1 | 898 | |
6a7ce3a2 JD |
899 | *** Metacity: Resizing Emacs or ALT-Tab causes X to be unresponsive. |
900 | ||
901 | This happens sometimes when using Metacity. Resizing Emacs or ALT-Tab:bing | |
902 | makes the system unresponsive to the mouse or the keyboard. Killing Emacs | |
0a46152e | 903 | or shifting out from X11 and back again usually cures it (i.e. Ctrl-Alt-F1 |
6a7ce3a2 JD |
904 | and then Alt-F7). A bug for it is here: |
905 | https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/231034. | |
906 | Note that a permanent fix seems to be to disable "assistive technologies". | |
907 | ||
0e71e4a8 CY |
908 | *** Gnome: Emacs receives input directly from the keyboard, bypassing XIM. |
909 | ||
910 | This seems to happen when gnome-settings-daemon version 2.12 or later | |
911 | is running. If gnome-settings-daemon is not running, Emacs receives | |
912 | input through XIM without any problem. Furthermore, this seems only | |
913 | to happen in *.UTF-8 locales; zh_CN.GB2312 and zh_CN.GBK locales, for | |
914 | example, work fine. A bug report has been filed in the Gnome | |
915 | bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357032 | |
916 | ||
9a00bed5 | 917 | *** Gnome: Emacs's xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal. |
a933dad1 | 918 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
919 | A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence |
920 | into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent | |
921 | incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects | |
922 | other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has | |
923 | been filed. | |
a933dad1 | 924 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
925 | *** KDE: When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs, |
926 | or messed up. | |
a933dad1 | 927 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
928 | For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the |
929 | empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other | |
930 | background. | |
a933dad1 | 931 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
932 | This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font |
933 | definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The | |
934 | solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps" | |
935 | option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option | |
936 | is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style". | |
a933dad1 | 937 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
938 | Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other |
939 | applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad' | |
940 | (should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory) | |
941 | so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for | |
942 | Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not | |
943 | present or commented out: | |
a933dad1 | 944 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
945 | Emacs.default.attributeForeground |
946 | Emacs.default.attributeBackground | |
947 | Emacs*Foreground | |
948 | Emacs*Background | |
a933dad1 | 949 | |
a3475659 JD |
950 | It is also reported that a bug in the gtk-engines-qt engine can cause this if |
951 | Emacs is compiled with Gtk+. | |
952 | The bug is fixed in version 0.7 or newer of gtk-engines-qt. | |
953 | ||
9dc15871 | 954 | *** KDE: Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed. |
a933dad1 | 955 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
956 | This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically |
957 | requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions | |
8576f724 | 958 | of klipper don't implement the ICCCM protocol for large selections, |
9dc15871 | 959 | which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a |
b11e8823 | 960 | while, Emacs may print a message: |
a933dad1 | 961 | |
9dc15871 | 962 | Timed out waiting for property-notify event |
a933dad1 | 963 | |
b11e8823 JD |
964 | A workaround is to not use `klipper'. An upgrade to the `klipper' that |
965 | comes with KDE 3.3 or later also solves the problem. | |
a933dad1 | 966 | |
9dc15871 | 967 | *** CDE: Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE. |
a933dad1 | 968 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
969 | This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which |
970 | seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment. | |
971 | To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager" | |
972 | and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top". | |
d238f982 | 973 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
974 | *** Xaw3d : When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse |
975 | click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This | |
976 | is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the | |
977 | problem disappears. | |
d238f982 | 978 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
979 | *** Xaw: There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw, |
980 | XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with | |
981 | one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one. | |
982 | For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type | |
983 | "C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was | |
984 | used with neXtaw at run time. | |
d7185f9d | 985 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
986 | The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually |
987 | want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you | |
988 | built Emacs with. | |
d7185f9d | 989 | |
9dc15871 | 990 | *** Open Motif: Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif. |
a933dad1 | 991 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
992 | When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the |
993 | graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter" | |
994 | and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the | |
995 | file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again. | |
a933dad1 | 996 | |
79baa30b | 997 | As a workaround, you can try building Emacs using Motif or LessTif instead. |
a933dad1 | 998 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
999 | Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts, |
1000 | but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in | |
1001 | the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog. | |
a933dad1 | 1002 | |
9dc15871 | 1003 | *** LessTif: Problems in Emacs built with LessTif. |
a933dad1 | 1004 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1005 | The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif |
1006 | emulation for which it is set up. | |
a933dad1 | 1007 | |
9dc15871 | 1008 | Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif. |
880ea925 | 1009 | LessTif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD. |
9dc15871 EZ |
1010 | On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure |
1011 | --enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most | |
1012 | successful. The binary GNU/Linux package | |
1013 | lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with | |
1014 | menu placement. | |
a933dad1 | 1015 | |
79baa30b GM |
1016 | On some systems, Emacs occasionally locks up, grabbing all mouse and |
1017 | keyboard events. We don't know what causes these problems; they are | |
1018 | not reproducible by Emacs developers. | |
a933dad1 | 1019 | |
9dc15871 | 1020 | *** Motif: The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color. |
a933dad1 | 1021 | |
9dc15871 | 1022 | This has been observed to result from the following X resource: |
a933dad1 | 1023 | |
9dc15871 | 1024 | Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-* |
a933dad1 | 1025 | |
9dc15871 | 1026 | That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we |
79baa30b | 1027 | do not know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can |
9dc15871 EZ |
1028 | explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing |
1029 | the resource prevents the problem. | |
a933dad1 | 1030 | |
9dc15871 | 1031 | ** General X problems |
17a37d87 | 1032 | |
9dc15871 | 1033 | *** Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions. |
17a37d87 | 1034 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1035 | We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when |
1036 | scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this | |
1037 | happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars | |
1038 | on the right (as they were in Emacs 19). | |
17a37d87 | 1039 | |
9dc15871 | 1040 | Here's how to do this: |
17a37d87 | 1041 | |
9dc15871 | 1042 | (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right) |
a933dad1 | 1043 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1044 | If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you, |
1045 | try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back | |
1046 | to normal, do | |
a933dad1 | 1047 | |
9dc15871 | 1048 | (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left) |
a933dad1 | 1049 | |
9dc15871 | 1050 | *** Error messages about undefined colors on X. |
a933dad1 | 1051 | |
9dc15871 | 1052 | The messages might say something like this: |
a933dad1 | 1053 | |
9dc15871 | 1054 | Unable to load color "grey95" |
a933dad1 | 1055 | |
9dc15871 | 1056 | (typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this: |
a933dad1 | 1057 | |
9dc15871 | 1058 | Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow) |
a933dad1 | 1059 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1060 | These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too |
1061 | many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system | |
1062 | resources to load all the colors it needs. | |
a933dad1 | 1063 | |
9dc15871 | 1064 | A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs. |
a933dad1 | 1065 | |
9257b627 EZ |
1066 | "undefined color" messages can also occur if the RgbPath entry in the |
1067 | X configuration file is incorrect, or the rgb.txt file is not where | |
1068 | X expects to find it. | |
1069 | ||
9dc15871 | 1070 | *** Improving performance with slow X connections. |
a933dad1 | 1071 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1072 | There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can |
1073 | be carried out at the same time: | |
a933dad1 | 1074 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1075 | 1) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some |
1076 | language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using | |
1077 | the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect | |
9a00bed5 | 1078 | the use of Emacs's own input methods, which are part of the Leim |
9dc15871 | 1079 | package. |
3d00585e | 1080 | |
9dc15871 | 1081 | 2) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider |
634e516b EZ |
1082 | switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar. Adding the |
1083 | following forms to your .emacs file will accomplish that, but only | |
9b053e76 | 1084 | after the initial frame is displayed: |
634e516b EZ |
1085 | |
1086 | (scroll-bar-mode -1) | |
1087 | (menu-bar-mode -1) | |
1088 | (tool-bar-mode -1) | |
1089 | ||
1090 | For still quicker startup, put these X resources in your .Xdefaults | |
1091 | file: | |
1092 | ||
1093 | Emacs.verticalScrollBars: off | |
1094 | Emacs.menuBar: off | |
1095 | Emacs.toolBar: off | |
3d00585e | 1096 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1097 | 3) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this |
1098 | forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...). | |
3d00585e | 1099 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1100 | 4) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface |
1101 | to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which | |
1102 | improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness | |
91af3942 | 1103 | of the X protocol. lbxproxy achieves the performance gain by grouping |
9dc15871 | 1104 | several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together, |
880ea925 | 1105 | instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a separate |
9dc15871 EZ |
1106 | packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are: |
1107 | -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents | |
1108 | Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems. | |
1109 | For more about lbxproxy, see: | |
1110 | http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html | |
3d00585e | 1111 | |
34431988 KS |
1112 | 5) If copying and killing is slow, try to disable the interaction with the |
1113 | native system's clipboard by adding these lines to your .emacs file: | |
1114 | (setq interprogram-cut-function nil) | |
1115 | (setq interprogram-paste-function nil) | |
1116 | ||
9dc15871 | 1117 | *** Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information. |
3d00585e | 1118 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1119 | This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses |
1120 | a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is | |
1121 | likely to cause it. | |
a933dad1 | 1122 | |
9dc15871 | 1123 | We do not know of a way to prevent the problem. |
7838ea1b | 1124 | |
9dc15871 | 1125 | *** Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse. |
a933dad1 | 1126 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1127 | There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and |
1128 | that replacing the mouse made it stop. | |
a933dad1 | 1129 | |
9dc15871 | 1130 | *** You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version). |
a933dad1 | 1131 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1132 | On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus |
1133 | works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you | |
1134 | bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in | |
1135 | the Files menu). | |
a933dad1 | 1136 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1137 | This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is |
1138 | due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really | |
1139 | knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a | |
1140 | workaround can be found. | |
a933dad1 | 1141 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1142 | *** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid |
1143 | parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'. | |
b5cb4652 | 1144 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1145 | This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as |
1146 | emacs*Cursor: black | |
1147 | (which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something | |
1148 | that isn't a color.) | |
b5cb4652 | 1149 | |
9dc15871 | 1150 | The fix is to correct your X resources. |
a933dad1 | 1151 | |
9dc15871 | 1152 | *** Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows. |
a933dad1 | 1153 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1154 | If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X |
1155 | resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font | |
1156 | renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1 | |
1157 | font. | |
a933dad1 | 1158 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1159 | One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from |
1160 | your font path, like this: | |
a933dad1 | 1161 | |
3256a475 | 1162 | xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/ |
a933dad1 | 1163 | |
9dc15871 | 1164 | *** Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs. |
a933dad1 | 1165 | |
9dc15871 | 1166 | An X resource of this form can cause the problem: |
a933dad1 | 1167 | |
9dc15871 | 1168 | Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0 |
a933dad1 | 1169 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1170 | This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus |
1171 | individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you | |
1172 | want, rewrite the resource. | |
3156909f | 1173 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1174 | To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb |
1175 | -query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at | |
1176 | the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files. | |
a933dad1 | 1177 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1178 | *** Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks. |
1179 | *** `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'. | |
e96c5c69 | 1180 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1181 | One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in |
1182 | your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in | |
1183 | the environment. | |
e96c5c69 | 1184 | |
9dc15871 | 1185 | *** X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname. |
a933dad1 | 1186 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1187 | People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs |
1188 | not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But | |
1189 | the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think | |
1190 | the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD. | |
a933dad1 | 1191 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1192 | You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil). |
1193 | However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that | |
1194 | you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g. | |
a933dad1 | 1195 | |
3256a475 RC |
1196 | *** Prevent double pastes in X |
1197 | ||
1198 | The problem: a region, such as a command, is pasted twice when you copy | |
1199 | it with your mouse from GNU Emacs to an xterm or an RXVT shell in X. | |
1200 | The solution: try the following in your X configuration file, | |
1201 | /etc/X11/xorg.conf This should enable both PS/2 and USB mice for | |
1202 | single copies. You do not need any other drivers or options. | |
1203 | ||
1204 | Section "InputDevice" | |
1205 | Identifier "Generic Mouse" | |
1206 | Driver "mousedev" | |
1207 | Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" | |
1208 | EndSection | |
1209 | ||
833e48d3 GM |
1210 | *** Emacs is slow to exit in X |
1211 | ||
1212 | After you use e.g. C-x C-c to exit, it takes many seconds before the | |
1213 | Emacs window disappears. If Emacs was started from a terminal, you | |
1214 | see the message: | |
1215 | ||
1216 | Error saving to X clipboard manager. | |
1217 | If the problem persists, set `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil. | |
1218 | ||
1219 | As the message suggests, this problem occurs when Emacs thinks you | |
1220 | have a clipboard manager program running, but has trouble contacting it. | |
1221 | If you don't want to use a clipboard manager, you can set the | |
1222 | suggested variable. Or you can make Emacs not wait so long by | |
1223 | reducing the value of `x-selection-timeout', either in .emacs or with | |
1224 | X resources. | |
1225 | ||
1226 | Sometimes this problem is due to a bug in your clipboard manager. | |
1227 | Updating to the latest version of the manager can help. | |
1228 | For example, in the Xfce 4.8 desktop environment, the clipboard | |
1229 | manager in versions of xfce4-settings-helper before 4.8.2 is buggy; | |
1230 | https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7588 . | |
1231 | ||
df4555fa JD |
1232 | *** Warning messages when running in Ubuntu |
1233 | ||
1234 | When you start Emacs you may see something like this: | |
1235 | ||
1236 | (emacs:2286): LIBDBUSMENU-GTK-CRITICAL **: watch_submenu: assertion | |
1237 | `GTK_IS_MENU_SHELL(menu)' failed | |
1238 | ||
c03cf6f1 | 1239 | This happens if the Emacs binary has been renamed. The cause is the Ubuntu |
df4555fa JD |
1240 | appmenu concept. It tries to track Emacs menus and show them in the top |
1241 | panel, instead of in each Emacs window. This is not properly implemented, | |
1242 | so it fails for Emacs. The order of menus is wrong, and things like copy/paste | |
c03cf6f1 | 1243 | that depend on what state Emacs is in are usually wrong (i.e. paste disabled |
df4555fa JD |
1244 | even if you should be able to paste, and similar). |
1245 | ||
1246 | You can get back menus on each frame by starting emacs like this: | |
1247 | % env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY= emacs | |
1248 | ||
880ea925 | 1249 | * Runtime problems on character terminals |
a933dad1 | 1250 | |
def98666 CY |
1251 | ** The meta key does not work on xterm. |
1252 | Typing M-x rings the terminal bell, and inserts a string like ";120~". | |
1253 | For recent xterm versions (>= 216), Emacs uses xterm's modifyOtherKeys | |
1254 | feature to generate strings for key combinations that are not | |
1255 | otherwise usable. One circumstance in which this can cause problems | |
1256 | is if you have specified the X resource | |
1257 | ||
1258 | xterm*VT100.Translations | |
1259 | ||
1260 | to contain translations that use the meta key. Then xterm will not | |
1261 | use meta in modified function-keys, which confuses Emacs. To fix | |
1262 | this, you can remove the X resource or put this in your init file: | |
1263 | ||
1264 | (xterm-remove-modify-other-keys) | |
1265 | ||
9dc15871 | 1266 | ** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen. |
a933dad1 | 1267 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1268 | This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being |
1269 | used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes | |
1270 | away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long | |
1271 | streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a | |
1272 | user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a | |
1273 | properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible | |
1274 | input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is | |
1275 | easy, for a person with at least half a brain. | |
a933dad1 | 1276 | |
9dc15871 | 1277 | There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place: |
a933dad1 | 1278 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1279 | 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control |
1280 | 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use | |
1281 | 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible | |
a933dad1 | 1282 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1283 | First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether |
1284 | they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to | |
6e270cdb GM |
1285 | "no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. (For example, on a VT220 |
1286 | you may select "No XOFF" in the setup menu.) Sometimes there is an | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1287 | escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off |
1288 | and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow | |
1289 | control off, and the `te' string should turn it on. | |
a933dad1 | 1290 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1291 | Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it |
1292 | needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled | |
1293 | by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud | |
1294 | rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print | |
1295 | your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if | |
1296 | it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If | |
1297 | the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a | |
1298 | problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard | |
1299 | to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type. | |
a933dad1 | 1300 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1301 | For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just |
1302 | giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control | |
1303 | codes. You might as well try it. | |
a933dad1 | 1304 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1305 | If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer |
1306 | through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the | |
1307 | computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how | |
1308 | much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow | |
1309 | control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard), | |
1310 | you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator | |
1311 | replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic | |
1312 | measures can make Emacs semi-work. | |
4c635a29 | 1313 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1314 | You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system |
1315 | handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x | |
1316 | enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are | |
1317 | now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x | |
1318 | enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow | |
1319 | control handling.) | |
a933dad1 | 1320 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1321 | If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them |
1322 | is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose | |
1323 | other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement | |
1324 | and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all | |
1325 | other control characters are already used by emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 1326 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1327 | IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled, |
1328 | Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in | |
1329 | order to continue. | |
a933dad1 | 1330 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1331 | If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a |
1332 | certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function | |
1333 | `enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme | |
1334 | automatically. Here is an example: | |
a933dad1 | 1335 | |
9dc15871 | 1336 | (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131") |
a933dad1 | 1337 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1338 | If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled |
1339 | and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control | |
1340 | manually. | |
a933dad1 | 1341 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1342 | I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the |
1343 | assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow | |
1344 | control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad | |
1345 | merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming | |
1346 | widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some | |
1347 | use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I | |
1348 | will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake | |
1349 | of inferior systems. | |
a933dad1 | 1350 | |
9dc15871 | 1351 | ** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely. |
a933dad1 | 1352 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1353 | For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow |
1354 | control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your | |
1355 | terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator | |
1356 | that wants to use flow control. | |
a933dad1 | 1357 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1358 | You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control. |
1359 | If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without | |
1360 | flow control, as described in the preceding section. | |
a933dad1 | 1361 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1362 | If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters |
1363 | into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above | |
1364 | shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\. | |
a933dad1 | 1365 | |
9dc15871 | 1366 | ** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal. |
a933dad1 | 1367 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1368 | This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that |
1369 | terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing | |
1370 | the combination of features specified for that terminal. | |
a933dad1 | 1371 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1372 | The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters |
1373 | Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression | |
1374 | (open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all | |
1375 | terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do | |
1376 | what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file | |
1377 | and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal. | |
1378 | There are several possibilities: | |
a933dad1 | 1379 | |
9dc15871 | 1380 | 1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual. |
a933dad1 | 1381 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1382 | In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you |
1383 | need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong. | |
a933dad1 | 1384 | |
9dc15871 | 1385 | 2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect |
c64233b2 | 1386 | of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way by termcap. |
a933dad1 | 1387 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1388 | This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for |
1389 | Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior | |
1390 | and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are | |
1391 | classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for | |
1392 | Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be | |
1393 | tested on many kinds of terminals. | |
a933dad1 | 1394 | |
9dc15871 | 1395 | 3) The termcap entry is wrong. |
a933dad1 | 1396 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1397 | See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes |
1398 | that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries | |
1399 | for certain terminals. | |
a933dad1 | 1400 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1401 | 4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be |
1402 | right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using. | |
a933dad1 | 1403 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1404 | This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed |
1405 | in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c. | |
a933dad1 | 1406 | |
9dc15871 | 1407 | ** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection. |
a933dad1 | 1408 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1409 | Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow |
1410 | control characters to the remote system to which they connect. | |
1411 | On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow | |
c64233b2 | 1412 | control on the local system. Sometimes `rlogin -8' will avoid this problem. |
a933dad1 | 1413 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1414 | One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host |
1415 | (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the | |
1416 | stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, | |
6e270cdb | 1417 | "stty start u stop u" will do this. On some systems, use |
0a46152e | 1418 | "stty -ixon" instead. |
a933dad1 | 1419 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1420 | Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way |
1421 | around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and | |
1422 | issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell. | |
a933dad1 | 1423 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1424 | If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type |
1425 | M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or | |
1426 | if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the | |
1427 | following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind): | |
a933dad1 | 1428 | |
9dc15871 | 1429 | (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131") |
a933dad1 | 1430 | |
c64233b2 | 1431 | See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more info. |
a933dad1 | 1432 | |
9dc15871 | 1433 | ** Output from Control-V is slow. |
a933dad1 | 1434 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1435 | On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow. |
1436 | Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails | |
1437 | to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen | |
1438 | before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after | |
1439 | the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast, | |
1440 | it will scroll them to the top of the screen. | |
a933dad1 | 1441 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1442 | If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is |
1443 | that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not | |
1444 | specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs | |
1445 | concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to | |
1446 | send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must | |
1447 | fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much | |
1448 | time as the operations really take. | |
a933dad1 | 1449 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1450 | Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters |
1451 | at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the | |
1452 | terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals | |
1453 | operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of | |
1454 | flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow | |
1455 | an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want | |
1456 | Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will | |
1457 | cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do | |
1458 | not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling | |
1459 | is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal. | |
a933dad1 | 1460 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1461 | Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting |
1462 | multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the | |
1463 | termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have | |
1464 | fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should | |
1465 | each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines | |
1466 | to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap | |
1467 | `cm' string. | |
a933dad1 | 1468 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1469 | You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal |
1470 | has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These | |
1471 | take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument. | |
a933dad1 | 1472 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1473 | A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount |
1474 | of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled. | |
a933dad1 | 1475 | |
9dc15871 | 1476 | ** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters. |
a933dad1 | 1477 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1478 | Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear |
1479 | after a day or two. | |
a933dad1 | 1480 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1481 | The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by |
1482 | the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another | |
1483 | character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion | |
1484 | of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to | |
1485 | overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming | |
1486 | to it. | |
a933dad1 | 1487 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1488 | For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use, |
1489 | and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand | |
1490 | other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well; | |
1491 | but there are not very many other control characters, and I think | |
1492 | that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more | |
1493 | important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'. | |
a933dad1 | 1494 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1495 | If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion, |
1496 | you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file: | |
1497 | (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char) | |
1498 | You can probably access help-command via f1. | |
a933dad1 | 1499 | |
9dc15871 | 1500 | ** Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm. |
a933dad1 | 1501 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1502 | Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal |
1503 | emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database | |
1504 | entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the | |
1505 | "Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are | |
1506 | supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within | |
1507 | Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system | |
1508 | uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is | |
1509 | "colors". | |
a933dad1 | 1510 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1511 | In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for |
1512 | ``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal | |
1513 | back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not | |
1514 | use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry | |
1515 | doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape | |
1516 | sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make | |
1517 | it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op" | |
1518 | capability). | |
a933dad1 | 1519 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1520 | Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which |
1521 | attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability | |
1522 | incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting | |
1523 | this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps. | |
a933dad1 | 1524 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1525 | Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value |
1526 | of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal | |
1527 | entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to | |
1528 | `xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible | |
1529 | emulator. | |
a933dad1 | 1530 | |
bf247b6e | 1531 | Beginning with version 22.1, Emacs supports the --color command-line |
9dc15871 EZ |
1532 | option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular |
1533 | modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up | |
1534 | for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors. | |
a933dad1 | 1535 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1536 | Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode. |
1537 | Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on | |
1538 | Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The | |
1539 | recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x | |
1540 | global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable | |
1541 | `global-font-lock-mode'. | |
a933dad1 | 1542 | |
40f86458 | 1543 | ** Unexpected characters inserted into the buffer when you start Emacs. |
9a00bed5 | 1544 | See e.g. <URL:http://debbugs.gnu.org/11129> |
40f86458 GM |
1545 | |
1546 | This can happen when you start Emacs in -nw mode in an Xterm. | |
1547 | For example, in the *scratch* buffer, you might see something like: | |
1548 | ||
1549 | 0;276;0c | |
1550 | ||
1551 | This is more likely to happen if you are using Emacs over a slow | |
1552 | connection, and begin typing before Emacs is ready to respond. | |
1553 | ||
1554 | This occurs when Emacs tries to query the terminal to see what | |
1555 | capabilities it supports, and gets confused by the answer. | |
1556 | To avoid it, set xterm-extra-capabilities to a value other than | |
1557 | `check' (the default). See that variable's documentation (in | |
1558 | term/xterm.el) for more details. | |
1559 | ||
9dc15871 | 1560 | * Runtime problems specific to individual Unix variants |
f1e54ce1 | 1561 | |
9dc15871 | 1562 | ** GNU/Linux |
f1e54ce1 | 1563 | |
f77e4514 KS |
1564 | *** GNU/Linux: Process output is corrupted. |
1565 | ||
1566 | There is a bug in Linux kernel 2.6.10 PTYs that can cause emacs to | |
1567 | read corrupted process output. | |
1568 | ||
1569 | *** GNU/Linux: Remote access to CVS with SSH causes file corruption. | |
1570 | ||
1571 | If you access a remote CVS repository via SSH, files may be corrupted | |
1572 | due to bad interaction between CVS, SSH, and libc. | |
1573 | ||
1574 | To fix the problem, save the following script into a file, make it | |
1575 | executable, and set CVS_RSH environment variable to the file name of | |
1576 | the script: | |
1577 | ||
1578 | #!/bin/bash | |
1579 | exec 2> >(exec cat >&2 2>/dev/null) | |
1580 | exec ssh "$@" | |
1581 | ||
9d760d75 | 1582 | *** GNU/Linux: Truncated svn annotate output with SSH. |
9a00bed5 | 1583 | http://debbugs.gnu.org/7791 |
9d760d75 GM |
1584 | |
1585 | The symptoms are: you are accessing a svn repository over SSH. | |
1586 | You use vc-annotate on a large (several thousand line) file, and the | |
1587 | result is truncated around the 1000 line mark. It works fine with | |
1588 | other access methods (eg http), or from outside Emacs. | |
1589 | ||
1590 | This may be a similar libc/SSH issue to the one mentioned above for CVS. | |
1591 | A similar workaround seems to be effective: create a script with the | |
1592 | same contents as the one used above for CVS_RSH, and set the SVN_SSH | |
1593 | environment variable to point to it. | |
1594 | ||
9dc15871 EZ |
1595 | *** GNU/Linux: After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs, |
1596 | the Meta key stops working. | |
a01325b8 | 1597 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1598 | This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by |
1599 | Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was | |
1600 | modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a | |
1601 | keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta | |
1602 | modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which | |
1603 | was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as | |
1604 | Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen. | |
a01325b8 | 1605 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1606 | The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta |
1607 | modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left | |
1608 | and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see | |
1609 | which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use | |
1610 | the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta | |
1611 | modifier: | |
a933dad1 | 1612 | |
9dc15871 | 1613 | xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt" |
a933dad1 | 1614 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1615 | A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier |
1616 | is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system: | |
a01325b8 | 1617 | |
9dc15871 | 1618 | xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps |
a933dad1 | 1619 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1620 | This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your |
1621 | keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what | |
1622 | keys can serve as Meta. | |
a933dad1 | 1623 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1624 | The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current |
1625 | keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them. | |
a933dad1 | 1626 | |
ff3e9dbc | 1627 | *** GNU/Linux: slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems. |
a933dad1 | 1628 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1629 | People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that |
1630 | startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'. | |
a933dad1 | 1631 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1632 | This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts. |
1633 | Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to | |
1634 | improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both | |
1635 | networked and non-networked machines. | |
a933dad1 | 1636 | |
9dc15871 | 1637 | Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root. |
a933dad1 | 1638 | |
9dc15871 | 1639 | **** Networked Case. |
a933dad1 | 1640 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1641 | First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both |
1642 | exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this | |
1643 | (replace HOSTNAME with your host name): | |
a933dad1 | 1644 | |
9dc15871 | 1645 | 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME |
a933dad1 | 1646 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1647 | Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following |
1648 | lines: | |
1dd8b979 | 1649 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1650 | order hosts, bind |
1651 | multi on | |
10a763e5 | 1652 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1653 | Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be |
1654 | indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local | |
1655 | database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections | |
1656 | dynamically allocate ip addresses). | |
1dd8b979 | 1657 | |
9dc15871 | 1658 | **** Non-Networked Case. |
a933dad1 | 1659 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1660 | The solution described in the networked case applies here as well. |
1661 | However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a | |
1662 | simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command | |
1663 | `touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts' | |
1664 | file is not necessary with this approach. | |
a933dad1 | 1665 | |
9dc15871 | 1666 | *** GNU/Linux: Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block. |
a933dad1 | 1667 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1668 | This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use |
1669 | ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well. | |
1670 | These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where | |
1671 | the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c" | |
1672 | (show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a | |
1673 | blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character | |
1674 | cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor | |
1675 | always blinks. | |
3d00585e | 1676 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1677 | A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it |
1678 | enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting | |
1679 | the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block | |
1680 | cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine | |
1681 | the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software | |
1682 | cursor instead of the hardware cursor. | |
3d00585e | 1683 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1684 | To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file |
1685 | `linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send | |
1686 | the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to | |
1687 | produce a modified terminfo entry. | |
3d00585e | 1688 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1689 | Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor, |
1690 | change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command. | |
a933dad1 | 1691 | |
9dc15871 | 1692 | ** FreeBSD |
a933dad1 | 1693 | |
9dc15871 | 1694 | *** FreeBSD: Getting a Meta key on the console. |
a933dad1 | 1695 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1696 | By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on |
1697 | FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the | |
1698 | current keymap to a file with the command | |
a933dad1 | 1699 | |
9dc15871 | 1700 | $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd |
a933dad1 | 1701 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1702 | Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the |
1703 | definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows'' | |
1704 | key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd | |
1705 | to look like this | |
a933dad1 | 1706 | |
9dc15871 | 1707 | 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O |
a933dad1 | 1708 | |
9dc15871 | 1709 | to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with |
a933dad1 | 1710 | |
9dc15871 | 1711 | $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd |
a933dad1 | 1712 | |
9dc15871 | 1713 | ** HP-UX |
a933dad1 | 1714 | |
9dc15871 | 1715 | *** HP/UX : Shell mode gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous". |
a933dad1 | 1716 | |
9dc15871 | 1717 | christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says: |
a933dad1 | 1718 | |
9dc15871 | 1719 | The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to |
79baa30b GM |
1720 | execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then |
1721 | tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places, | |
9dc15871 | 1722 | but tty is giving it back 3. |
a933dad1 | 1723 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1724 | The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single |
1725 | word: | |
a933dad1 | 1726 | |
9dc15871 | 1727 | if (`tty` == "/dev/console") |
a933dad1 | 1728 | |
9dc15871 | 1729 | should be changed to: |
a933dad1 | 1730 | |
9dc15871 | 1731 | if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console") |
a933dad1 | 1732 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1733 | Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc |
1734 | and into .login. | |
a933dad1 | 1735 | |
9dc15871 | 1736 | *** HP/UX: `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'. |
a933dad1 | 1737 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1738 | On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS |
1739 | file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and | |
1740 | does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default | |
1741 | value is just ten seconds. | |
a933dad1 | 1742 | |
9dc15871 | 1743 | If this happens to you, extend the timeout period. |
a933dad1 | 1744 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1745 | *** HP/UX: The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps |
1746 | other non-English HP keyboards too). | |
a933dad1 | 1747 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1748 | This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a |
1749 | shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE | |
1750 | configures the X server. | |
a933dad1 | 1751 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1752 | xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF |
1753 | keysym Alt_L = Meta_L | |
1754 | keysym Alt_R = Meta_R | |
1755 | EOF | |
a933dad1 | 1756 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1757 | xmodmap - << EOF |
1758 | clear mod1 | |
1759 | keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol | |
1760 | add mod1 = Meta_L | |
1761 | keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch | |
1762 | add mod2 = Mode_switch | |
1763 | EOF | |
a933dad1 | 1764 | |
9dc15871 | 1765 | *** HP/UX: Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key. |
a933dad1 | 1766 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1767 | To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable |
1768 | rights, containing this text: | |
a933dad1 | 1769 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1770 | -------------------------------- |
1771 | xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF | |
1772 | keysym Alt_L = Meta_L | |
1773 | keysym Alt_R = Meta_R | |
1774 | EOF | |
a933dad1 | 1775 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1776 | xmodmap - << EOF |
1777 | clear mod1 | |
1778 | keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol | |
1779 | add mod1 = Meta_L | |
1780 | keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch | |
1781 | add mod2 = Mode_switch | |
1782 | EOF | |
1783 | -------------------------------- | |
a933dad1 | 1784 | |
9dc15871 | 1785 | *** HP/UX 11.0: Emacs makes HP/UX 11.0 crash. |
a933dad1 | 1786 | |
9dc15871 | 1787 | This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it. |
a933dad1 | 1788 | |
9dc15871 | 1789 | ** AIX |
a933dad1 | 1790 | |
9dc15871 | 1791 | *** AIX: Trouble using ptys. |
a933dad1 | 1792 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1793 | People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly. |
1794 | Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly. | |
a933dad1 | 1795 | |
9dc15871 | 1796 | *** AIXterm: Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal. |
a933dad1 | 1797 | |
9dc15871 | 1798 | The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines: |
a933dad1 | 1799 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1800 | *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f) |
1801 | aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^? | |
a933dad1 | 1802 | |
9dc15871 | 1803 | This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127). |
a933dad1 | 1804 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1805 | *** AIX: If linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you |
1806 | are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If | |
1807 | so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure | |
1808 | Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'. | |
a933dad1 | 1809 | |
9dc15871 | 1810 | *** AIX 4.3.x or 4.4: Compiling fails. |
a933dad1 | 1811 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1812 | This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of |
1813 | the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign | |
1814 | redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution | |
1815 | is to use the default compiler `cc'. | |
a933dad1 | 1816 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1817 | *** AIX 4: Some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer |
1818 | with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown". | |
a933dad1 | 1819 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1820 | On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default. |
1821 | `unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal | |
1822 | Definitions" to make them defined. | |
a933dad1 | 1823 | |
9dc15871 | 1824 | ** Solaris |
a933dad1 | 1825 | |
c64233b2 GM |
1826 | We list bugs in current versions here. See also the section on legacy |
1827 | systems. | |
a933dad1 | 1828 | |
9dc15871 | 1829 | *** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console. |
a933dad1 | 1830 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1831 | This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r |
1832 | C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 1833 | |
9dc15871 | 1834 | *** Problem with remote X server on Suns. |
a933dad1 | 1835 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1836 | On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another |
1837 | may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This | |
1838 | is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup. | |
1839 | As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized. | |
a933dad1 | 1840 | |
c64233b2 | 1841 | *** Solaris 2.6: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame. |
a933dad1 | 1842 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
1843 | We suspect that this is a bug in the X libraries provided by |
1844 | Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and | |
1845 | makes the problem stop: | |
a933dad1 | 1846 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
1847 | 105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02 |
1848 | 105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03 | |
1849 | 106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01 | |
1850 | 105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01 | |
a933dad1 | 1851 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
1852 | Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06) |
1853 | suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches: | |
a933dad1 | 1854 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
1855 | 106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch |
1856 | 106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes | |
1857 | 105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch | |
a933dad1 | 1858 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 1859 | *** Solaris 7 or 8: Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X) |
a933dad1 | 1860 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
1861 | This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris. |
1862 | Rebuild it on Solaris 8. | |
a933dad1 | 1863 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1864 | *** When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down' |
1865 | commands do not move the arrow in Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 1866 | |
9dc15871 | 1867 | You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit': |
a933dad1 | 1868 | |
9dc15871 | 1869 | dbxenv output_short_file_name off |
a933dad1 | 1870 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
1871 | *** On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use |
1872 | the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales). | |
a933dad1 | 1873 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 1874 | You can fix this by editing the file: |
a933dad1 | 1875 | |
3256a475 | 1876 | /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose |
a933dad1 | 1877 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 1878 | Near the bottom there is a line that reads: |
a933dad1 | 1879 | |
3256a475 | 1880 | Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters |
a933dad1 | 1881 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 1882 | that should read: |
a933dad1 | 1883 | |
3256a475 | 1884 | Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters |
a933dad1 | 1885 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 1886 | Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work. |
a933dad1 | 1887 | |
1b6406b3 CY |
1888 | *** On Solaris, Emacs fails to set menu-bar-update-hook on startup, with error |
1889 | "Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (error Point before start of properties)". | |
1890 | This seems to be a GCC optimization bug that occurs for GCC 4.1.2 (-g | |
1891 | and -g -O2) and GCC 4.2.3 (-g -O and -g -O2). You can fix this by | |
1892 | compiling with GCC 4.2.3 or CC 5.7, with no optimizations. | |
1893 | ||
0a4dd4e4 | 1894 | ** Irix |
a933dad1 | 1895 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 1896 | *** Irix: Trouble using ptys, or running out of ptys. |
a933dad1 | 1897 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1898 | The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to |
1899 | be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able | |
1900 | to allocate ptys reliably. | |
a933dad1 | 1901 | |
9dc15871 | 1902 | * Runtime problems specific to MS-Windows |
a933dad1 | 1903 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
1904 | ** Emacs on Windows 9X requires UNICOWS.DLL |
1905 | ||
1906 | If that DLL is not available, Emacs will display an error dialog | |
1907 | stating its absence, and refuse to run. | |
1908 | ||
1909 | This is because Emacs 24.4 and later uses functions whose non-stub | |
1910 | implementation is only available in UNICOWS.DLL, which implements the | |
1911 | Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 9X, or "MSLU". This article on | |
1912 | MSDN: | |
1913 | ||
1914 | http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688166.aspx | |
1915 | ||
1916 | includes a short description of MSLU and a link where it can be | |
1917 | downloaded. | |
1918 | ||
1919 | ** A few seconds delay is seen at startup and for many file operations | |
1920 | ||
1921 | This happens when the Net Logon service is enabled. During Emacs | |
1922 | startup, this service issues many DNS requests looking up for the | |
1923 | Windows Domain Controller. When Emacs accesses files on networked | |
1924 | drives, it automatically logs on the user into those drives, which | |
1925 | again causes delays when Net Logon is running. | |
1926 | ||
1927 | The solution seems to be to disable Net Logon with this command typed | |
1928 | at the Windows shell prompt: | |
1929 | ||
1930 | net stop netlogon | |
1931 | ||
1932 | To start the service again, type "net start netlogon". (You can also | |
1933 | stop and start the service from the Computer Management application, | |
1934 | accessible by right-clicking "My Computer" or "Computer", selecting | |
1935 | "Manage", then clicking on "Services".) | |
1936 | ||
7ce645e0 EZ |
1937 | ** Emacs crashes when exiting the Emacs session |
1938 | ||
1939 | This was reported to happen when some optional DLLs, such as those | |
1940 | used for displaying images or the GnuTLS library, which are loaded | |
1941 | on-demand, have a runtime dependency on the libgcc DLL, | |
1942 | libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll. The reason seems to be a bug in libgcc which | |
1943 | rears its ugly head whenever the libgcc DLL is loaded after Emacs has | |
1944 | started. | |
1945 | ||
1946 | One solution for this problem is to find an alternative build of the | |
1947 | same optional library that does not depend on the libgcc DLL. | |
1948 | ||
1949 | Another possibility is to rebuild Emacs with the -shared-libgcc | |
1950 | switch, which will force Emacs to load libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll on startup, | |
1951 | ahead of any optional DLLs loaded on-demand later in the session. | |
1952 | ||
62e466d0 JB |
1953 | ** PATH can contain unexpanded environment variables |
1954 | ||
1955 | Old releases of TCC (version 9) and 4NT (up to version 8) do not correctly | |
1956 | expand App Paths entries of type REG_EXPAND_SZ. When Emacs is run from TCC | |
1957 | and such an entry exists for emacs.exe, exec-path will contain the | |
1958 | unexpanded entry. This has been fixed in TCC 10. For more information, | |
1959 | see bug#2062. | |
1960 | ||
d9b0e161 EZ |
1961 | ** Setting w32-pass-rwindow-to-system and w32-pass-lwindow-to-system to nil |
1962 | does not prevent the Start menu from popping up when the left or right | |
1963 | ``Windows'' key is pressed. | |
1964 | ||
1965 | This was reported to happen when XKeymacs is installed. At least with | |
1966 | XKeymacs Version 3.47, deactivating XKeymacs when Emacs is active is | |
1967 | not enough to avoid its messing with the keyboard input. Exiting | |
1968 | XKeymacs completely is reported to solve the problem. | |
1969 | ||
ade79051 KS |
1970 | ** Windows 95 and networking. |
1971 | ||
037f36e5 EZ |
1972 | To support server sockets, Emacs loads ws2_32.dll. If this file is |
1973 | missing, all Emacs networking features are disabled. | |
ade79051 KS |
1974 | |
1975 | Old versions of Windows 95 may not have the required DLL. To use | |
9a00bed5 | 1976 | Emacs's networking features on Windows 95, you must install the |
ade79051 KS |
1977 | "Windows Socket 2" update available from MicroSoft's support Web. |
1978 | ||
9dc15871 | 1979 | ** Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for MS-Windows. |
a933dad1 | 1980 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
1981 | A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this. |
1982 | Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the | |
1983 | problem. | |
177c0ea7 | 1984 | |
b6ec0fa0 JR |
1985 | ** Emacs crashes when opening a file with a UNC path and rails-mode is loaded. |
1986 | ||
79baa30b | 1987 | Loading rails-mode seems to interfere with UNC path handling. This has been |
b6ec0fa0 JR |
1988 | reported as a bug against both Emacs and rails-mode, so look for an updated |
1989 | rails-mode that avoids this crash, or avoid using UNC paths if using | |
1990 | rails-mode. | |
1991 | ||
037f36e5 | 1992 | ** M-x term does not work on MS-Windows. |
de66e883 | 1993 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
1994 | TTY emulation on Windows is undocumented, and programs such as stty |
1995 | which are used on posix platforms to control tty emulation do not | |
1996 | exist for native windows terminals. | |
117402b8 | 1997 | |
037f36e5 | 1998 | ** Using create-fontset-from-ascii-font or the --font startup parameter |
de66e883 | 1999 | with a Chinese, Japanese or Korean font leads to display problems. |
79baa30b | 2000 | Use a Latin-only font as your default font. If you want control over |
de66e883 JR |
2001 | which font is used to display Chinese, Japanese or Korean character, |
2002 | use create-fontset-from-fontset-spec to define a fontset. | |
a933dad1 | 2003 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2004 | ** Frames are not refreshed while dialogs or menus are displayed |
2005 | ||
2006 | This means no redisplay while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu | |
2007 | is displayed. This also means tooltips with help text for pop-up | |
2008 | menus is not displayed at all (except in a TTY session, where the help | |
2009 | text is shown in the echo area). This is because message handling | |
2010 | under Windows is synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any | |
2011 | other) messages while waiting for a system function, which popped up | |
2012 | the menu/dialog, to return the result of the dialog or pop-up menu | |
2013 | interaction. | |
2014 | ||
2015 | ** Help text in tooltips does not work on old Windows versions | |
a933dad1 | 2016 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2017 | Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text |
2018 | for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows. | |
a933dad1 | 2019 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2020 | ** Display problems with ClearType method of smoothing |
2021 | ||
af71f3ce EZ |
2022 | When "ClearType" method is selected as the "method to smooth edges of |
2023 | screen fonts" (in Display Properties, Appearance tab, under | |
2024 | "Effects"), there are various problems related to display of | |
f396bf16 JR |
2025 | characters: Bold fonts can be hard to read, small portions of some |
2026 | characters could appear chopped, etc. This happens because, under | |
2027 | ClearType, characters are drawn outside their advertised bounding box. | |
2028 | Emacs 21 disabled the use of ClearType, whereas Emacs 22 allows it and | |
2029 | has some code to enlarge the width of the bounding box. Apparently, | |
2030 | this display feature needs more changes to get it 100% right. A | |
2031 | workaround is to disable ClearType. | |
af71f3ce | 2032 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2033 | ** Problems with mouse-tracking and focus management |
2034 | ||
9dc15871 EZ |
2035 | There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the |
2036 | mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first | |
2037 | frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame | |
2038 | after moving back into it. | |
a933dad1 | 2039 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2040 | Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although |
2041 | not as severely as in 21.1. | |
a933dad1 | 2042 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2043 | An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows |
2044 | Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed. | |
a933dad1 | 2045 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2046 | ** Problems with Windows input methods |
2047 | ||
2048 | Some of the Windows input methods cause the keyboard to send | |
2049 | characters encoded in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 | |
2050 | for Latin-1 characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To | |
2051 | make these input methods work with Emacs on Windows 9X, you might need | |
2052 | to set the keyboard coding system to the appropriate value after you | |
2053 | activate the Windows input method. For example, if you activate the | |
2054 | Hebrew input method, type this: | |
4ed1bce5 EZ |
2055 | |
2056 | C-x RET k hebrew-iso-8bit RET | |
2057 | ||
037f36e5 EZ |
2058 | In addition, to use these Windows input methods, you might need to set |
2059 | your "Language for non-Unicode programs" (on Windows XP, this is on | |
2060 | the Advanced tab of Regional Settings) to the language of the input | |
2061 | method. | |
a933dad1 | 2062 | |
868c31fe | 2063 | To bind keys that produce non-ASCII characters with modifiers, you |
79baa30b | 2064 | must specify raw byte codes. For instance, if you want to bind |
868c31fe EZ |
2065 | META-a-grave to a command, you need to specify this in your `~/.emacs': |
2066 | ||
2067 | (global-set-key [?\M-\340] ...) | |
2068 | ||
2069 | The above example is for the Latin-1 environment where the byte code | |
2070 | of the encoded a-grave is 340 octal. For other environments, use the | |
2071 | encoding appropriate to that environment. | |
a933dad1 | 2072 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2073 | ** Problems with the %b format specifier for format-time-string |
2074 | ||
9dc15871 EZ |
2075 | The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated |
2076 | month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions | |
79baa30b | 2077 | of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system |
9dc15871 | 2078 | library function. |
a933dad1 | 2079 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2080 | ** Problems with set-time-zone-rule function |
2081 | ||
cdc9f5c2 JR |
2082 | The function set-time-zone-rule gives incorrect results for many |
2083 | non-US timezones. This is due to over-simplistic handling of | |
2084 | daylight savings switchovers by the Windows libraries. | |
9f1bc31f | 2085 | |
037f36e5 EZ |
2086 | ** Files larger than 4GB report wrong size |
2087 | ||
365b9257 EZ |
2088 | Files larger than 4GB cause overflow in the size (represented as a |
2089 | 32-bit integer) reported by `file-attributes'. This affects Dired as | |
2090 | well, since the Windows port uses a Lisp emulation of `ls' that relies | |
2091 | on `file-attributes'. | |
2092 | ||
037f36e5 EZ |
2093 | ** Playing sound doesn't support the :data method |
2094 | ||
56dc0646 EZ |
2095 | Sound playing is not supported with the `:data DATA' key-value pair. |
2096 | You _must_ use the `:file FILE' method. | |
2097 | ||
0a4dd4e4 | 2098 | ** Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows. |
a933dad1 | 2099 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2100 | This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If |
2101 | you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt | |
2102 | and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A | |
2103 | more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination, | |
d169ccbd EZ |
2104 | or disable it in the "Regional and Language Options" applet of the |
2105 | Control Panel. (The exact sequence of mouse clicks in the "Regional | |
2106 | and Language Options" applet needed to find the key combination that | |
2107 | changes the keyboard layout depends on your Windows version; for XP, | |
2108 | in the Languages tab, click "Details" and then "Key Settings".) | |
a933dad1 | 2109 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 2110 | ** Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work. |
a933dad1 | 2111 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2112 | Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the |
2113 | MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash | |
2114 | port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the | |
2115 | keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports | |
2116 | of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.) | |
a933dad1 | 2117 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 2118 | ** Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs. |
a933dad1 | 2119 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2120 | If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be |
2121 | due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it | |
2122 | and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows | |
2123 | port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses | |
2124 | are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which | |
2125 | confuses ange-ftp. | |
a933dad1 | 2126 | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2127 | The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL |
2128 | (version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock | |
2129 | Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT' | |
2130 | directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the | |
2131 | variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the | |
2132 | client's executable. For example: | |
a933dad1 | 2133 | |
9dc15871 | 2134 | (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe") |
a933dad1 | 2135 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2136 | If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around |
2137 | this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file: | |
a933dad1 | 2138 | |
9dc15871 | 2139 | (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "") |
a933dad1 | 2140 | |
9dc15871 | 2141 | ** lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers. |
a933dad1 | 2142 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2143 | This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is |
2144 | likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific. | |
a933dad1 | 2145 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2146 | Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not |
2147 | print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical | |
79baa30b | 2148 | printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic |
9dc15871 EZ |
2149 | built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it |
2150 | has): | |
a933dad1 | 2151 | |
251c2719 GM |
2152 | (setq printer-name "") ; notepad takes the default |
2153 | (setq lpr-command "notepad") ; notepad | |
2154 | (setq lpr-switches nil) ; not needed | |
2155 | (setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ; run notepad as batch printer | |
a933dad1 | 2156 | |
9dc15871 | 2157 | ** Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs. |
a933dad1 | 2158 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2159 | The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't |
2160 | work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET" | |
2161 | was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't | |
2162 | work when an antivirus package is installed. | |
a933dad1 | 2163 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2164 | The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive |
2165 | mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall | |
2166 | or disable it entirely. | |
a933dad1 | 2167 | |
9dc15871 | 2168 | ** Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event. |
a933dad1 | 2169 | |
79baa30b | 2170 | This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows |
9dc15871 EZ |
2171 | programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many |
2172 | mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something | |
79baa30b GM |
2173 | different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a |
2174 | middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to | |
2175 | "scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a | |
9dc15871 | 2176 | generic mouse driver might help. |
a933dad1 | 2177 | |
9dc15871 | 2178 | ** Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window. |
a933dad1 | 2179 | |
79baa30b | 2180 | This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of |
9dc15871 | 2181 | generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar |
79baa30b GM |
2182 | movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple |
2183 | scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help. | |
a933dad1 | 2184 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2185 | ** Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be |
2186 | mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know | |
2187 | exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've | |
2188 | seen. | |
a933dad1 | 2189 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2190 | ** On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand |
2191 | CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character. | |
a933dad1 | 2192 | |
9dc15871 | 2193 | This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control. |
a933dad1 | 2194 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2195 | Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key |
2196 | events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot | |
2197 | distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl | |
2198 | combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that | |
2199 | AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set | |
2200 | to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt. | |
a933dad1 | 2201 | |
9a00bed5 | 2202 | ** Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs's display is incorrect. |
a933dad1 | 2203 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2204 | The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the |
2205 | screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective | |
2206 | display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen | |
2207 | to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear. | |
a933dad1 | 2208 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2209 | This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions |
2210 | as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The | |
2211 | problem lies in the X-server settings. | |
a933dad1 | 2212 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2213 | There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by |
2214 | running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then | |
2215 | un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X | |
2216 | selection". | |
a933dad1 | 2217 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2218 | Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then |
2219 | please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix. | |
c64233b2 | 2220 | If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it here. |
a933dad1 | 2221 | |
9dc15871 | 2222 | * Build-time problems |
a933dad1 | 2223 | |
9dc15871 | 2224 | ** Configuration |
a933dad1 | 2225 | |
f4b84ef4 GM |
2226 | *** `configure' warns ``accepted by the compiler, rejected by the preprocessor''. |
2227 | ||
2228 | This indicates a mismatch between the C compiler and preprocessor that | |
2229 | configure is using. For example, on Solaris 10 trying to use | |
2230 | CC=/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc (the Sun Studio compiler) together with | |
2231 | CPP=/usr/ccs/lib/cpp can result in errors of this form (you may also | |
2232 | see the error ``"/usr/include/sys/isa_defs.h", line 500: undefined control''). | |
2233 | ||
2234 | The solution is to tell configure to use the correct C preprocessor | |
2235 | for your C compiler (CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E" in the above | |
2236 | example). | |
2237 | ||
9dc15871 | 2238 | ** Compilation |
a933dad1 | 2239 | |
9dc15871 | 2240 | *** Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''. |
a933dad1 | 2241 | |
9dc15871 | 2242 | This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system |
880ea925 | 2243 | (Red Hat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris |
9dc15871 EZ |
2244 | (SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that |
2245 | configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the | |
2246 | files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is | |
2247 | left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping | |
2248 | itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped | |
2249 | Emacs executable to fail with the above message. | |
a933dad1 | 2250 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2251 | In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the |
2252 | machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make | |
2253 | (it says that some of the files have modification time in the future). | |
2254 | This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems. | |
a933dad1 | 2255 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2256 | If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05 |
2257 | (Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if | |
2258 | you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can | |
2259 | force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the | |
2260 | problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB | |
2261 | blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the | |
2262 | `mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount | |
2263 | options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as | |
2264 | `/etc/auto.home'. | |
a933dad1 | 2265 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2266 | Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for |
2267 | a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case, | |
2268 | waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed | |
2269 | to work around the problem. | |
a933dad1 | 2270 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2271 | Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory |
2272 | onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and | |
2273 | you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the | |
2274 | `/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble: | |
a933dad1 | 2275 | |
9dc15871 | 2276 | marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted... |
a933dad1 | 2277 | |
9dc15871 | 2278 | The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'. |
a933dad1 | 2279 | |
745377e8 GM |
2280 | *** Building a 32-bit executable on a 64-bit GNU/Linux architecture. |
2281 | ||
2282 | First ensure that the necessary 32-bit system libraries and include | |
79baa30b | 2283 | files are installed. Then use: |
745377e8 GM |
2284 | |
2285 | env CC="gcc -m32" ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu \ | |
2286 | --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib | |
2287 | ||
2288 | (using the location of the 32-bit X libraries on your system). | |
2289 | ||
024681aa KB |
2290 | *** Building Emacs for Cygwin can fail with GCC 3 |
2291 | ||
2292 | As of Emacs 22.1, there have been stability problems with Cygwin | |
2293 | builds of Emacs using GCC 3. Cygwin users are advised to use GCC 4. | |
9c9f0081 | 2294 | |
4f35b2e8 KB |
2295 | *** Building Emacs 23.3 and later will fail under Cygwin 1.5.19 |
2296 | ||
2297 | This is a consequence of a change to src/dired.c on 2010-07-27. The | |
2298 | issue is that Cygwin 1.5.19 did not have d_ino in 'struct dirent'. | |
2299 | See | |
2300 | ||
2301 | http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-07/msg01266.html | |
2302 | ||
5660c0f5 EZ |
2303 | *** Building the native MS-Windows port fails due to unresolved externals |
2304 | ||
2305 | The linker error messages look like this: | |
2306 | ||
2307 | oo-spd/i386/ctags.o:ctags.c:(.text+0x156e): undefined reference to `_imp__re_set_syntax' | |
2308 | collect2: ld returned 1 exit status | |
2309 | ||
2310 | This happens because GCC finds an incompatible header regex.h | |
2311 | somewhere on the include path, before the version of regex.h supplied | |
2312 | with Emacs. One such incompatible version of regex.h is part of the | |
2313 | GnuWin32 Regex package. | |
2314 | ||
2315 | The solution is to remove the incompatible regex.h from the include | |
2316 | path, when compiling Emacs. Alternatively, re-run the configure.bat | |
2317 | script with the "-isystem C:/GnuWin32/include" switch (adapt for your | |
2318 | system's place where you keep the GnuWin32 include files) -- this will | |
2319 | cause the compiler to search headers in the directories specified by | |
2320 | the Emacs Makefile _before_ it looks in the GnuWin32 include | |
2321 | directories. | |
2322 | ||
9c9f0081 | 2323 | *** Building the native MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail. |
a933dad1 | 2324 | |
ad05a5de | 2325 | Emacs may not build using some Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin |
9dc15871 EZ |
2326 | version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be |
2327 | necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define | |
2328 | __MSVCRT__, like so: | |
a933dad1 | 2329 | |
9dc15871 | 2330 | configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__ |
a933dad1 | 2331 | |
9dc15871 | 2332 | *** Building the MS-Windows port fails with a CreateProcess failure. |
a933dad1 | 2333 | |
9dc15871 | 2334 | Some versions of mingw32 make on some versions of Windows do not seem |
79baa30b | 2335 | to detect the shell correctly. Try "make SHELL=cmd.exe", or if that |
9dc15871 | 2336 | fails, try running make from Cygwin bash instead. |
a933dad1 | 2337 | |
9dc15871 | 2338 | *** Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails. |
a933dad1 | 2339 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2340 | This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which |
2341 | defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following | |
2342 | patch to assert.h should solve this: | |
a933dad1 | 2343 | |
0cc69e7d EZ |
2344 | *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999 |
2345 | --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001 | |
2346 | *************** | |
2347 | *** 41,47 **** | |
2348 | /* | |
2349 | * If not debugging, assert does nothing. | |
2350 | */ | |
2351 | ! #define assert(x) ((void)0); | |
2352 | ||
2353 | #else /* debugging enabled */ | |
2354 | ||
2355 | --- 41,47 ---- | |
2356 | /* | |
2357 | * If not debugging, assert does nothing. | |
2358 | */ | |
2359 | ! #define assert(x) ((void)0) | |
2360 | ||
2361 | #else /* debugging enabled */ | |
a933dad1 | 2362 | |
a933dad1 | 2363 | |
3e7c244e | 2364 | *** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio 2005 fails. |
a933dad1 | 2365 | |
3e7c244e JR |
2366 | Microsoft no longer ships the single threaded version of the C library |
2367 | with their compiler, and the multithreaded static library is missing | |
0cc69e7d | 2368 | some functions that Microsoft have deemed non-threadsafe. The |
3e7c244e JR |
2369 | dynamically linked C library has all the functions, but there is a |
2370 | conflict between the versions of malloc in the DLL and in Emacs, which | |
2371 | is not resolvable due to the way Windows does dynamic linking. | |
a933dad1 | 2372 | |
8c4fae51 | 2373 | We recommend the use of the MinGW port of GCC for compiling Emacs, as |
3e7c244e JR |
2374 | not only does it not suffer these problems, but it is also Free |
2375 | software like Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 2376 | |
8c4fae51 JR |
2377 | *** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio fails compiling emacs.rc |
2378 | ||
2379 | If the build fails with the following message then the problem | |
2380 | described here most likely applies: | |
2381 | ||
2382 | ../nt/emacs.rc(1) : error RC2176 : old DIB in icons\emacs.ico; pass it | |
2383 | through SDKPAINT | |
2384 | ||
2385 | The Emacs icon contains a high resolution PNG icon for Vista, which is | |
79baa30b | 2386 | not recognized by older versions of the resource compiler. There are |
8c4fae51 JR |
2387 | several workarounds for this problem: |
2388 | 1. Use Free MinGW tools to compile, which do not have this problem. | |
2389 | 2. Install the latest Windows SDK. | |
2390 | 3. Replace emacs.ico with an older or edited icon. | |
2391 | ||
0a46152e JB |
2392 | *** Building the MS-Windows port complains about unknown escape sequences. |
2393 | ||
2394 | Errors and warnings can look like this: | |
2395 | ||
2396 | w32.c:1959:27: error: \x used with no following hex digits | |
2397 | w32.c:1959:27: warning: unknown escape sequence '\i' | |
2398 | ||
2399 | This happens when paths using backslashes are passed to the compiler or | |
2400 | linker (via -I and possibly other compiler flags); when these paths are | |
2401 | included in source code, the backslashes are interpreted as escape sequences. | |
2402 | See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-07/msg00995.html | |
2403 | ||
2404 | The fix is to use forward slashes in all paths passed to the compiler. | |
2405 | ||
9dc15871 | 2406 | ** Linking |
a933dad1 | 2407 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2408 | *** Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an |
2409 | undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 2410 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2411 | This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built |
2412 | with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than | |
2413 | GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions | |
2414 | from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system | |
2415 | compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the | |
2416 | link stage. | |
a933dad1 | 2417 | |
9dc15871 | 2418 | A solution is to link with GCC, like this: |
a933dad1 | 2419 | |
3256a475 | 2420 | make CC=gcc |
a933dad1 | 2421 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2422 | Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs |
2423 | with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs. | |
a933dad1 | 2424 | |
9dc15871 | 2425 | *** Sun with acc: Link failure when using acc on a Sun. |
a933dad1 | 2426 | |
9dc15871 | 2427 | To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as |
a933dad1 | 2428 | |
9dc15871 | 2429 | /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1 |
a933dad1 | 2430 | |
9dc15871 | 2431 | and you need to add -lansi just before -lc. |
a933dad1 | 2432 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2433 | The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we |
2434 | cannot easily arrange to supply them. | |
a933dad1 | 2435 | |
9dc15871 | 2436 | *** `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses. |
a933dad1 | 2437 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2438 | This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in |
2439 | version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a | |
2440 | definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also | |
2441 | incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support | |
2442 | does not work with this version of ncurses. | |
a933dad1 | 2443 | |
9dc15871 | 2444 | The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2. |
a933dad1 | 2445 | |
d7ef7cd4 GM |
2446 | ** Bootstrapping |
2447 | ||
2448 | Bootstrapping (compiling the .el files) is normally only necessary | |
c64233b2 | 2449 | with development builds, since the .elc files are pre-compiled in releases. |
d7ef7cd4 GM |
2450 | |
2451 | *** "No rule to make target" with Ubuntu 8.04 make 3.81-3build1 | |
2452 | ||
2453 | Compiling the lisp files fails at random places, complaining: | |
2454 | "No rule to make target `/path/to/some/lisp.elc'". | |
2455 | The causes of this problem are not understood. Using GNU make 3.81 compiled | |
9a00bed5 GM |
2456 | from source, rather than the Ubuntu version, worked. |
2457 | See <URL:http://debbugs.gnu.org/327, <URL:http://debbugs.gnu.org/821>. | |
d7ef7cd4 | 2458 | |
9dc15871 | 2459 | ** Dumping |
a933dad1 | 2460 | |
79baa30b | 2461 | *** Segfault during `make bootstrap' under the Linux kernel. |
a933dad1 | 2462 | |
79baa30b GM |
2463 | In Red Hat Linux kernels, "Exec-shield" functionality is enabled by |
2464 | default, which creates a different memory layout that can break the | |
2465 | emacs dumper. Emacs tries to handle this at build time, but if this | |
2466 | fails, the following instructions may be useful. | |
a933dad1 | 2467 | |
79baa30b | 2468 | Exec-shield is enabled on your system if |
a933dad1 | 2469 | |
9dc15871 | 2470 | cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield |
a933dad1 | 2471 | |
79baa30b GM |
2472 | prints a value other than 0. (Please read your system documentation |
2473 | for more details on Exec-shield and associated commands.) | |
1f02a4ba | 2474 | |
79baa30b GM |
2475 | Additionally, Linux kernel versions since 2.6.12 randomize the virtual |
2476 | address space of a process by default. If this feature is enabled on | |
2477 | your system, then | |
a933dad1 | 2478 | |
79baa30b | 2479 | cat /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space |
a933dad1 | 2480 | |
79baa30b | 2481 | prints a value other than 0. |
a933dad1 | 2482 | |
79baa30b GM |
2483 | When these features are enabled, building Emacs may segfault during |
2484 | the execution of this command: | |
1f02a4ba | 2485 | |
79baa30b | 2486 | ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap] |
a933dad1 | 2487 | |
79baa30b GM |
2488 | To work around this problem, you can temporarily disable these |
2489 | features while building Emacs. You can do so using the following | |
2490 | commands (as root). Remember to re-enable them when you are done, | |
2491 | by echoing the original values back to the files. | |
ade79051 | 2492 | |
79baa30b GM |
2493 | echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield |
2494 | echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space | |
ff0ab406 | 2495 | |
79baa30b GM |
2496 | Or, on x86, you can try using the `setarch' command when running |
2497 | temacs, like this: | |
ff0ab406 | 2498 | |
79baa30b | 2499 | setarch i386 -R ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap] |
ff0ab406 RS |
2500 | |
2501 | or | |
2502 | ||
79baa30b | 2503 | setarch i386 -R make |
a933dad1 | 2504 | |
79baa30b | 2505 | (The -R option disables address space randomization.) |
a933dad1 | 2506 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2507 | *** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered. |
2508 | *** or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127". | |
2509 | *** or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work. | |
2510 | *** or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs. | |
a933dad1 DL |
2511 | |
2512 | This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be | |
2513 | fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are | |
2514 | binary files and can contain all 256 byte values. | |
2515 | ||
79baa30b GM |
2516 | If you have a copy of Emacs whose .elc files have been damaged in this |
2517 | way, you should be able to fix it by using: | |
2518 | ||
2519 | make bootstrap | |
2520 | ||
2521 | to regenerate all the .elc files. | |
a933dad1 | 2522 | |
9dc15871 | 2523 | *** temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted". |
a933dad1 | 2524 | |
c64233b2 GM |
2525 | This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el files |
2526 | during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more space than was allocated. | |
a933dad1 DL |
2527 | |
2528 | This could be caused by | |
2529 | 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files | |
2530 | 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el | |
2531 | 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files. | |
2532 | Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard; | |
c64233b2 GM |
2533 | if you have received Emacs from some other site and it contains a |
2534 | site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider deleting that file. | |
a933dad1 DL |
2535 | 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files |
2536 | (not from the directory you expected). | |
2537 | 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist. | |
2538 | This would cause the source files (.el files) to be | |
2539 | loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose. | |
c64233b2 | 2540 | 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates the space required. |
a933dad1 DL |
2541 | |
2542 | If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition | |
2543 | of PURESIZE in puresize.h. | |
2544 | ||
2545 | But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence | |
c64233b2 | 2546 | of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real problem. |
a933dad1 | 2547 | |
0bce976c GM |
2548 | *** OpenBSD 4.0 macppc: Segfault during dumping. |
2549 | ||
2550 | The build aborts with signal 11 when the command `./temacs --batch | |
14395431 | 2551 | --load loadup bootstrap' tries to load files.el. A workaround seems |
464df798 | 2552 | to be to reduce the level of compiler optimization used during the |
14395431 GM |
2553 | build (from -O2 to -O1). It is possible this is an OpenBSD |
2554 | GCC problem specific to the macppc architecture, possibly only | |
2555 | occurring with older versions of GCC (e.g. 3.3.5). | |
0bce976c | 2556 | |
ce46543c GM |
2557 | *** openSUSE 10.3: Segfault in bcopy during dumping. |
2558 | ||
2559 | This is due to a bug in the bcopy implementation in openSUSE 10.3. | |
2560 | It is/will be fixed in an openSUSE update. | |
2561 | ||
9dc15871 | 2562 | ** Installation |
a933dad1 | 2563 | |
2f6e7d3f GM |
2564 | *** On Solaris, use GNU Make when installing an out-of-tree build |
2565 | ||
2566 | The Emacs configuration process allows you to configure the | |
2567 | build environment so that you can build emacs in a directory | |
2568 | outside of the distribution tree. When installing Emacs from an | |
2569 | out-of-tree build directory on Solaris, you may need to use GNU | |
2570 | make. The make programs bundled with Solaris support the VPATH | |
2571 | macro but use it differently from the way the VPATH macro is | |
2572 | used by GNU make. The differences will cause the "make install" | |
2573 | step to fail, leaving you with an incomplete emacs | |
2574 | installation. GNU make is available in /usr/sfw/bin on Solaris | |
2575 | 10 and can be installed as /opt/sfw/bin/gmake from the Solaris 9 | |
2576 | Software Companion CDROM. | |
2577 | ||
2578 | The problems due to the VPATH processing differences affect only | |
2579 | out of tree builds so, if you are on a Solaris installation | |
2580 | without GNU make, you can install Emacs completely by installing | |
2581 | from a build environment using the original emacs distribution tree. | |
2582 | ||
9dc15871 | 2583 | ** First execution |
a933dad1 | 2584 | |
9dc15871 | 2585 | *** Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run. |
a933dad1 | 2586 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2587 | This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted |
2588 | via NFS, for some combinations of NFS client and NFS server. | |
2589 | Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of | |
2590 | binary null characters, and the `file' utility says: | |
a933dad1 | 2591 | |
9dc15871 | 2592 | emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators |
a933dad1 | 2593 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2594 | We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to |
2595 | build Emacs in a directory on a local disk. | |
a933dad1 | 2596 | |
9dc15871 | 2597 | *** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data. |
a933dad1 | 2598 | |
ba93a187 | 2599 | On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined |
29cf3e20 | 2600 | as a macro. If the definition (in both unex*.c and malloc.c) is wrong, |
a933dad1 DL |
2601 | it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct |
2602 | value in the man page for a.out (5). | |
2603 | ||
79baa30b | 2604 | * Problems on legacy systems |
a933dad1 | 2605 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2606 | This section covers bugs reported on very old hardware or software. |
2607 | If you are using hardware and an operating system shipped after 2000, | |
2608 | it is unlikely you will see any of these. | |
a933dad1 | 2609 | |
9dc15871 | 2610 | *** Solaris 2.x |
a933dad1 | 2611 | |
9dc15871 | 2612 | **** Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun. |
a933dad1 | 2613 | |
79baa30b GM |
2614 | Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of editfns.c. |
2615 | The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such as GCC. | |
a933dad1 | 2616 | |
9dc15871 | 2617 | **** On Solaris, Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called. |
a933dad1 | 2618 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2619 | If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2 |
2620 | of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is | |
2621 | called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC. | |
a933dad1 | 2622 | |
9dc15871 | 2623 | **** On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time). |
a933dad1 | 2624 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2625 | This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise |
2626 | version of Solaris that you are using. | |
a933dad1 | 2627 | |
9dc15871 | 2628 | **** Solaris 2.x: GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported". |
a933dad1 | 2629 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2630 | This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you |
2631 | are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this | |
2632 | does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or | |
2633 | later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as | |
2634 | described in the Solaris FAQ | |
2635 | <http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is | |
2636 | to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later. | |
a933dad1 | 2637 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2638 | **** Solaris 2.7: Building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 |
2639 | C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to | |
2640 | compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C | |
2641 | release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on | |
2642 | another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler | |
2643 | and the default CFLAGS. | |
a933dad1 | 2644 | |
9dc15871 | 2645 | **** Solaris 2.x: Emacs dumps core when built with Motif. |
a933dad1 | 2646 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2647 | The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1. |
2648 | Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host. | |
2649 | (Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.) | |
2650 | You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too. | |
2651 | You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/; | |
2652 | look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches | |
2653 | are currently recommended for your host. | |
a933dad1 | 2654 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2655 | On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch |
2656 | 105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed. | |
2657 | 105284-18 might fix it again. | |
a933dad1 | 2658 | |
0a4dd4e4 | 2659 | **** Solaris 2.6 and 7: the Compose key does not work. |
a933dad1 | 2660 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2661 | This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for |
2662 | the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun | |
2663 | support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch. | |
2664 | If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711. | |
a933dad1 | 2665 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2666 | One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters. |
2667 | For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment | |
2668 | variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale | |
2669 | lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX" | |
2670 | should do. | |
a933dad1 | 2671 | |
9dc15871 | 2672 | pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work |
c64233b2 | 2673 | if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11 libraries. |
0a4dd4e4 | 2674 | |
c64233b2 | 2675 | ** MS-Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2676 | |
2677 | *** MS-Windows NT/95: Problems running Perl under Emacs | |
2678 | ||
2679 | `perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell. | |
2680 | The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95). | |
2681 | ||
2682 | The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to | |
2683 | "CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting | |
2684 | with the user. | |
2685 | ||
2686 | On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a | |
2687 | pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to | |
2688 | communicate with the subprocess. | |
2689 | ||
2690 | On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the | |
2691 | relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be | |
2692 | redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as | |
2693 | stdin. | |
2694 | ||
2695 | A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON. | |
2696 | ||
2697 | For Perl 4: | |
2698 | ||
2699 | *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993 | |
2700 | --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996 | |
2701 | *************** | |
2702 | *** 68,74 **** | |
3256a475 | 2703 | $rcfile=".perldb"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2704 | } |
2705 | else { | |
2706 | ! $console = "con"; | |
3256a475 | 2707 | $rcfile="perldb.ini"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2708 | } |
2709 | ||
2710 | --- 68,74 ---- | |
3256a475 | 2711 | $rcfile=".perldb"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2712 | } |
2713 | else { | |
2714 | ! $console = ""; | |
3256a475 | 2715 | $rcfile="perldb.ini"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2716 | } |
2717 | ||
2718 | ||
2719 | For Perl 5: | |
2720 | *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995 | |
2721 | --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996 | |
2722 | *************** | |
2723 | *** 22,28 **** | |
3256a475 | 2724 | $rcfile=".perldb"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2725 | } |
2726 | elsif (-e "con") { | |
2727 | ! $console = "con"; | |
3256a475 | 2728 | $rcfile="perldb.ini"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2729 | } |
2730 | else { | |
2731 | --- 22,28 ---- | |
3256a475 | 2732 | $rcfile=".perldb"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2733 | } |
2734 | elsif (-e "con") { | |
2735 | ! $console = ""; | |
3256a475 | 2736 | $rcfile="perldb.ini"; |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2737 | } |
2738 | else { | |
2739 | ||
2740 | *** MS-Windows 95: Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs. | |
2741 | ||
2742 | This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95. | |
2743 | You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6. | |
2744 | ||
2745 | *** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: subprocesses do not terminate properly. | |
2746 | ||
2747 | This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems | |
63e984f8 GM |
2748 | when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited |
2749 | cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the Emacs on MS | |
2750 | Windows FAQ (info manual "efaq-w32"). | |
0a4dd4e4 EZ |
2751 | |
2752 | *** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs. | |
2753 | ||
2754 | When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH, | |
2755 | Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In | |
2756 | particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java | |
c64233b2 | 2757 | program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system PATH. |
0a4dd4e4 | 2758 | |
9dc15871 | 2759 | ** MS-DOS |
a933dad1 | 2760 | |
bde76d3e | 2761 | *** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT or later, "config msdos" fails. |
a933dad1 | 2762 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2763 | If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because |
2764 | Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a | |
2765 | program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by | |
2766 | config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to | |
2767 | the front of your PATH environment variable. | |
a933dad1 | 2768 | |
dbf9702e EZ |
2769 | *** When Emacs compiled with DJGPP runs on Windows 2000 and later, it cannot |
2770 | find your HOME directory. | |
2771 | ||
2772 | This was reported to happen when you click on "Save for future | |
2773 | sessions" button in a Customize buffer. You might see an error | |
2774 | message like this one: | |
2775 | ||
2776 | basic-save-buffer-2: c:/FOO/BAR/~dosuser/: no such directory | |
2777 | ||
2778 | (The telltale sign is the "~USER" part at the end of the directory | |
2779 | Emacs complains about, where USER is your username or the literal | |
2780 | string "dosuser", which is the default username set up by the DJGPP | |
2781 | startup file DJGPP.ENV.) | |
2782 | ||
2783 | This happens when the functions `user-login-name' and | |
2784 | `user-real-login-name' return different strings for your username as | |
2785 | Emacs sees it. To correct this, make sure both USER and USERNAME | |
2786 | environment variables are set to the same value. Windows 2000 and | |
2787 | later sets USERNAME, so if you want to keep that, make sure USER is | |
2788 | set to the same value. If you don't want to set USER globally, you | |
2789 | can do it in the [emacs] section of your DJGPP.ENV file. | |
2790 | ||
bde76d3e EZ |
2791 | *** When Emacs compiled with DJGPP runs on Vista, it runs out of memory. |
2792 | ||
2793 | If Emacs running on Vista displays "!MEM FULL!" in the mode line, you | |
2794 | are hitting the memory allocation bugs in the Vista DPMI server. See | |
2795 | msdos/INSTALL for how to work around these bugs (search for "Vista"). | |
2796 | ||
9dc15871 EZ |
2797 | *** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets |
2798 | like make-docfile. | |
a933dad1 | 2799 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2800 | This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment |
2801 | variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during | |
bde76d3e EZ |
2802 | compilation are not the same. See msdos/INSTALL for the explanation |
2803 | of how to avoid this problem. | |
a933dad1 | 2804 | |
9dc15871 | 2805 | *** Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup: |
a933dad1 | 2806 | |
9dc15871 | 2807 | "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face" |
a933dad1 | 2808 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2809 | This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs |
2810 | on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the | |
2811 | value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then | |
2812 | works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't | |
2813 | support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be | |
2814 | undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an | |
2815 | [emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for | |
2816 | `TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of | |
2817 | your system works as before. | |
a933dad1 | 2818 | |
9dc15871 | 2819 | *** MS-DOS: Emacs crashes at startup. |
a933dad1 | 2820 | |
9dc15871 | 2821 | Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management, |
c64233b2 | 2822 | and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't |
9dc15871 EZ |
2823 | know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real |
2824 | memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler. | |
2825 | However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround. | |
a933dad1 | 2826 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2827 | You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without |
2828 | arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more | |
2829 | information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp | |
2830 | is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.) | |
a933dad1 | 2831 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2832 | Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory |
2833 | configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider | |
2834 | removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches) | |
2835 | and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See | |
2836 | the djgpp faq for configuration hints. | |
a933dad1 | 2837 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2838 | *** Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files |
2839 | in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any | |
2840 | drive, e.g. `c:/dev'. | |
a933dad1 | 2841 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2842 | This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style |
2843 | device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A | |
2844 | work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name. | |
a933dad1 | 2845 | |
c64233b2 | 2846 | *** MS-DOS+DJGPP: Problems on MS-DOS if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs. |
a933dad1 | 2847 | |
9dc15871 | 2848 | There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems: |
a933dad1 | 2849 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2850 | * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get |
2851 | `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com'; | |
2852 | * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 2853 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2854 | To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos |
2855 | subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link | |
2856 | them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the | |
2857 | incorrect library functions. | |
a933dad1 | 2858 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2859 | *** MS-DOS: Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other |
2860 | run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled. | |
a933dad1 | 2861 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2862 | Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits |
2863 | immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find | |
2864 | the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout | |
2865 | and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs. | |
a933dad1 | 2866 | |
9dc15871 | 2867 | Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load |
c64233b2 | 2868 | the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and Lisp. |
a933dad1 | 2869 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2870 | This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN |
2871 | support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6 | |
2872 | characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it. | |
2873 | You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long | |
2874 | filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program | |
bde76d3e EZ |
2875 | compiled with DJGPP v2). The file msdos/INSTALL explains this issue |
2876 | in more detail. | |
a933dad1 | 2877 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2878 | Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for |
2879 | MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported | |
2880 | by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an | |
2881 | unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating | |
2882 | them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs | |
2883 | must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are | |
2884 | properly truncated. | |
a933dad1 | 2885 | |
9dc15871 | 2886 | ** Archaic window managers and toolkits |
a933dad1 | 2887 | |
79baa30b | 2888 | *** Open Look: Under Open Look, the Emacs window disappears when you type M-q. |
a933dad1 | 2889 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2890 | Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit |
2891 | command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use | |
2892 | Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window | |
2893 | manager to use some other command. You can disable the | |
2894 | shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults: | |
a933dad1 | 2895 | |
9dc15871 | 2896 | OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False |
a933dad1 | 2897 | |
c64233b2 | 2898 | *** twm: A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm. |
a933dad1 | 2899 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2900 | twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions. |
2901 | You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file: | |
a933dad1 | 2902 | |
9dc15871 | 2903 | UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position |
a933dad1 | 2904 | |
9dc15871 | 2905 | ** Bugs related to old DEC hardware |
a933dad1 | 2906 | |
9dc15871 | 2907 | *** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key. |
a933dad1 | 2908 | |
9dc15871 | 2909 | This shell command should fix it: |
a933dad1 | 2910 | |
9dc15871 | 2911 | xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L' |
a933dad1 | 2912 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2913 | *** Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver |
2914 | as a concentrator. | |
a933dad1 | 2915 | |
9dc15871 EZ |
2916 | This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use |
2917 | 7 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters. | |
53854552 | 2918 | \f |
5b87ad55 | 2919 | This file is part of GNU Emacs. |
fe6b4873 | 2920 | |
ab73e885 | 2921 | GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify |
5b87ad55 | 2922 | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by |
ab73e885 GM |
2923 | the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or |
2924 | (at your option) any later version. | |
fe6b4873 | 2925 | |
5b87ad55 GM |
2926 | GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, |
2927 | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of | |
2928 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the | |
2929 | GNU General Public License for more details. | |
2930 | ||
2931 | You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License | |
ab73e885 | 2932 | along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. |
5b87ad55 GM |
2933 | |
2934 | \f | |
53854552 EZ |
2935 | Local variables: |
2936 | mode: outline | |
3256a475 | 2937 | paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$" |
53854552 | 2938 | end: |