* files.el (locate-dominating-stop-dir-regexp): New var.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / PROBLEMS
CommitLineData
5e14abf8
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1Known Problems with GNU Emacs
2
5b87ad55 3Copyright (C) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
8cabe764 4 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
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5 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6See the end of the file for license conditions.
7
8
a933dad1 9This file describes various problems that have been encountered
0a4dd4e4 10in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs. Try doing Ctl-C Ctl-t
9dc15871 11and browsing through the outline headers.
a933dad1 12
8589dc17 13* Mule-UCS doesn't work in Emacs 23.
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14
15It's completely redundant now, as far as we know.
16
9dc15871 17* Emacs startup failures
32364f49 18
9dc15871 19** Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
32364f49 20
9dc15871 21A typical error message might be something like
32364f49 22
9dc15871 23 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
6b61353c 24
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25This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
26Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
27are:
6b61353c 28
9dc15871 29 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
6b61353c 30
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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
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35One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
36fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
37the problematic line(s) and correct them.
6b61353c 38
9dc15871 39** Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
6b61353c 40
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41This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
42installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
43specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
44corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
45the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
46Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
47files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
48original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
49not to work.
6b61353c 50
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51The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
52when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
53is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
54same 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
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58If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern
59systems do), this could happen if the proper version of
60ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it
61cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for
62libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is
63obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries.
6b61353c 64
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65The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in
66the developer's form (header files, static libraries and
67symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian)
68it constitutes a separate package.
6b61353c 69
9dc15871 70** Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
5b4ffca2 71
9dc15871 72The typical error message might be like this:
5b4ffca2 73
9dc15871 74 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
c763d515 75
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76This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
77tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
78files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
79Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
80when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
81required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
82it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
f1c231c4 83
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84Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
85file could fail to load if it is compressed.
fc2938d1 86
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87The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
88file.
6b61353c 89
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90Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
91lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
92print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
6b61353c 93
9dc15871 94 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
6b61353c 95
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96If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
97and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
98load-path.
f0f62f71 99
9dc15871 100** Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
f0f62f71 101
9dc15871 102An example of such an error is:
f0f62f71 103
9dc15871 104 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
fc1bfc2a 105
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106This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your load-path.
107The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
108present in load-path:
fc1bfc2a 109
9dc15871 110 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
fc1bfc2a 111
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112If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
113and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
114load-path.
60f553d2 115
9dc15871 116** With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
3f82efb4 117
9dc15871 118Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
3f82efb4 119
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120 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
121 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
122 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
123 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
124 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
125 /******************************************************************
3f82efb4 126
3256a475 127 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
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128 @@ -166,8 +166,8 @@
129 _XimMakeImName(lcd)
3256a475 130 XLCd lcd;
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131 {
132 - char* begin;
133 - char* end;
134 + char* begin = NULL;
135 + char* end = NULL;
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136 char* ret;
137 int i = 0;
138 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
9dc15871 139 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
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140 }
141 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
142 if (ret != NULL) {
143 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
9dc15871 144 + if (begin != NULL) {
3256a475 145 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
9dc15871 146 + } else {
3256a475 147 + ret[0] = '\0';
9dc15871 148 + }
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149 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
150 }
151 return ret;
3f82efb4 152
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153** Emacs crashes on startup after a glibc upgrade.
154
155This is caused by a binary incompatible change to the malloc
156implementation in glibc 2.5.90-22. As a result, Emacs binaries built
157using prior versions of glibc crash when run under 2.5.90-22.
158
0a7aab83 159This problem was first seen in pre-release versions of Fedora 7, and
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160may be fixed in the final Fedora 7 release. To stop the crash from
161happening, first try upgrading to the newest version of glibc; if this
162does not work, rebuild Emacs with the same version of glibc that you
163will run it under. For details, see
164
165https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239344
166
9dc15871 167* Crash bugs
cc305a60 168
9dc15871 169** Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
cc305a60 170
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171This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
172use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
173an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
174happens to exist on your X server).
fc2938d1 175
9dc15871 176** Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
fc2938d1 177
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178This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
179prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
180to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
177c0ea7 181
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182Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
183(src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
fc2938d1 184
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185** Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
186a segmentation fault and core dump.
c93bdf05 187
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188This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
189added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
c93bdf05 190
9dc15871 191 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
c93bdf05 192
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193If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
194untar it :-).
c93bdf05 195
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196** Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
197libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
198Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur
199if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an
200older version.
4593687f 201
9dc15871 202** Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
9272ccfc 203
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204This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
205terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
206If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
207version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
208and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
9272ccfc 209
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210All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
211problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
212terminfo when built.
9272ccfc 213
9dc15871 214** Emacs crashes when using the Exceed 6.0 X server.
7aa70236 215
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216If you are using Exceed 6.1, upgrade to a later version. This was
217reported to prevent the crashes.
7aa70236 218
9dc15871 219** Emacs crashes with SIGSEGV in XtInitializeWidgetClass.
7c22dc9d 220
9dc15871 221It crashes on X, but runs fine when called with option "-nw".
7c22dc9d 222
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223This has been observed when Emacs is linked with GNU ld but without passing
224the -z nocombreloc flag. Emacs normally knows to pass the -z nocombreloc
225flag when needed, so if you come across a situation where the flag is
226necessary but missing, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug.
7c22dc9d 227
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228On platforms such as Solaris, you can also work around this problem by
229configuring your compiler to use the native linker instead of GNU ld.
7c22dc9d 230
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231** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes when closing a display (x-close-connection).
232
233This happens because of bugs in Gtk+. Gtk+ 2.10 seems to be OK. See bug
234http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715.
235
1020d879 236** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes on startup on Cygwin.
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237
238A typical error message is
dc13f3f5 239 ***MEMORY-ERROR***: emacs[5172]: GSlice: failed to allocate 504 bytes
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240 (alignment: 512): Function not implemented
241
242Emacs supplies its own malloc, but glib (part of Gtk+) calls memalign and on
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243Cygwin, that becomes the Cygwin supplied memalign. As malloc is not the
244Cygwin malloc, the Cygwin memalign always returns ENOSYS. A fix for this
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245problem would be welcome.
246
9dc15871 247* General runtime problems
7c22dc9d 248
9dc15871 249** Lisp problems
677e7496 250
9dc15871 251*** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
677e7496 252
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253You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
254Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
255will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
256and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
677e7496 257
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258Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
259than the corresponding .el file.
677e7496 260
9dc15871 261*** Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars.
677e7496 262
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263These control the actions of Emacs.
264~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
265EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
266"load" will search.
677e7496 267
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268If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
269of them, then try again.
9ed04369 270
9dc15871 271*** Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error.
9ed04369 272
9dc15871 273The error message might be something like this:
b87207a0 274
9dc15871 275 "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth"
b87207a0 276
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277This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a
278built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch
279for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3
280corrects that.
177c0ea7 281
9dc15871 282*** Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
177c0ea7 283
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284Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
285problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
286documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
177c0ea7 287
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288*** The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
289Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
290`add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
291'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
177c0ea7 292
9dc15871 293** Keyboard problems
b87207a0 294
9dc15871 295*** "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
61638355 296
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297If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
298will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
299in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
300did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
301character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
302must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
61638355 303
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304You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
305them to two different keys.
a47a639f 306
9dc15871 307*** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
a47a639f 308
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309You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
310though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
311or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
a47a639f 312
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313*** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
314to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
a47a639f 315
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316This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
317with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
318another escape character in kermit. One user did
61638355 319
9dc15871 320 set escape-character 17
61638355 321
9dc15871 322in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
61638355 323
9dc15871 324** Mailers and other helper programs
61638355 325
9dc15871 326*** movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
61638355 327
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328Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
329NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
330entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
331listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
332the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
333old POP protocol.
61638355 334
9dc15871 335*** RMAIL gets error getting new mail.
61638355 336
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337RMAIL gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
338called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
339the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
61638355 340
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341There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
342the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
343`movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
344this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
345the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
346IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
347SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
61638355 348
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349If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
350prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
351you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
352`mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
353make install.
61638355 354
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355 chgrp mail movemail
356 chmod 2755 movemail
61638355 357
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358Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
359installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
360installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
361/usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
362mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
363directory copy is ineffective.
61638355 364
9dc15871 365*** rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
61638355 366
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367This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
368The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
61638355 369
9dc15871 370** Problems with hostname resolution
61638355 371
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372*** Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
373the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
374*** Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
20dc2215 375*** Gnus can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
61638355 376
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377This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
378libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
379shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
380similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
556a9fad 381
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382The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
383the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
61638355 384
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385The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
386installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
49172314 387
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388If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
389then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
390do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
391or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
392that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
393be careful not to lose the others.
ed0d1d91 394
9dc15871 395Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
6e1a66dc 396
9dc15871 397#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
6e1a66dc 398
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399Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
400the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
401again to say this:
3c418e54 402
9dc15871 403#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
3c418e54 404
9dc15871 405*** Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
3c418e54 406
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407For example, (system-name) returns some variation on
408"localhost.localdomain", rather the name you were expecting.
409
9dc15871 410You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
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411(i.e. a name with at least one ".") either in /etc/hosts,
412/etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system calls for specifying
413this.
f9130829 414
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415If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
416mail-host-address to the value you want.
f9130829 417
9dc15871 418** NFS and RFS
f9130829 419
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420*** Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
421appear on disk.
f9130829 422
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423This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
424remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
425implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
426detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
427calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
428where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
f9130829 429
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430*** Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
431It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
432but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
433causes it.
f9130829 434
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435 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
436 call in the RFS server.
f9130829 437
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438 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
439 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
440 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
441 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
ed85f61d 442
9dc15871 443 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
b300fd77 444
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445 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
446 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
447 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
448 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
449 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
450 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
451 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
b300fd77 452
9dc15871 453 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
ed85f61d 454
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455 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
456 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
457 retrieving revision 1.2
458 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
459 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
460 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
461 ***************
462 *** 163,169 ****
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463 /*
464 * No return sent for close or fsync!
465 */
9dc15871 466 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
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467 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
468 else
469 {
9dc15871 470 --- 166,172 ----
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471 /*
472 * No return sent for close or fsync!
473 */
9dc15871 474 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
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475 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
476 else
477 {
ed85f61d 478
9dc15871 479** PSGML
fa2301bf 480
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481*** Old versions of the PSGML package use the obsolete variables
482`before-change-function' and `after-change-function', which are no
483longer used by Emacs. Please use PSGML 1.2.3 or later.
ed85f61d 484
9dc15871 485*** PSGML conflicts with sgml-mode.
d0cf6c7d 486
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487PSGML package uses the same names of some variables (like keymap)
488as built-in sgml-mode.el because it was created as a replacement
489of that package. The conflict will be shown if you load
490sgml-mode.el before psgml.el. E.g. this could happen if you edit
491HTML page and then start to work with SGML or XML file. html-mode
492(from sgml-mode.el) is used for HTML file and loading of psgml.el
493(for sgml-mode or xml-mode) will cause an error.
d0cf6c7d 494
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495*** Versions of the PSGML package earlier than 1.0.3 (stable) or 1.1.2
496(alpha) fail to parse DTD files correctly in Emacs 20.3 and later.
497Here is a patch for psgml-parse.el from PSGML 1.0.1 and, probably,
498earlier versions.
d0cf6c7d 499
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500--- psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:18:18 1.1
501+++ psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:20:00
502@@ -2383,7 +2383,7 @@ (defun sgml-push-to-entity (entity &opti
503 (setq sgml-buffer-parse-state nil))
504 (cond
505 ((stringp entity) ; a file name
506- (save-excursion (insert-file-contents entity))
507+ (insert-file-contents entity)
508 (setq default-directory (file-name-directory entity)))
509 ((consp (sgml-entity-text entity)) ; external id?
510 (let* ((extid (sgml-entity-text entity))
d0cf6c7d 511
90a02640 512** AUCTeX
c289e7f0 513
90a02640
DK
514You should not be using a version older than 11.52 if you can avoid
515it.
339b95d5 516
90a02640 517*** Emacs 21 freezes when visiting a TeX file with AUCTeX installed.
339b95d5 518
90a02640 519Emacs 21 needs version 10 or later of AUCTeX; upgrading should solve
9dc15871 520these problems.
339b95d5 521
90a02640 522*** No colors in AUCTeX with Emacs 21.
339b95d5 523
9dc15871
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524Upgrade to AUC TeX version 10 or later, and make sure it is
525byte-compiled with Emacs 21.
b87207a0 526
73639601
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527** PCL-CVS
528
529*** Lines are not updated or new lines are added in the buffer upon commit.
530
531When committing files located higher in the hierarchy than the examined
532directory, some versions of the CVS program return an ambiguous message
533from which PCL-CVS cannot extract the full location of the committed
534files. As a result, the corresponding lines in the PCL-CVS buffer are
535not updated with the new revision of these files, and new lines are
536added to the top-level directory.
537
538This can happen with CVS versions 1.12.8 and 1.12.9. Upgrade to CVS
5391.12.10 or newer to fix this problem.
540
9dc15871 541** Miscellaneous problems
f936978f 542
f5578c7f
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543*** Emacs uses 100% of CPU time
544
545This is a known problem with some versions of the Semantic package.
3f37e604
GM
546The solution is to upgrade Semantic to version 2.0pre4 (distributed
547with CEDET 1.0pre4) or later.
f5578c7f 548
9dc15871 549*** Self-documentation messages are garbled.
6fb6f3ac 550
9dc15871
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551This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
552with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
553corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
b87207a0 554
9dc15871
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555*** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
556terminal type.
b87207a0 557
9dc15871
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558The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
559environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
560provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
561emulates.
b87207a0 562
9dc15871
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563Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
564in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
565it only if it is undefined.
b87207a0 566
9dc15871 567 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
e085efdb 568
9dc15871
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569Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
570happen in a non-login shell.
fa99e2a4 571
9dc15871 572*** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
c8d9b4ee 573
9dc15871
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574This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
575smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
576on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
577problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
fe445893 578
9dc15871 579 if ($?EMACS) then
4b1aaa8b 580 if ("$EMACS" =~ /*) then
9dc15871
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581 unset edit
582 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
583 endif
584 endif
c8d9b4ee 585
9dc15871 586*** Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow.
d9810886 587
9dc15871
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588This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the
589full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the
590/etc/hosts file, something like this:
a408ce18 591
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592127.0.0.1 localhost
593129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04
a408ce18 594
9dc15871 595The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems.
a38f41c4 596
9dc15871 597*** Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails.
a38f41c4 598
9dc15871
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599If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
600representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
601ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux, kernel
602version 2.4.3, with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other
603systems as well. To avoid this problem, switch to using the standard
604ftp client. On a Debian system, type
a38f41c4 605
9dc15871 606 update-alternatives --config ftp
a38f41c4 607
9dc15871 608and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
a38f41c4 609
9dc15871 610*** JPEG images aren't displayed.
b87207a0 611
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612This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
613Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem. Configure checks for the
614correct version, but this problem could occur if a binary built
615against a shared libjpeg is run on a system with an older version.
b87207a0 616
9dc15871 617*** Dired is very slow.
4e0bd469
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618
619This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long
620time. Possible reasons for this include:
621
622 - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df'
623 response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds);
624
625 - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix;
626
627 - slow operation of some versions of `df'.
628
629To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable
630`directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from
631invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or
632(c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase.
633
9dc15871 634*** Versions of the W3 package released before Emacs 21.1 don't run
fc2938d1 635under Emacs 21. This fixed in W3 version 4.0pre.47.
a953a8d3 636
9dc15871 637*** The LDAP support rely on ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 2.
8f4df059
PJ
638
639It can fail to work with ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 1.
640Version 1 of OpenLDAP is now deprecated. If you are still using it,
641please upgrade to version 2. As a temporary workaround, remove
642argument "-x" from the variable `ldap-ldapsearch-args'.
643
9dc15871 644*** ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps.
cc2f2825
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645
646This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it
647defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it
648runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory.
649
650The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version.
651
9dc15871 652*** On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
f4f4ee4d
GM
653from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
654shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
655These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
656library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
657
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658Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build
659process invokes Emacs several times.
660
f4f4ee4d
GM
661On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
662environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
663can be found.
664
665Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
666Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
667specified run-time search path in the executable.
668
8643647c 669On some systems, Emacs can crash due to problems with dynamic
c31138a1
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670linking. Specifically, on SGI Irix 6.5, crashes were reported with
671backtraces like this:
672
673 (dbx) where
674 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]
675 1 general_find_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
676 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":2140, 0xfb65a98]
677 2 resolve_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x0, 0xfbdd438, 0x0, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
678 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":1947, 0xfb657e4]
679 3 lazy_text_resolve(0xd18, 0x1a3, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
680 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":997, 0xfb64d44]
681 4 _rld_text_resolve(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
682 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld_bridge.s":175, 0xfb6032c]
683
8643647c
RS
684(`rld' is the dynamic linker.) We don't know yet why this
685happens, but setting the environment variable LD_BIND_NOW to 1 (which
c31138a1
EZ
686forces the dynamic linker to bind all shared objects early on) seems
687to work around the problem.
688
f4f4ee4d
GM
689Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details.
690
9dc15871
EZ
691*** You request inverse video, and the first Emacs frame is in inverse
692video, but later frames are not in inverse video.
b1739b51 693
9dc15871
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694This can happen if you have an old version of the custom library in
695your search path for Lisp packages. Use M-x list-load-path-shadows to
696check whether this is true. If it is, delete the old custom library.
b1739b51 697
9dc15871 698*** When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error.
b1739b51 699
9dc15871
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700This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII
701characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII
702characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with
703support for 8-bit characters.
b1739b51 704
9dc15871
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705To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type
706this at your shell's prompt:
b1739b51 707
9dc15871 708 ispell -vv
b1739b51 709
9dc15871
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710and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says
711"!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it
712does not.
e9a52cfe 713
9dc15871
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714To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file
715in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT.
716Then rebuild the speller.
e9a52cfe 717
9dc15871
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718Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the
719version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade.
e9a52cfe 720
9dc15871
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721Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word
722in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by
723Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because
724it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are
725spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other.
e9a52cfe 726
9dc15871
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727If your spell-checking program is Aspell, it has been reported that if
728you have a personal configuration file (normally ~/.aspell.conf), it
729can cause this error. Remove that file, execute `ispell-kill-ispell'
730in Emacs, and then try spell-checking again.
e9a52cfe 731
9dc15871 732* Runtime problems related to font handling
e9a52cfe 733
9dc15871 734** Under X11, some characters appear as hollow boxes.
e9a52cfe 735
9dc15871
EZ
736Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
737supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
738many different fonts, collected into a fontset.
f25eb4f7 739
9dc15871
EZ
740If some of the fonts called for in your fontset do not exist on your X
741server, then the characters that have no font appear as hollow boxes.
742You can remedy the problem by installing additional fonts.
f25eb4f7 743
9dc15871 744The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
9222ba5e
EZ
745display all the characters Emacs supports. The etl-unicode collection
746of fonts (available from <URL:ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/fonts/> and
747<URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/mirror/X.Org/contrib/fonts/>) includes
748fonts that can display many Unicode characters; they can also be used
749by ps-print and ps-mule to print Unicode characters.
f25eb4f7 750
9dc15871
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751Another cause of this for specific characters is fonts which have a
752missing glyph and no default character. This is known to occur for
753character number 160 (no-break space) in some fonts, such as Lucida
754but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte and Latin-1 version
755of this character to display a space.
f25eb4f7 756
9dc15871 757** Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
f25eb4f7 758
9222ba5e
EZ
759You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution
760or the etl-unicode collection (see the previous entry).
f25eb4f7 761
9dc15871 762** Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it "should".
edd7d3be 763
9dc15871
EZ
764This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller
765than the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that
766lines do not overlap.
edd7d3be 767
9dc15871 768** Loading fonts is very slow.
edd7d3be 769
9dc15871
EZ
770You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
771Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
772directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
773"fonts.scale".
42303132 774
9dc15871
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775If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
776font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
42303132 777
9dc15871
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778With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
779directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
780Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
42303132 781
9dc15871 782** Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces.
42303132 783
9dc15871
EZ
784By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
785`{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
786any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
787vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
788parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
789in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
790pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
791introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
792through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
793to the end of a very large buffer.
42303132 794
bf247b6e 795Beginning with version 22.1, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero
9dc15871
EZ
796is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment,
797to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with
798indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash.
42303132 799
9dc15871
EZ
800If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
801makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
802fontification by setting the variable
803`font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
804be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
f3d6f4ee 805
9dc15871
EZ
806Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
807in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
f3d6f4ee 808
9dc15871
EZ
809** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
810character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
f3d6f4ee 811
9dc15871
EZ
812One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
813away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
814XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
f3d6f4ee 815
9dc15871 816** Characters are displayed as empty boxes or with wrong font under X.
9f83d8b3 817
9dc15871
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818This can occur when two different versions of FontConfig are used.
819For example, XFree86 4.3.0 has one version and Gnome usually comes
c42e773e 820with a newer version. Emacs compiled with Gtk+ will then use
9dc15871
EZ
821the newer version. In most cases the problem can be temporarily
822fixed by stopping the application that has the error (it can be
823Emacs or any other application), removing ~/.fonts.cache-1,
824and then start the application again.
825If removing ~/.fonts.cache-1 and restarting doesn't help, the
826application with problem must be recompiled with the same version
827of FontConfig as the rest of the system uses. For KDE, it is
828sufficient to recompile Qt.
9f83d8b3 829
9dc15871 830** Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font.
9f83d8b3 831
9dc15871
EZ
832This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
8332.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
834event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
835Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
f29d1e75 836
9dc15871 837A workaround for this is to add something like
f29d1e75 838
9dc15871 839emacs.waitForWM: false
c24be289 840
9dc15871
EZ
841to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
842frame's parameter list, like this:
c24be289 843
9dc15871 844 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
b35319bf 845
9dc15871 846(this should go into your `.emacs' file).
b35319bf 847
9dc15871 848** Underlines appear at the wrong position.
b35319bf 849
9dc15871
EZ
850This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
851Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
6fc3871e
GM
852neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package prior to version 3.0.17.
853To circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties
854to nil in your `.emacs'.
b35319bf 855
9dc15871
EZ
856To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
857type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
858property.
787994b7 859
9dc15871 860** When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
0a2eeca1 861
9dc15871
EZ
862When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
863(either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
864then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
865correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
866gives the appearance of "double spacing".
0a2eeca1 867
9dc15871
EZ
868To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
869feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
0a2eeca1 870
405b495f
GM
871** Subscript/superscript text in TeX is hard to read.
872
873If `tex-fontify-script' is non-nil, tex-mode displays
874subscript/superscript text in the faces subscript/superscript, which
875are smaller than the normal font and lowered/raised. With some fonts,
876nested superscripts (say) can be hard to read. Switching to a
877different font, or changing your antialiasing setting (on an LCD
878screen), can both make the problem disappear. Alternatively, customize
879the following variables: tex-font-script-display (how much to
880lower/raise); tex-suscript-height-ratio (how much smaller than
881normal); tex-suscript-height-minimum (minimum height).
882
9dc15871 883* Internationalization problems
0a2eeca1 884
de25ebb8
RS
885** M-{ does not work on a Spanish PC keyboard.
886
887Many Spanish keyboards seem to ignore that combination. Emacs can't
888do anything about it.
889
9dc15871 890** Characters from the mule-unicode charsets aren't displayed under X.
0a2eeca1 891
9dc15871
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892XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have
893minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font
894name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire
895according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display
896characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be
897able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u
898C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the
899font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont,
900include in the fontset spec:
0a2eeca1 901
9dc15871
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902mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
903mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
904mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1
0a2eeca1 905
9dc15871 906** The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters.
0a2eeca1 907
ce9b56fe
KH
908Emacs directly supports the Unicode BMP whose code points are in the
909ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff, and indirectly supports the parts of
910CJK characters belonging to these legacy charsets:
911
912 GB2312, Big5, JISX0208, JISX0212, JISX0213-1, JISX0213-2, KSC5601
913
914The latter support is done in Utf-Translate-Cjk mode (turned on by
915default). Which Unicode CJK characters are decoded into which Emacs
916charset is decided by the current language environment. For instance,
917in Chinese-GB, most of them are decoded into chinese-gb2312.
119d3665 918
9dc15871
EZ
919If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the
920characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8
921(composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back
922correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences.
923If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are
924substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose
925information.
119d3665 926
9dc15871 927** Mule-UCS loads very slowly.
a933dad1 928
9dc15871
EZ
929Changes to Emacs internals interact badly with Mule-UCS's `un-define'
930library, which is the usual interface to Mule-UCS. Apply the
931following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 and rebuild it. That will help,
932though loading will still be slower than in Emacs 20. (Some
933distributions, such as Debian, may already have applied such a patch.)
0de9f9a8 934
9dc15871
EZ
935--- lisp/un-define.el 6 Mar 2001 22:41:38 -0000 1.30
936+++ lisp/un-define.el 19 Apr 2002 18:34:26 -0000
937@@ -610,13 +624,21 @@ by calling post-read-conversion and pre-
0de9f9a8 938
9dc15871
EZ
939 (mapcar
940 (lambda (x)
941- (mapcar
942- (lambda (y)
943- (mucs-define-coding-system
944- (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
945- (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
946- (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x))))
947- (cdr x)))
948+ (if (fboundp 'register-char-codings)
949+ ;; Mule 5, where we don't need the eol-type specified and
950+ ;; register-char-codings may be very slow for these coding
951+ ;; system definitions.
952+ (let ((y (cadr x)))
3256a475
RC
953+ (mucs-define-coding-system
954+ (car x) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
955+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y)))
9dc15871
EZ
956+ (mapcar
957+ (lambda (y)
3256a475
RC
958+ (mucs-define-coding-system
959+ (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
960+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
961+ (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x)))))
9dc15871
EZ
962+ (cdr x)))
963 `((utf-8
964 (utf-8-unix
965 ?u "UTF-8 coding system"
0de9f9a8 966
9dc15871
EZ
967Note that Emacs has native support for Unicode, roughly equivalent to
968Mule-UCS's, so you may not need it.
a933dad1 969
d87ceee0
KH
970** Mule-UCS compilation problem.
971
972Emacs of old versions and XEmacs byte-compile the form `(progn progn
973...)' the same way as `(progn ...)', but Emacs of version 21.3 and the
974later process that form just as interpreter does, that is, as `progn'
975variable reference. Apply the following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 to
976make it compiled by the latest Emacs.
977
978--- mucs-ccl.el 2 Sep 2005 00:42:23 -0000 1.1.1.1
979+++ mucs-ccl.el 2 Sep 2005 01:31:51 -0000 1.3
980@@ -639,10 +639,14 @@
981 (mucs-notify-embedment 'mucs-ccl-required name)
982 (setq ccl-pgm-list (cdr ccl-pgm-list)))
983 ; (message "MCCLREGFIN:%S" result)
984- `(progn
985- (setq mucs-ccl-facility-alist
3256a475 986- (quote ,mucs-ccl-facility-alist))
d87ceee0
KH
987- ,@result)))
988+ ;; The only way the function is used in this package is included
989+ ;; in `mucs-package-definition-end-hook' value, where it must
990+ ;; return (possibly empty) *list* of forms. Do this. Do not rely
ade79051 991+ ;; on byte compiler to remove extra `progn's in `(progn ...)'
d87ceee0
KH
992+ ;; form.
993+ `((setq mucs-ccl-facility-alist
3256a475 994+ (quote ,mucs-ccl-facility-alist))
d87ceee0 995+ ,@result)))
ade79051 996
d87ceee0
KH
997 ;;; Add hook for embedding translation informations to a package.
998 (add-hook 'mucs-package-definition-end-hook
999
9dc15871 1000** Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
a933dad1 1001
d6b7de9b
EZ
1002Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
1003other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
1004that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
1005size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
1006when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
1007fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
a933dad1 1008
d6b7de9b 1009To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
a933dad1 1010
d6b7de9b 1011 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
a933dad1 1012
d6b7de9b
EZ
1013If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
1014problem.
a933dad1 1015
d6b7de9b
EZ
1016The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
1017`fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
1018`xset fp rehash'.
177c0ea7 1019
9dc15871 1020** The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
a933dad1 1021
9dc15871
EZ
1022This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
1023slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more
1024flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK
1025support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't
1026generally read correctly by Emacs 21.
a933dad1 1027
9dc15871 1028** After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
a933dad1 1029
9dc15871
EZ
1030The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
1031 (standard-display-european t)
1032That should be changed to
1033 (standard-display-european 1 t)
de121241 1034
9dc15871 1035* X runtime problems
de121241 1036
9dc15871 1037** X keyboard problems
de121241 1038
9dc15871 1039*** You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
a933dad1 1040
9dc15871
EZ
1041This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
1042Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
1043character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
1044to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
a933dad1 1045
9dc15871 1046For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
177c0ea7 1047
9dc15871 1048 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
a933dad1 1049
9dc15871
EZ
1050If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
1051Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
1052xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
a933dad1 1053
9dc15871 1054*** Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
a933dad1 1055
9dc15871 1056Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
a933dad1 1057
9f4f9273 1058*** C-SPC fails to work on Fedora GNU/Linux (or with fcitx input method).
09352e8f
RS
1059
1060Fedora Core 4 steals the C-SPC key by default for the `iiimx' program
1061which is the input method for some languages. It blocks Emacs users
1062from using the C-SPC key for `set-mark-command'.
1063
1064One solutions is to remove the `<Ctrl>space' from the `Iiimx' file
1065which can be found in the `/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults' directory.
1066However, that requires root access.
1067
1068Another is to specify `Emacs*useXIM: false' in your X resources.
1069
1070Another is to build Emacs with the `--without-xim' configure option.
1071
2fb18d13
KH
1072The same problem happens on any other system if you are using fcitx
1073(Chinese input method) which by default use C-SPC for toggling. If
1074you want to use fcitx with Emacs, you have two choices. Toggle fcitx
1075by another key (e.g. C-\) by modifying ~/.fcitx/config, or be
1076accustomed to use C-@ for `set-mark-command'.
1077
9dc15871 1078*** M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
a933dad1 1079
9dc15871
EZ
1080See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1081for character composition.
a933dad1 1082
9dc15871 1083*** The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
a933dad1 1084
9dc15871
EZ
1085This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
1086combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
1087definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
1088might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
1089purposes.
a933dad1 1090
9dc15871
EZ
1091We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
1092you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
a933dad1 1093
9dc15871 1094*** Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
a933dad1
DL
1095
1096These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
1097particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
1098configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
1099configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
1100change this.
1101
9dc15871 1102*** Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
a933dad1 1103
9dc15871
EZ
1104This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
1105a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
1106--without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
a933dad1 1107
9dc15871
EZ
1108*** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
1109directly with an X server.
a933dad1 1110
9dc15871
EZ
1111If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
1112does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
1113whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
1114followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
1115it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
1116have made the key binding correctly.
a933dad1 1117
9dc15871
EZ
1118If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
1119be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
1120server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
1121default.
a933dad1 1122
9dc15871 1123If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
a933dad1 1124
9dc15871
EZ
1125 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1126 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
a933dad1 1127
9dc15871
EZ
1128If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1129commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1130are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1131modifier bit not otherwise used.
a933dad1 1132
9dc15871
EZ
1133If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1134keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1135some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1136commands show above to make them modifier keys.
a933dad1 1137
9dc15871
EZ
1138Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1139into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
a933dad1 1140
9dc15871 1141** Window-manager and toolkit-related problems
a933dad1 1142
0e71e4a8
CY
1143*** Gnome: Emacs receives input directly from the keyboard, bypassing XIM.
1144
1145This seems to happen when gnome-settings-daemon version 2.12 or later
1146is running. If gnome-settings-daemon is not running, Emacs receives
1147input through XIM without any problem. Furthermore, this seems only
1148to happen in *.UTF-8 locales; zh_CN.GB2312 and zh_CN.GBK locales, for
1149example, work fine. A bug report has been filed in the Gnome
1150bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357032
1151
9dc15871 1152*** Gnome: Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
a933dad1 1153
9dc15871
EZ
1154A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
1155into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
1156incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
1157other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
1158been filed.
a933dad1 1159
9dc15871
EZ
1160*** KDE: When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
1161or messed up.
a933dad1 1162
9dc15871
EZ
1163For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
1164empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
1165background.
a933dad1 1166
9dc15871
EZ
1167This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
1168definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
1169solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
1170option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option
1171is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style".
a933dad1 1172
9dc15871
EZ
1173Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
1174applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
1175(should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
1176so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
1177Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
1178present or commented out:
a933dad1 1179
9dc15871
EZ
1180 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
1181 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
1182 Emacs*Foreground
1183 Emacs*Background
a933dad1 1184
a3475659
JD
1185It is also reported that a bug in the gtk-engines-qt engine can cause this if
1186Emacs is compiled with Gtk+.
1187The bug is fixed in version 0.7 or newer of gtk-engines-qt.
1188
9dc15871 1189*** KDE: Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
a933dad1 1190
9dc15871
EZ
1191This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1192requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
8576f724 1193of klipper don't implement the ICCCM protocol for large selections,
9dc15871 1194which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
b11e8823 1195while, Emacs may print a message:
a933dad1 1196
9dc15871 1197 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
a933dad1 1198
b11e8823
JD
1199A workaround is to not use `klipper'. An upgrade to the `klipper' that
1200comes with KDE 3.3 or later also solves the problem.
a933dad1 1201
9dc15871 1202*** CDE: Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
a933dad1 1203
9dc15871
EZ
1204This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1205seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1206To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1207and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
d238f982 1208
9dc15871
EZ
1209*** Xaw3d : When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
1210click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
1211is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
1212problem disappears.
d238f982 1213
9dc15871
EZ
1214*** Xaw: There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
1215XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
1216one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
1217For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
1218"C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
1219used with neXtaw at run time.
d7185f9d 1220
9dc15871
EZ
1221The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
1222want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
1223built Emacs with.
d7185f9d 1224
9dc15871 1225*** Open Motif: Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif.
a933dad1 1226
9dc15871
EZ
1227When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the
1228graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter"
1229and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the
1230file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again.
a933dad1 1231
9dc15871
EZ
1232The solution is to use LessTif instead. LessTif is a free replacement
1233for Motif. See the file INSTALL for information on how to do this.
a933dad1 1234
9dc15871
EZ
1235Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts,
1236but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in
1237the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog.
a933dad1 1238
9dc15871 1239*** LessTif: Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
a933dad1 1240
9dc15871
EZ
1241The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
1242emulation for which it is set up.
a933dad1 1243
9dc15871 1244Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
880ea925 1245LessTif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
9dc15871
EZ
1246On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
1247--enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
1248successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
1249lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
1250menu placement.
a933dad1 1251
9dc15871
EZ
1252On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
1253locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
1254what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
1255developers.
a933dad1 1256
9dc15871 1257*** Motif: The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
a933dad1 1258
9dc15871 1259This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
a933dad1 1260
9dc15871 1261 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
a933dad1 1262
9dc15871
EZ
1263That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1264do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1265explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1266the resource prevents the problem.
a933dad1 1267
9dc15871 1268** General X problems
17a37d87 1269
9dc15871 1270*** Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
17a37d87 1271
9dc15871
EZ
1272We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1273scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1274happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1275on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
17a37d87 1276
9dc15871 1277Here's how to do this:
17a37d87 1278
9dc15871 1279 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
a933dad1 1280
9dc15871
EZ
1281If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1282try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1283to normal, do
a933dad1 1284
9dc15871 1285 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
a933dad1 1286
9dc15871 1287*** Error messages about undefined colors on X.
a933dad1 1288
9dc15871 1289The messages might say something like this:
a933dad1 1290
9dc15871 1291 Unable to load color "grey95"
a933dad1 1292
9dc15871 1293(typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
a933dad1 1294
9dc15871 1295 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
a933dad1 1296
9dc15871
EZ
1297These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
1298many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
1299resources to load all the colors it needs.
a933dad1 1300
9dc15871 1301A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
a933dad1 1302
9257b627
EZ
1303"undefined color" messages can also occur if the RgbPath entry in the
1304X configuration file is incorrect, or the rgb.txt file is not where
1305X expects to find it.
1306
9dc15871 1307*** Improving performance with slow X connections.
a933dad1 1308
9dc15871
EZ
1309There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can
1310be carried out at the same time:
a933dad1 1311
9dc15871
EZ
13121) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
1313 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using
1314 the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect
1315 the use of Emacs' own input methods, which are part of the Leim
1316 package.
3d00585e 1317
9dc15871 13182) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
634e516b
EZ
1319 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar. Adding the
1320 following forms to your .emacs file will accomplish that, but only
1321 after the the initial frame is displayed:
1322
1323 (scroll-bar-mode -1)
1324 (menu-bar-mode -1)
1325 (tool-bar-mode -1)
1326
1327 For still quicker startup, put these X resources in your .Xdefaults
1328 file:
1329
1330 Emacs.verticalScrollBars: off
1331 Emacs.menuBar: off
1332 Emacs.toolBar: off
3d00585e 1333
9dc15871
EZ
13343) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this
1335 forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...).
3d00585e 1336
9dc15871
EZ
13374) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface
1338 to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which
1339 improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness
1340 of the X protocol. lbxproxy acheives the performance gain by grouping
1341 several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together,
880ea925 1342 instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a separate
9dc15871
EZ
1343 packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are:
1344 -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents
1345 Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems.
1346 For more about lbxproxy, see:
1347 http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html
3d00585e 1348
34431988
KS
13495) If copying and killing is slow, try to disable the interaction with the
1350 native system's clipboard by adding these lines to your .emacs file:
1351 (setq interprogram-cut-function nil)
1352 (setq interprogram-paste-function nil)
1353
9dc15871 1354*** Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
3d00585e 1355
9dc15871
EZ
1356This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1357a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1358likely to cause it.
a933dad1 1359
9dc15871 1360We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
7838ea1b 1361
9dc15871 1362*** Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
a933dad1 1363
9dc15871
EZ
1364There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
1365that replacing the mouse made it stop.
a933dad1 1366
9dc15871 1367*** You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
a933dad1 1368
9dc15871
EZ
1369On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
1370works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
1371bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
1372the Files menu).
a933dad1 1373
9dc15871
EZ
1374This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
1375due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
1376knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
1377workaround can be found.
a933dad1 1378
9dc15871
EZ
1379*** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1380parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
b5cb4652 1381
9dc15871
EZ
1382This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1383 emacs*Cursor: black
1384(which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1385that isn't a color.)
b5cb4652 1386
9dc15871 1387The fix is to correct your X resources.
a933dad1 1388
9dc15871 1389*** Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
a933dad1 1390
9dc15871
EZ
1391If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
1392resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
1393renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
1394font.
a933dad1 1395
9dc15871
EZ
1396One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
1397your font path, like this:
a933dad1 1398
3256a475 1399 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
a933dad1 1400
9dc15871 1401*** Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
a933dad1 1402
9dc15871 1403An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
a933dad1 1404
9dc15871 1405 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
a933dad1 1406
9dc15871
EZ
1407This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
1408individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
1409want, rewrite the resource.
3156909f 1410
9dc15871
EZ
1411To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
1412-query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
1413the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
a933dad1 1414
9dc15871
EZ
1415*** Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
1416*** `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
e96c5c69 1417
9dc15871
EZ
1418One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
1419your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
1420the environment.
e96c5c69 1421
9dc15871 1422*** Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
a933dad1 1423
9dc15871
EZ
1424The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
1425arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
1426tell Emacs to compensate for this.
a933dad1 1427
9dc15871
EZ
1428I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
1429whether this problem is present on a given system.
a933dad1 1430
9dc15871 1431*** X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
a933dad1 1432
9dc15871
EZ
1433People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
1434not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
1435the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
1436the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
a933dad1 1437
9dc15871
EZ
1438You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
1439However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
1440you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
a933dad1 1441
9dc15871 1442The easy way to do this is to put
a933dad1 1443
9dc15871 1444 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
a933dad1 1445
9dc15871 1446in your site-init.el file.
a933dad1 1447
3256a475
RC
1448*** Prevent double pastes in X
1449
1450The problem: a region, such as a command, is pasted twice when you copy
1451it with your mouse from GNU Emacs to an xterm or an RXVT shell in X.
1452The solution: try the following in your X configuration file,
1453/etc/X11/xorg.conf This should enable both PS/2 and USB mice for
1454single copies. You do not need any other drivers or options.
1455
1456 Section "InputDevice"
1457 Identifier "Generic Mouse"
1458 Driver "mousedev"
1459 Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
1460 EndSection
1461
880ea925 1462* Runtime problems on character terminals
a933dad1 1463
9dc15871 1464** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
a933dad1 1465
9dc15871
EZ
1466This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
1467used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
1468away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
1469streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
1470user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
1471properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
1472input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
1473easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
a933dad1 1474
9dc15871 1475There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
a933dad1 1476
9dc15871
EZ
1477 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
1478 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
1479 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
a933dad1 1480
9dc15871
EZ
1481First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
1482they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
1483"no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
1484escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
1485and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
1486control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
a933dad1 1487
9dc15871
EZ
1488Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
1489needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
1490by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
1491rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
1492your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
1493it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
1494the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
1495problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
1496to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
a933dad1 1497
9dc15871
EZ
1498For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
1499giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
1500codes. You might as well try it.
a933dad1 1501
9dc15871
EZ
1502If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
1503through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
1504computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
1505much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
1506control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
1507you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
1508replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
1509measures can make Emacs semi-work.
4c635a29 1510
9dc15871
EZ
1511You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
1512handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
1513enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
1514now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
1515enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
1516control handling.)
a933dad1 1517
9dc15871
EZ
1518If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
1519is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
1520other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
1521and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
1522other control characters are already used by emacs.
a933dad1 1523
9dc15871
EZ
1524IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
1525Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
1526order to continue.
a933dad1 1527
9dc15871
EZ
1528If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
1529certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
1530`enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
1531automatically. Here is an example:
a933dad1 1532
9dc15871 1533(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1534
9dc15871
EZ
1535If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
1536and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
1537manually.
a933dad1 1538
9dc15871
EZ
1539I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
1540assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
1541control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
1542merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
1543widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
1544use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
1545will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
1546of inferior systems.
a933dad1 1547
9dc15871 1548** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
a933dad1 1549
9dc15871
EZ
1550For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
1551control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
1552terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
1553that wants to use flow control.
a933dad1 1554
9dc15871
EZ
1555You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
1556If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
1557flow control, as described in the preceding section.
a933dad1 1558
9dc15871
EZ
1559If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
1560into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
1561shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
a933dad1 1562
9dc15871 1563** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
a933dad1 1564
9dc15871
EZ
1565This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
1566terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
1567the combination of features specified for that terminal.
a933dad1 1568
9dc15871
EZ
1569The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1570Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1571(open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
1572terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
1573what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
1574and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
1575There are several possibilities:
a933dad1 1576
9dc15871 15771) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
a933dad1 1578
9dc15871
EZ
1579In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1580need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
a933dad1 1581
9dc15871
EZ
15822) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
1583 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
1584 by termcap.
a933dad1 1585
9dc15871
EZ
1586This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
1587Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
1588and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
1589classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
1590Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
1591tested on many kinds of terminals.
a933dad1 1592
9dc15871 15933) The termcap entry is wrong.
a933dad1 1594
9dc15871
EZ
1595See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
1596that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
1597for certain terminals.
a933dad1 1598
9dc15871
EZ
15994) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
1600 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
a933dad1 1601
9dc15871
EZ
1602This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
1603in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
a933dad1 1604
9dc15871 1605** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
a933dad1 1606
9dc15871
EZ
1607Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
1608control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
1609On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
1610control on the local system.
a933dad1 1611
9dc15871
EZ
1612One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
1613(the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
1614stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
1615"stty start u stop u" will do this.
a933dad1 1616
9dc15871
EZ
1617Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
1618around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
1619issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
a933dad1 1620
9dc15871
EZ
1621If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
1622M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
1623if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
1624following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
a933dad1 1625
9dc15871 1626(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1627
9dc15871
EZ
1628See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
1629info.
a933dad1 1630
9dc15871 1631** Output from Control-V is slow.
a933dad1 1632
9dc15871
EZ
1633On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
1634Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
1635to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
1636before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
1637the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
1638it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
a933dad1 1639
9dc15871
EZ
1640If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
1641that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
1642specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
1643concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
1644send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
1645fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
1646time as the operations really take.
a933dad1 1647
9dc15871
EZ
1648Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
1649at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
1650terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
1651operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
1652flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
1653an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
1654Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
1655cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
1656not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
1657is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
a933dad1 1658
9dc15871
EZ
1659Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
1660multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
1661termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
1662fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
1663each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
1664to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
1665`cm' string.
a933dad1 1666
9dc15871
EZ
1667You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
1668has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
1669take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
a933dad1 1670
9dc15871
EZ
1671A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
1672of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
a933dad1 1673
9dc15871 1674** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
a933dad1 1675
9dc15871
EZ
1676Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
1677after a day or two.
a933dad1 1678
9dc15871
EZ
1679The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
1680the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
1681character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
1682of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
1683overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
1684to it.
a933dad1 1685
9dc15871
EZ
1686For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
1687and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
1688other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
1689but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
1690that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
1691important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
a933dad1 1692
9dc15871
EZ
1693If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
1694you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
1695 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
1696You can probably access help-command via f1.
a933dad1 1697
9dc15871 1698** Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
a933dad1 1699
9dc15871
EZ
1700Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
1701emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
1702entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
1703"Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
1704supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
1705Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
1706uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
1707"colors".
a933dad1 1708
9dc15871
EZ
1709In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
1710``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
1711back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
1712use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
1713doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
1714sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
1715it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
1716capability).
a933dad1 1717
9dc15871
EZ
1718Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
1719attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
1720incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
1721this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
a933dad1 1722
9dc15871
EZ
1723Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
1724of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
1725entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
1726`xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
1727emulator.
a933dad1 1728
bf247b6e 1729Beginning with version 22.1, Emacs supports the --color command-line
9dc15871
EZ
1730option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular
1731modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up
1732for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors.
a933dad1 1733
9dc15871
EZ
1734Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
1735Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
1736Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
1737recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
1738global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
1739`global-font-lock-mode'.
a933dad1 1740
9dc15871 1741* Runtime problems specific to individual Unix variants
f1e54ce1 1742
9dc15871 1743** GNU/Linux
f1e54ce1 1744
f77e4514
KS
1745*** GNU/Linux: Process output is corrupted.
1746
1747There is a bug in Linux kernel 2.6.10 PTYs that can cause emacs to
1748read corrupted process output.
1749
1750*** GNU/Linux: Remote access to CVS with SSH causes file corruption.
1751
1752If you access a remote CVS repository via SSH, files may be corrupted
1753due to bad interaction between CVS, SSH, and libc.
1754
1755To fix the problem, save the following script into a file, make it
1756executable, and set CVS_RSH environment variable to the file name of
1757the script:
1758
1759#!/bin/bash
1760exec 2> >(exec cat >&2 2>/dev/null)
1761exec ssh "$@"
1762
9dc15871
EZ
1763*** GNU/Linux: On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
17645.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
a933dad1 1765
9dc15871
EZ
1766This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1767One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1768known to work.
a933dad1 1769
9dc15871
EZ
1770*** GNU/Linux: After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs,
1771the Meta key stops working.
a01325b8 1772
9dc15871
EZ
1773This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1774Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1775modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1776keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1777modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1778was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1779Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
a01325b8 1780
9dc15871
EZ
1781The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1782modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1783and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1784which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1785the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1786modifier:
a933dad1 1787
9dc15871 1788 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
a933dad1 1789
9dc15871
EZ
1790A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1791is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
a01325b8 1792
9dc15871 1793 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
a933dad1 1794
9dc15871
EZ
1795This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1796keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1797keys can serve as Meta.
a933dad1 1798
9dc15871
EZ
1799The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1800keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
a933dad1 1801
ff3e9dbc 1802*** GNU/Linux: slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
a933dad1 1803
9dc15871
EZ
1804People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1805startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
a933dad1 1806
9dc15871
EZ
1807This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
1808Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
1809improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
1810networked and non-networked machines.
a933dad1 1811
9dc15871 1812Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
a933dad1 1813
9dc15871 1814**** Networked Case.
a933dad1 1815
9dc15871
EZ
1816First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1817exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1818(replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
a933dad1 1819
9dc15871 1820 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME
a933dad1 1821
9dc15871
EZ
1822Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1823lines:
1dd8b979 1824
9dc15871
EZ
1825 order hosts, bind
1826 multi on
10a763e5 1827
9dc15871
EZ
1828Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1829indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1830database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1831dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1dd8b979 1832
9dc15871 1833**** Non-Networked Case.
a933dad1 1834
9dc15871
EZ
1835The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1836However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1837simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1838`touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1839file is not necessary with this approach.
a933dad1 1840
9dc15871 1841*** GNU/Linux: Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
a933dad1 1842
9dc15871
EZ
1843This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
1844ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
1845These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
1846the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
1847(show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
1848blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
1849cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
1850always blinks.
3d00585e 1851
9dc15871
EZ
1852A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
1853enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
1854the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
1855cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
1856the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
1857cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
3d00585e 1858
9dc15871
EZ
1859To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
1860`linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
1861the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
1862produce a modified terminfo entry.
3d00585e 1863
9dc15871
EZ
1864Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor,
1865change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command.
a933dad1 1866
9dc15871 1867*** GNU/Linux: Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1
DL
1868
1869There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1870caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1871problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1872is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1873
1874Using the old library version is a workaround.
1875
9dc15871 1876** FreeBSD
a933dad1 1877
9dc15871
EZ
1878*** FreeBSD 2.1.5: useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1879directories that have the +t bit.
a933dad1 1880
9dc15871
EZ
1881This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1882Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1883with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1884link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
a933dad1 1885
9dc15871
EZ
1886If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1887file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
a933dad1 1888
9dc15871 1889*** FreeBSD: Getting a Meta key on the console.
a933dad1 1890
9dc15871
EZ
1891By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
1892FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
1893current keymap to a file with the command
a933dad1 1894
9dc15871 1895 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1896
9dc15871
EZ
1897Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
1898definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
1899key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
1900to look like this
a933dad1 1901
9dc15871 1902 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
a933dad1 1903
9dc15871 1904to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
a933dad1 1905
9dc15871 1906 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1907
9dc15871 1908** HP-UX
a933dad1 1909
9dc15871 1910*** HP/UX : Shell mode gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
a933dad1 1911
9dc15871 1912christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
a933dad1 1913
9dc15871
EZ
1914The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1915execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
1916tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
1917but tty is giving it back 3.
a933dad1 1918
9dc15871
EZ
1919The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
1920word:
a933dad1 1921
9dc15871 1922if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1923
9dc15871 1924should be changed to:
a933dad1 1925
9dc15871 1926if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1927
9dc15871
EZ
1928Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1929and into .login.
a933dad1 1930
9dc15871 1931*** HP/UX: `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'.
a933dad1 1932
9dc15871
EZ
1933On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1934file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1935does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1936value is just ten seconds.
a933dad1 1937
9dc15871 1938If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
a933dad1 1939
9dc15871
EZ
1940*** HP/UX: The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1941other non-English HP keyboards too).
a933dad1 1942
9dc15871
EZ
1943This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1944shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1945configures the X server.
a933dad1 1946
9dc15871
EZ
1947 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1948 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1949 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1950 EOF
a933dad1 1951
9dc15871
EZ
1952 xmodmap - << EOF
1953 clear mod1
1954 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1955 add mod1 = Meta_L
1956 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1957 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1958 EOF
a933dad1 1959
9dc15871
EZ
1960*** HP/UX: "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes in
1961Emacs built with Motif.
a933dad1 1962
9dc15871
EZ
1963This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1964such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
a933dad1 1965
9dc15871 1966*** HP/UX: Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key.
a933dad1 1967
9dc15871
EZ
1968To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1969rights, containing this text:
a933dad1 1970
9dc15871
EZ
1971--------------------------------
1972xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1973keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1974keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1975EOF
a933dad1 1976
9dc15871
EZ
1977xmodmap - << EOF
1978clear mod1
1979keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1980add mod1 = Meta_L
1981keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1982add mod2 = Mode_switch
1983EOF
1984--------------------------------
a933dad1 1985
9dc15871 1986*** HP/UX 11.0: Emacs makes HP/UX 11.0 crash.
a933dad1 1987
9dc15871 1988This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
a933dad1 1989
9dc15871 1990** AIX
a933dad1 1991
9dc15871 1992*** AIX: Trouble using ptys.
a933dad1 1993
9dc15871
EZ
1994People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
1995Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
a933dad1 1996
9dc15871 1997*** AIXterm: Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal.
a933dad1 1998
9dc15871 1999The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
a933dad1 2000
9dc15871
EZ
2001 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
2002 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
a933dad1 2003
9dc15871 2004This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
a933dad1 2005
9dc15871
EZ
2006*** AIX: If linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
2007are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
2008so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
2009Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
a933dad1 2010
9dc15871 2011*** AIX 4.3.x or 4.4: Compiling fails.
a933dad1 2012
9dc15871
EZ
2013This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
2014the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
2015redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
2016is to use the default compiler `cc'.
a933dad1 2017
9dc15871
EZ
2018*** AIX 4: Some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
2019with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
a933dad1 2020
9dc15871
EZ
2021On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
2022`unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
2023Definitions" to make them defined.
a933dad1 2024
9dc15871 2025** Solaris
a933dad1 2026
9dc15871
EZ
2027We list bugs in current versions here. Solaris 2.x and 4.x are covered in the
2028section on legacy systems.
a933dad1 2029
9dc15871 2030*** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
a933dad1 2031
9dc15871
EZ
2032This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2033C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
a933dad1 2034
9dc15871 2035*** Problem with remote X server on Suns.
a933dad1 2036
9dc15871
EZ
2037On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2038may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2039is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2040As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
a933dad1 2041
0a4dd4e4 2042*** Solaris 2,6: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
a933dad1 2043
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2044We suspect that this is a bug in the X libraries provided by
2045Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
2046makes the problem stop:
a933dad1 2047
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2048105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
2049105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
2050106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
2051105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
a933dad1 2052
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2053Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
2054suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
a933dad1 2055
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2056106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
2057106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
2058105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
a933dad1 2059
0a4dd4e4 2060*** Solaris 7 or 8: Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X)
a933dad1 2061
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2062This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris.
2063Rebuild it on Solaris 8.
a933dad1 2064
9dc15871
EZ
2065*** When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
2066commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
a933dad1 2067
9dc15871 2068You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
a933dad1 2069
9dc15871 2070 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
a933dad1 2071
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2072*** On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
2073the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
a933dad1 2074
0a4dd4e4 2075You can fix this by editing the file:
a933dad1 2076
3256a475 2077 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
a933dad1 2078
0a4dd4e4 2079Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
a933dad1 2080
3256a475 2081 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2082
0a4dd4e4 2083that should read:
a933dad1 2084
3256a475 2085 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2086
0a4dd4e4 2087Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
a933dad1 2088
1b6406b3
CY
2089*** On Solaris, Emacs fails to set menu-bar-update-hook on startup, with error
2090"Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (error Point before start of properties)".
2091This seems to be a GCC optimization bug that occurs for GCC 4.1.2 (-g
2092and -g -O2) and GCC 4.2.3 (-g -O and -g -O2). You can fix this by
2093compiling with GCC 4.2.3 or CC 5.7, with no optimizations.
2094
0a4dd4e4 2095** Irix
a933dad1 2096
9dc15871 2097*** Irix 6.5: Emacs crashes on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
a933dad1 2098
9dc15871 2099This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
a933dad1 2100
0a4dd4e4 2101*** Irix: Trouble using ptys, or running out of ptys.
a933dad1 2102
9dc15871
EZ
2103The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
2104be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
2105to allocate ptys reliably.
a933dad1 2106
9dc15871 2107* Runtime problems specific to MS-Windows
a933dad1 2108
ade79051
KS
2109** Windows 95 and networking.
2110
2111To support server sockets, Emacs 22.1 loads ws2_32.dll. If this file
2112is missing, all Emacs networking features are disabled.
2113
2114Old versions of Windows 95 may not have the required DLL. To use
2115Emacs' networking features on Windows 95, you must install the
2116"Windows Socket 2" update available from MicroSoft's support Web.
2117
9dc15871 2118** Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2119
9dc15871
EZ
2120A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
2121Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
2122problem.
177c0ea7 2123
b6ec0fa0
JR
2124** Emacs crashes when opening a file with a UNC path and rails-mode is loaded.
2125
2126Loading rails-mode seems to interfere with UNC path handling. This has been
2127reported as a bug against both Emacs and rails-mode, so look for an updated
2128rails-mode that avoids this crash, or avoid using UNC paths if using
2129rails-mode.
2130
2131** Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 22.3
de66e883 2132
117402b8
JR
2133M-x term does not work on MS-Windows. TTY emulation on Windows is
2134undocumented, and programs such as stty which are used on posix platforms
2135to control tty emulation do not exist for native windows terminals.
2136
de66e883
JR
2137Using create-fontset-from-ascii-font or the --font startup parameter
2138with a Chinese, Japanese or Korean font leads to display problems.
2139Use a Latin-only font as your default font. If you want control over
2140which font is used to display Chinese, Japanese or Korean character,
2141use create-fontset-from-fontset-spec to define a fontset.
a933dad1 2142
9dc15871
EZ
2143Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
2144is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menus is not
2145displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
2146synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
2147waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
2148pop-up menu interaction.
a933dad1 2149
9dc15871
EZ
2150Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text
2151for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows.
a933dad1 2152
af71f3ce
EZ
2153When "ClearType" method is selected as the "method to smooth edges of
2154screen fonts" (in Display Properties, Appearance tab, under
2155"Effects"), there are various problems related to display of
f396bf16
JR
2156characters: Bold fonts can be hard to read, small portions of some
2157characters could appear chopped, etc. This happens because, under
2158ClearType, characters are drawn outside their advertised bounding box.
2159Emacs 21 disabled the use of ClearType, whereas Emacs 22 allows it and
2160has some code to enlarge the width of the bounding box. Apparently,
2161this display feature needs more changes to get it 100% right. A
2162workaround is to disable ClearType.
af71f3ce 2163
9dc15871
EZ
2164There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
2165mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
2166frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
2167after moving back into it.
a933dad1 2168
9dc15871
EZ
2169Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
2170not as severely as in 21.1.
a933dad1 2171
9dc15871
EZ
2172An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
2173Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
a933dad1 2174
4ed1bce5 2175Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs. However, some
9dc15871
EZ
2176of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
2177in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
4ed1bce5
EZ
2178characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make these
2179input methods work with Emacs, set the keyboard coding system to the
2180appropriate value after you activate the Windows input method. For
2181example, if you activate the Hebrew input method, type this:
2182
2183 C-x RET k hebrew-iso-8bit RET
2184
2185(Emacs ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up
2186the appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do
2187that yet.) In addition, to use these Windows input methods, you
2188should set your "Language for non-Unicode programs" (on Windows XP,
2189this is on the Advanced tab of Regional Settings) to the language of
2190the input method.
a933dad1 2191
868c31fe
EZ
2192To bind keys that produce non-ASCII characters with modifiers, you
2193must specify raw byte codes. For instance, if you want to bind
2194META-a-grave to a command, you need to specify this in your `~/.emacs':
2195
2196 (global-set-key [?\M-\340] ...)
2197
2198The above example is for the Latin-1 environment where the byte code
2199of the encoded a-grave is 340 octal. For other environments, use the
2200encoding appropriate to that environment.
a933dad1 2201
9dc15871
EZ
2202The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated
2203month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions
2204of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system
2205library function.
a933dad1 2206
cdc9f5c2
JR
2207The function set-time-zone-rule gives incorrect results for many
2208non-US timezones. This is due to over-simplistic handling of
2209daylight savings switchovers by the Windows libraries.
9f1bc31f 2210
365b9257
EZ
2211Files larger than 4GB cause overflow in the size (represented as a
221232-bit integer) reported by `file-attributes'. This affects Dired as
2213well, since the Windows port uses a Lisp emulation of `ls' that relies
2214on `file-attributes'.
2215
56dc0646
EZ
2216Sound playing is not supported with the `:data DATA' key-value pair.
2217You _must_ use the `:file FILE' method.
2218
0a4dd4e4 2219** Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2220
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2221This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
2222you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
2223and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
2224more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
d169ccbd
EZ
2225or disable it in the "Regional and Language Options" applet of the
2226Control Panel. (The exact sequence of mouse clicks in the "Regional
2227and Language Options" applet needed to find the key combination that
2228changes the keyboard layout depends on your Windows version; for XP,
2229in the Languages tab, click "Details" and then "Key Settings".)
a933dad1 2230
651f8172
EZ
2231** Cygwin build of Emacs hangs after rebasing Cygwin DLLs
2232
2233Usually, on Cygwin, one needs to rebase the DLLs if an application
2234aborts with a message like this:
2235
2236 C:\cygwin\bin\python.exe: *** unable to remap C:\cygwin\bin\cygssl.dll to
2237 same address as parent(0xDF0000) != 0xE00000
2238
2239However, since Cygwin DLL 1.5.17 was released, after such rebasing,
2240Emacs hangs.
2241
2242This was reported to happen for Emacs 21.2 and also for the pretest of
2243Emacs 22.1 on Cygwin.
2244
2245To work around this, build Emacs like this:
2246
2247 LDFLAGS='-Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base' ./configure
2248 make LD='$(CC)'
2249 make LD='$(CC)' install
2250
2251This produces an Emacs binary that is independent of rebasing.
2252
2253Note that you _must_ use LD='$(CC)' in the last two commands above, to
2254prevent GCC from passing the "--image-base 0x20000000" option to the
2255linker, which is what it does by default. That option produces an
2256Emacs binary with the base address 0x20000000, which will cause Emacs
2257to hang after Cygwin DLLs are rebased.
2258
0a4dd4e4 2259** Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
a933dad1 2260
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2261Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
2262MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
2263port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
2264keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
2265of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
a933dad1 2266
0a4dd4e4 2267** Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2268
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2269If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
2270due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
2271and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
2272port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
2273are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
2274confuses ange-ftp.
a933dad1 2275
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2276The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
2277(version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
2278Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
2279directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
2280variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
2281client's executable. For example:
a933dad1 2282
9dc15871 2283 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
a933dad1 2284
9dc15871
EZ
2285If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
2286this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
a933dad1 2287
9dc15871 2288 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
a933dad1 2289
9dc15871 2290** lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers.
a933dad1 2291
9dc15871
EZ
2292This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is
2293likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific.
a933dad1 2294
9dc15871
EZ
2295Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not
2296print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical
2297printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic
2298built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it
2299has):
a933dad1 2300
9dc15871
EZ
2301(setq printer-name "") ;; notepad takes the default
2302(setq lpr-command "notepad") ;; notepad
2303(setq lpr-switches nil) ;; not needed
2304(setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ;; run notepad as batch printer
a933dad1 2305
9dc15871 2306** Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2307
9dc15871
EZ
2308The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
2309work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
2310was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
2311work when an antivirus package is installed.
a933dad1 2312
9dc15871
EZ
2313The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
2314mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
2315or disable it entirely.
a933dad1 2316
9dc15871 2317** Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event.
a933dad1 2318
9dc15871
EZ
2319This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows
2320programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many
2321mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something
2322different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a
2323middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to
2324"scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a
2325generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2326
9dc15871 2327** Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window.
a933dad1 2328
9dc15871
EZ
2329This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of
2330generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar
2331movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple
2332scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2333
9dc15871
EZ
2334** Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
2335mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
2336exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
2337seen.
a933dad1 2338
9dc15871
EZ
2339** On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
2340CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
a933dad1 2341
9dc15871 2342This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
a933dad1 2343
9dc15871
EZ
2344Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
2345events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
2346distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
2347combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
2348AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
2349to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
a933dad1 2350
9dc15871 2351** Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs' display is incorrect.
a933dad1 2352
9dc15871
EZ
2353The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
2354screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
2355display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
2356to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
a933dad1 2357
9dc15871
EZ
2358This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
2359as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
2360problem lies in the X-server settings.
a933dad1 2361
9dc15871
EZ
2362There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
2363running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
2364un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
2365selection".
a933dad1 2366
9dc15871
EZ
2367Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
2368please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
2369If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
2370here.
a933dad1 2371
9dc15871 2372* Build-time problems
a933dad1 2373
9dc15871 2374** Configuration
a933dad1 2375
9dc15871 2376*** The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
a933dad1 2377
9dc15871
EZ
2378There are reports that this happens on some systems because the linker
2379by default only looks for shared libraries, but jpeg distribution by
2380default only installs a nonshared version of the library, `libjpeg.a'.
a933dad1 2381
9dc15871
EZ
2382If this is the problem, you can configure the jpeg library with the
2383`--enable-shared' option and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a
2384shared version of libjpeg, which you need to install. Finally, rerun
2385the Emacs configure script, which should now find the jpeg library.
2386Alternatively, modify the generated src/Makefile to link the .a file
2387explicitly, and edit src/config.h to define HAVE_JPEG.
a933dad1 2388
f4b84ef4
GM
2389*** `configure' warns ``accepted by the compiler, rejected by the preprocessor''.
2390
2391This indicates a mismatch between the C compiler and preprocessor that
2392configure is using. For example, on Solaris 10 trying to use
2393CC=/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc (the Sun Studio compiler) together with
2394CPP=/usr/ccs/lib/cpp can result in errors of this form (you may also
2395see the error ``"/usr/include/sys/isa_defs.h", line 500: undefined control'').
2396
2397The solution is to tell configure to use the correct C preprocessor
2398for your C compiler (CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E" in the above
2399example).
2400
2401*** `configure' fails with ``"junk.c", line 660: invalid input token: 8.elc''
2402
2403The final stage of the Emacs configure process uses the C preprocessor
2404to generate the Makefiles. Errors of this form can occur if the C
2405preprocessor inserts extra whitespace into its output. The solution
2406is to find the switches that stop your preprocessor from inserting extra
2407whitespace, add them to CPPFLAGS, and re-run configure. For example,
2408this error can occur on Solaris 10 when using the Sun Studio compiler
2409``Sun C 5.8'' with its preprocessor CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E".
2410The relevant switch in this case is "-Xs" (``compile assuming
2411(pre-ANSI) K & R C style code'').
2412
9dc15871 2413** Compilation
a933dad1 2414
9dc15871 2415*** Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
a933dad1 2416
9dc15871 2417This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
880ea925 2418(Red Hat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
9dc15871
EZ
2419(SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
2420configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
2421files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
2422left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
2423itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
2424Emacs executable to fail with the above message.
a933dad1 2425
9dc15871
EZ
2426In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
2427machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
2428(it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
2429This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
a933dad1 2430
9dc15871
EZ
2431If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
2432(Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
2433you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
2434force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
2435problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
2436blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
2437`mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
2438options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
2439`/etc/auto.home'.
a933dad1 2440
9dc15871
EZ
2441Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
2442a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
2443waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
2444to work around the problem.
a933dad1 2445
9dc15871
EZ
2446Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
2447onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
2448you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
2449`/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
a933dad1 2450
9dc15871 2451 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
a933dad1 2452
9dc15871 2453The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
a933dad1 2454
9dc15871 2455*** Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
a933dad1 2456
9dc15871
EZ
2457This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
2458of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
2459version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
2460dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
2461around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
2462incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
2463". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
2464directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
2465variables).
a933dad1 2466
9dc15871
EZ
2467The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
2468`-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
2469when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
2470unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
2471run the script like this:
a933dad1 2472
9dc15871 2473 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
a933dad1 2474
9dc15871
EZ
2475(replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
2476the script).
a933dad1 2477
9dc15871
EZ
2478Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
2479Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
a933dad1 2480
9dc15871
EZ
2481*** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2482*** Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
a933dad1 2483
9dc15871
EZ
2484This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2485had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.To solve the
2486problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2487configure script.
a933dad1 2488
9dc15871 2489*** Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
a933dad1 2490
9dc15871
EZ
2491This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2492the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2493Emacs's configure script.
a933dad1 2494
745377e8
GM
2495*** Building a 32-bit executable on a 64-bit GNU/Linux architecture.
2496
2497First ensure that the necessary 32-bit system libraries and include
2498files are installed. Then use:
2499
2500 env CC="gcc -m32" ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu \
2501 --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib
2502
2503(using the location of the 32-bit X libraries on your system).
2504
1020d879 2505*** Building the Cygwin port for MS-Windows can fail with some GCC versions
9c9f0081
EZ
2506
2507Building Emacs 22 with Cygwin builds of GCC 3.4.4-1 and 3.4.4-2 is
2508reported to either fail or cause Emacs to segfault at run time. In
2509addition, the Cygwin GCC 3.4.4-2 has problems with generating debug
2510info. Cygwin users are advised not to use these versions of GCC for
485a6c18
EZ
2511compiling Emacs. GCC versions 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.1.1, and 4.1.2
2512reportedly build a working Cygwin binary of Emacs, so we recommend
2513these GCC versions. Note that these versions of GCC, 4.0.3, 4.0.4,
25144.1.1, and 4.1.2, are currently the _only_ versions known to succeed
2515in building Emacs (as of v22.1).
9c9f0081
EZ
2516
2517*** Building the native MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
a933dad1 2518
ad05a5de 2519Emacs may not build using some Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
9dc15871
EZ
2520version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
2521necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
2522__MSVCRT__, like so:
a933dad1 2523
9dc15871 2524 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
a933dad1 2525
9dc15871 2526*** Building the MS-Windows port fails with a CreateProcess failure.
a933dad1 2527
9dc15871
EZ
2528Some versions of mingw32 make on some versions of Windows do not seem
2529to detect the shell correctly. Try "make SHELL=cmd.exe", or if that
2530fails, try running make from Cygwin bash instead.
a933dad1 2531
9dc15871 2532*** Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
a933dad1 2533
9dc15871
EZ
2534This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
2535defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
2536patch to assert.h should solve this:
a933dad1 2537
0cc69e7d
EZ
2538 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
2539 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
2540 ***************
2541 *** 41,47 ****
2542 /*
2543 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2544 */
2545 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
2546
2547 #else /* debugging enabled */
2548
2549 --- 41,47 ----
2550 /*
2551 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2552 */
2553 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
2554
2555 #else /* debugging enabled */
a933dad1 2556
a933dad1 2557
3e7c244e 2558*** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio 2005 fails.
a933dad1 2559
3e7c244e
JR
2560Microsoft no longer ships the single threaded version of the C library
2561with their compiler, and the multithreaded static library is missing
0cc69e7d 2562some functions that Microsoft have deemed non-threadsafe. The
3e7c244e
JR
2563dynamically linked C library has all the functions, but there is a
2564conflict between the versions of malloc in the DLL and in Emacs, which
2565is not resolvable due to the way Windows does dynamic linking.
a933dad1 2566
3e7c244e
JR
2567We recommend the use of the MingW port of GCC for compiling Emacs, as
2568not only does it not suffer these problems, but it is also Free
2569software like Emacs.
a933dad1 2570
9dc15871 2571** Linking
a933dad1 2572
9dc15871
EZ
2573*** Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
2574undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
a933dad1 2575
9dc15871
EZ
2576This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
2577with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
2578GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
2579from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
2580compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
2581link stage.
a933dad1 2582
9dc15871 2583A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
a933dad1 2584
3256a475 2585 make CC=gcc
a933dad1 2586
9dc15871
EZ
2587Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
2588with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs.
a933dad1 2589
9dc15871 2590*** AIX 1.3 ptf 0013: Link failure.
a933dad1 2591
9dc15871
EZ
2592There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2593the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2594workaround/fix is:
a933dad1 2595
9dc15871
EZ
2596 cd /lib
2597 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2598 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
a933dad1 2599
9dc15871
EZ
2600*** AIX 4.1.2: Linker error messages such as
2601 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
3256a475 2602 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
a933dad1 2603
9dc15871
EZ
2604This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
2605these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
2606you build Emacs:
a933dad1 2607
9dc15871
EZ
2608 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
2609 chmod 664 libIM.a
2610 ranlib libIM.a
a933dad1 2611
9dc15871
EZ
2612Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
2613Makefile).
a933dad1 2614
9dc15871 2615*** Sun with acc: Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
a933dad1 2616
9dc15871 2617To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
a933dad1 2618
9dc15871 2619 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
a933dad1 2620
9dc15871 2621and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
a933dad1 2622
9dc15871
EZ
2623The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2624cannot easily arrange to supply them.
a933dad1 2625
9dc15871 2626*** Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
a933dad1 2627
9dc15871 2628Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
a933dad1 2629
9dc15871 2630*** `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
a933dad1 2631
9dc15871
EZ
2632This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
2633version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
2634definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
2635incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
2636does not work with this version of ncurses.
a933dad1 2637
9dc15871 2638The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
a933dad1 2639
d7ef7cd4
GM
2640** Bootstrapping
2641
2642Bootstrapping (compiling the .el files) is normally only necessary
2643with CVS builds, since they the .elc files are pre-compiled in releases.
2644
2645*** "No rule to make target" with Ubuntu 8.04 make 3.81-3build1
2646
2647Compiling the lisp files fails at random places, complaining:
2648"No rule to make target `/path/to/some/lisp.elc'".
2649The causes of this problem are not understood. Using GNU make 3.81 compiled
2650from source, rather than the Ubuntu version, worked. See Bug#327,821.
2651
9dc15871 2652** Dumping
a933dad1 2653
9dc15871 2654*** Linux: Segfault during `make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel.
a933dad1 2655
880ea925 2656With certain recent Linux kernels (like the one of Red Hat Fedora Core
cf14a51c 26571 and newer), the new "Exec-shield" functionality is enabled by default, which
ed214edf
JD
2658creates a different memory layout that breaks the emacs dumper. Emacs tries
2659to handle this at build time, but if the workaround used fails, these
2660instructions can be useful.
cf14a51c
JD
2661The work-around explained here is not enough on Fedora Core 4 (and possible
2662newer). Read the next item.
a933dad1 2663
1f02a4ba
JD
2664Configure can overcome the problem of exec-shield if the architecture is
2665x86 and the program setarch is present. On other architectures no
2666workaround is known.
2667
9dc15871 2668You can check the Exec-shield state like this:
a933dad1 2669
9dc15871 2670 cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2671
1f02a4ba 2672It returns non-zero when Exec-shield is enabled, 0 otherwise. Please
9dc15871 2673read your system documentation for more details on Exec-shield and
1f02a4ba
JD
2674associated commands. Exec-shield can be turned off with this command:
2675
2676 echo "0" > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2677
9dc15871
EZ
2678When Exec-shield is enabled, building Emacs will segfault during the
2679execution of this command:
a933dad1 2680
1f02a4ba 2681 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2682
9dc15871 2683To work around this problem, it is necessary to temporarily disable
1f02a4ba
JD
2684Exec-shield while building Emacs, or, on x86, by using the `setarch'
2685command when running temacs like this:
2686
2687 setarch i386 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2688
ade79051 2689
ff0ab406
RS
2690*** Fedora Core 4 GNU/Linux: Segfault during dumping.
2691
2692In addition to exec-shield explained above "Linux: Segfault during
2693`make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel"
2694item, Linux kernel shipped with Fedora Core 4 randomizes the virtual
cf14a51c
JD
2695address space of a process. As the result dumping may fail even if
2696you turn off exec-shield. In this case, use the -R option to the setarch
ff0ab406
RS
2697command:
2698
25fd144d 2699 setarch i386 -R ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
ff0ab406
RS
2700
2701or
2702
ade79051 2703 setarch i386 -R make bootstrap
a933dad1 2704
9dc15871 2705*** Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump.
a933dad1
DL
2706
2707This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
7c2fb837 2708Makefile in the src subdirectory.
a933dad1
DL
2709
2710It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2711space available on the machine.
2712
9dc15871 2713On 68000s, it has also happened because of bugs in the
a933dad1
DL
2714subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2715for large blocks (many pages).
2716
9dc15871
EZ
2717*** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered.
2718*** or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127".
2719*** or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2720*** or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs.
a933dad1
DL
2721
2722This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2723fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2724binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2725
2726In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2727It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2728a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2729itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2730when unpacking the shell archive.
2731
2732I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2733what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2734file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2735
2736If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2737nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2738
2739 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2740 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2741 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2742 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2743 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2744 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2745 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2746 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2747 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2748 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2749 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2750 and remake temacs.
2751 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2752
9dc15871 2753*** temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted".
a933dad1
DL
2754
2755This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2756files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2757space than was allocated.
2758
2759This could be caused by
2760 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2761 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2762 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2763 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2764 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2765 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2766 deleting that file.
2767 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2768 (not from the directory you expected).
2769 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2770 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2771 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2772 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2773 the space required.
2774
2775If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2776of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2777
2778But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2779of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2780problem.
2781
9dc15871 2782*** Linux: Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
a933dad1 2783
9dc15871
EZ
2784The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
2785C backtrace printed by GDB:
a933dad1 2786
9dc15871
EZ
2787 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2788 (gdb) where
2789 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2790 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
2791 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
2792 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
a933dad1 2793
9dc15871
EZ
2794This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
2795of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
2796but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
2797other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
2798distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
2799GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
2800following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
2801distribution:
a933dad1 2802
9dc15871 2803 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux except for Yellowdog,
3256a475
RC
2804 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
2805 know what's really going on here. */
9dc15871
EZ
2806 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
2807 0x10000000. */
2808 #if defined __linux__
2809 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
2810 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
2811 #endif
2812 #endif
2813 #endif /* 0 */
a933dad1 2814
9dc15871
EZ
2815Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
2816the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
2817should now succeed.
a933dad1 2818
0bce976c
GM
2819*** OpenBSD 4.0 macppc: Segfault during dumping.
2820
2821The build aborts with signal 11 when the command `./temacs --batch
14395431 2822--load loadup bootstrap' tries to load files.el. A workaround seems
464df798 2823to be to reduce the level of compiler optimization used during the
14395431
GM
2824build (from -O2 to -O1). It is possible this is an OpenBSD
2825GCC problem specific to the macppc architecture, possibly only
2826occurring with older versions of GCC (e.g. 3.3.5).
0bce976c 2827
ce46543c
GM
2828*** openSUSE 10.3: Segfault in bcopy during dumping.
2829
2830This is due to a bug in the bcopy implementation in openSUSE 10.3.
2831It is/will be fixed in an openSUSE update.
2832
9dc15871 2833** Installation
a933dad1 2834
9dc15871 2835*** Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
a933dad1 2836
9dc15871
EZ
2837You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
2838supplies the `install-info' command.
a933dad1 2839
6afdff63
GM
2840*** Installing to a directory with spaces in the name fails.
2841
2842For example, if you call configure with a directory-related option
2843with spaces in the value, eg --enable-locallisppath='/path/with\ spaces'.
2844Using directory paths with spaces is not supported at this time: you
2845must re-configure without using spaces.
2846
6c06422c
CY
2847*** Installing to a directory with non-ASCII characters in the name fails.
2848
2849Installation may fail, or the Emacs executable may not start
2850correctly, if a directory name containing non-ASCII characters is used
2851as a `configure' argument (e.g. `--prefix'). The problem can also
2852occur if a non-ASCII directory is specified in the EMACSLOADPATH
2853envvar.
2854
2f6e7d3f
GM
2855*** On Solaris, use GNU Make when installing an out-of-tree build
2856
2857The Emacs configuration process allows you to configure the
2858build environment so that you can build emacs in a directory
2859outside of the distribution tree. When installing Emacs from an
2860out-of-tree build directory on Solaris, you may need to use GNU
2861make. The make programs bundled with Solaris support the VPATH
2862macro but use it differently from the way the VPATH macro is
2863used by GNU make. The differences will cause the "make install"
2864step to fail, leaving you with an incomplete emacs
2865installation. GNU make is available in /usr/sfw/bin on Solaris
286610 and can be installed as /opt/sfw/bin/gmake from the Solaris 9
2867Software Companion CDROM.
2868
2869The problems due to the VPATH processing differences affect only
2870out of tree builds so, if you are on a Solaris installation
2871without GNU make, you can install Emacs completely by installing
2872from a build environment using the original emacs distribution tree.
2873
9dc15871 2874** First execution
a933dad1 2875
9dc15871 2876*** Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
a933dad1 2877
9dc15871
EZ
2878This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
2879via NFS, for some combinations of NFS client and NFS server.
2880Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
2881binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
a933dad1 2882
9dc15871 2883 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
a933dad1 2884
9dc15871
EZ
2885We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
2886build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
a933dad1 2887
9dc15871 2888*** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
a933dad1
DL
2889
2890Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2891
28921) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2893as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2894it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2895value in the man page for a.out (5).
2896
28972) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2898initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2899of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2900not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2901may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2902
9dc15871 2903* Emacs 19 problems
a933dad1 2904
9dc15871 2905** Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'.
a933dad1 2906
9dc15871
EZ
2907This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2908Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2909Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2910where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
a933dad1 2911
9dc15871 2912So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
a933dad1 2913
9dc15871 2914* Runtime problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 2915
9dc15871
EZ
2916This section covers bugs reported on very old hardware or software.
2917If you are using hardware and an operating system shipped after 2000,
2918it is unlikely you will see any of these.
a933dad1 2919
9dc15871 2920** Ancient operating systems
a933dad1 2921
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2922AIX 4.2 was end-of-lifed on Dec 31st, 1999.
2923
2924*** AIX: You get this compiler error message:
2925
2926 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2927 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2928
2929This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2930libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2931X11Dev... with smit.
2932
2933(This report must be ancient. Bootable tapes are long dead.)
2934
2935*** AIX 3.2.4: Releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2936
2937Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2938ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2939lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2940treated as control characters.
2941
2942You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2943releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2944
2945*** AIX 3.2.5: You get this message when running Emacs:
2946
2947 Could not load program emacs
2948 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2949 Error was: Exec format error
2950
2951or this one:
2952
2953 Could not load program .emacs
2954 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2955 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2956 Error was: Exec format error
2957
2958These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2959compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2960
2961*** AIX 4.2: Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup.
2962
2963If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
2964without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
2965
9dc15871 2966*** ISC Unix
a933dad1 2967
9dc15871 2968**** ISC: display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
a933dad1 2969
9dc15871
EZ
2970Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2971versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2972cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2973This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2974processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
a933dad1 2975
9dc15871
EZ
2976Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2977the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
a933dad1 2978
9dc15871 2979The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
a933dad1 2980
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2981**** Sunos 5.3: Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies.
2982
2983A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2984exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2985applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2986communicating through pipes.
2987
9dc15871 2988*** Irix
a933dad1 2989
9dc15871 2990*** Irix 6.2: No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
a933dad1 2991
9dc15871
EZ
2992This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
2993as of 8 Dec 1998.
a933dad1 2994
9dc15871 2995The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
a933dad1 2996
9dc15871
EZ
2997*** Irix 6.3: substituting environment variables in file names
2998in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
a933dad1 2999
9dc15871 3000 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
a933dad1 3001
9dc15871
EZ
3002This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
3003003082 August 11, 1998.
a933dad1 3004
9dc15871 3005*** OPENSTEP
a933dad1 3006
9dc15871 3007**** OPENSTEP 4.2: Compiling syntax.c with gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
a933dad1 3008
9dc15871
EZ
3009The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
3010following message:
a933dad1 3011
9dc15871 3012 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
a933dad1 3013
9dc15871
EZ
3014To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
3015INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
3016functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
a933dad1 3017
9dc15871
EZ
3018 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
3019 {
3020 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
3021 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
a933dad1 3022
9dc15871
EZ
3023Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
3024with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
a933dad1 3025
9dc15871 3026*** Solaris 2.x
a933dad1 3027
9dc15871 3028**** Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
a933dad1 3029
9dc15871
EZ
3030Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
3031editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
3032as GCC.
a933dad1 3033
9dc15871 3034**** On Solaris, Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called.
a933dad1 3035
9dc15871
EZ
3036If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
3037of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
3038called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
a933dad1 3039
9dc15871 3040**** On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
a933dad1 3041
9dc15871
EZ
3042This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
3043version of Solaris that you are using.
a933dad1 3044
9dc15871 3045**** Solaris 2.3 and 2.4: Unpredictable segmentation faults.
a933dad1 3046
9dc15871
EZ
3047A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
3048the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
a933dad1 3049
9dc15871 3050We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
a933dad1 3051
9dc15871 3052**** Solaris 2.4: Emacs dumps core on startup.
a933dad1 3053
9dc15871
EZ
3054Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
3055102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
3056Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
3057by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
3058However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
a933dad1 3059
9dc15871
EZ
3060Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
3061you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
3062We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
3063for certain.
a933dad1 3064
9dc15871
EZ
3065 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
3066 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
3256a475 3067 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
a933dad1 3068
9dc15871
EZ
3069(One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
3070with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
a933dad1 3071
9dc15871
EZ
3072If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
3073bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
a933dad1 3074
9dc15871
EZ
3075Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
3076Solaris 2.5.
a933dad1 3077
9dc15871
EZ
3078**** Solaris 2.4: Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
3079forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
a933dad1 3080
9dc15871
EZ
3081casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
3082after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
a933dad1 3083
9dc15871
EZ
3084 #if ThreadedX
3085 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3086 #endif
a933dad1 3087
9dc15871 3088to:
a933dad1 3089
9dc15871
EZ
3090 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
3091 #if ThreadedX
3092 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3093 #endif
3094 #endif
3095
3096Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
3097(as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
3098OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
3099Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
3100definition for your type of machine and system.
a933dad1 3101
9dc15871
EZ
3102Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
3103the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
3104Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
a933dad1 3105
9dc15871
EZ
3106For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
3107101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
3108to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
3109patch.
a933dad1 3110
9dc15871
EZ
3111However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
3112he changed
3113 #define ThreadedX YES
3114to
3115 #define ThreadedX NO
3116in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
3117`-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
3118typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
a933dad1 3119
9dc15871 3120**** Solaris 2.x: GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported".
a933dad1 3121
9dc15871
EZ
3122This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
3123are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
3124does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
3125later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
3126described in the Solaris FAQ
3127<http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
3128to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
a933dad1 3129
9dc15871
EZ
3130**** Solaris 2.7: Building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
3131C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
3132compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
3133release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
3134another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
3135and the default CFLAGS.
a933dad1 3136
9dc15871 3137**** Solaris 2.x: Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
a933dad1 3138
9dc15871
EZ
3139The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
3140Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
3141(Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
3142You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
3143You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
3144look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
3145are currently recommended for your host.
a933dad1 3146
9dc15871
EZ
3147On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
3148105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
3149105284-18 might fix it again.
a933dad1 3150
0a4dd4e4 3151**** Solaris 2.6 and 7: the Compose key does not work.
a933dad1 3152
9dc15871
EZ
3153This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
3154the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
3155support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
3156If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
a933dad1 3157
9dc15871
EZ
3158One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
3159For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
3160variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
3161lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
3162should do.
a933dad1 3163
9dc15871
EZ
3164pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
3165if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
3166libraries.
a933dad1 3167
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3168*** HP/UX versions before 11.0
3169
bf247b6e 3170HP/UX 9 was end-of-lifed in December 1998.
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3171HP/UX 10 was end-of-lifed in May 1999.
3172
3173**** HP/UX 9: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV after you delete a frame.
3174
3175We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
3176the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
3177does not happen.
3178
3179*** HP/UX 10: Large file support is disabled.
3180
3181See the comments in src/s/hpux10.h.
3182
3183*** HP/UX: Emacs is slow using X11R5.
3184
3185This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
3186doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
3187because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
3188libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
3189those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
3190install them and rebuild Emacs.
3191
9dc15871 3192*** Ultrix and Digital Unix
a933dad1 3193
9dc15871 3194**** Ultrix 4.2: `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
a933dad1 3195
9dc15871
EZ
3196This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
3197commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
3198Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
3199hand.
a933dad1 3200
9dc15871 3201**** Digital Unix 4.0: Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs.
a933dad1 3202
9dc15871
EZ
3203So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
3204is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
3205properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
3206`tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
3207in Emacs.
a933dad1 3208
9dc15871 3209**** Ultrix: `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
a933dad1 3210
9dc15871
EZ
3211On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
3212in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
3213expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
3214in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
a933dad1 3215
9dc15871
EZ
3216The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
3217anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
a933dad1 3218
9dc15871
EZ
3219I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
3220going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
3221Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
3222in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
a933dad1 3223
9dc15871 3224*** SVr4
a933dad1 3225
9dc15871 3226**** SVr4: On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
a933dad1 3227
9dc15871
EZ
3228Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
3229the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
3230sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
a933dad1 3231
9dc15871 3232**** SVr4: After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
a933dad1 3233
9dc15871
EZ
3234Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
3235mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
3236the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
a933dad1 3237
9dc15871
EZ
3238Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
3239you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
3240operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
3241configure script) that reads:
3242#define SYSTEM_MALLOC
3243This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
3244the kernel bug.
a933dad1 3245
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3246*** Irix 5 and earlier
3247
bf247b6e 3248Exactly when Irix-5 end-of-lifed is obscure. But since Irix 6.0
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3249shipped in 1994, it has been some years.
3250
3251**** Irix 5.2: unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
3252
3253The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
3254Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
3255compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
3256workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
3257syms.h.
3258
3259**** Irix 5.3: "out of virtual swap space".
3260
3261This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
3262many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
3263swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
3264can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
3265command `swap -l'.
3266
3267You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
3268line like this:
3269
3270/usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
3271
3272where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
3273by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
3274that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
3275new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
3276information.
3277
3278The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
3279swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
3280on the network that can log on to the host.
3281
3282If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
3283the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
3284some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
3285icons.
3286
3287You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
3288FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
3289("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
3290ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
3291
3292**** Irix 5.3: Emacs crashes in utmpname.
3293
3294This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
3295It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
3296
3297**** Irix 6.0: Make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi.
3298
3299A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
3300in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
3301find that string, and take out the spaces.
3302
3303Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
3304
3305*** SCO Unix and UnixWare
3306
3307**** SCO 3.2v4: Unusable default font.
3308
3309The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
3310that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
3311fonts, so it does not work.
3312
3313This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
3314the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
3315emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
3316that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
3317resources affect Emacs also:
3318
3256a475
RC
3319 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
3320 *Background: scoBackground
3321 *Foreground: scoForeground
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3322
3323The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
3324Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
3325
3256a475
RC
3326 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
3327 Emacs*Background: white
3328 Emacs*Foreground: black
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3329
3330(These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
3331suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
3332starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
3333environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
3334as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
3335/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
3336but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
3337Open Desktop display.
3338
3339These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
3340machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
3341
3342**** SCO 4.2.0: Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
3343
3344On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
3345with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
3346version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
3347C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
3348GCC.
3349
3350**** UnixWare 2.1: Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs.
3351
3352Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
3353virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
3354the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
3355error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
3356exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
3357memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
3358
3359You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
3360But you have to be root to do it.
3361
3362According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
3363
3364 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
3365 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
3366 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
3367 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
3368 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
3369
3370(He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
3371These changes take effect when you reboot.
3372
9dc15871 3373*** Linux 1.x
a933dad1 3374
9dc15871 3375**** Linux 1.0-1.04: Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
a933dad1 3376
9dc15871
EZ
3377This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
3378to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
3379Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
a933dad1 3380
9dc15871
EZ
3381**** Linux 1.3: Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly
3382truncated on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1 3383
9dc15871
EZ
3384This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
33851.3.75.
a933dad1 3386
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3387** Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME
3388
3389*** MS-Windows NT/95: Problems running Perl under Emacs
3390
3391`perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
3392The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
3393
3394The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
3395"CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
3396with the user.
3397
3398On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
3399pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
3400communicate with the subprocess.
3401
3402On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
3403relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
3404redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
3405stdin.
3406
3407A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
3408
3409For Perl 4:
3410
3411 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
3412 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
3413 ***************
3414 *** 68,74 ****
3256a475 3415 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3416 }
3417 else {
3418 ! $console = "con";
3256a475 3419 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3420 }
3421
3422 --- 68,74 ----
3256a475 3423 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3424 }
3425 else {
3426 ! $console = "";
3256a475 3427 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3428 }
3429
3430
3431 For Perl 5:
3432 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
3433 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
3434 ***************
3435 *** 22,28 ****
3256a475 3436 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3437 }
3438 elsif (-e "con") {
3439 ! $console = "con";
3256a475 3440 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3441 }
3442 else {
3443 --- 22,28 ----
3256a475 3444 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3445 }
3446 elsif (-e "con") {
3447 ! $console = "";
3256a475 3448 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3449 }
3450 else {
3451
3452*** MS-Windows 95: Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
3453
3454This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
3455You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
3456
3457*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: subprocesses do not terminate properly.
3458
3459This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
3460when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
3461cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
3462http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/.
3463
3464*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
3465
3466When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
3467Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
3468particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
3469program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
3470PATH.
3471
9dc15871 3472** MS-DOS
a933dad1 3473
9dc15871 3474*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT, "config msdos" fails.
a933dad1 3475
9dc15871
EZ
3476If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
3477Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
3478program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
3479config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
3480the front of your PATH environment variable.
a933dad1 3481
9dc15871
EZ
3482*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
3483like make-docfile.
a933dad1 3484
9dc15871
EZ
3485This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
3486variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
3487compilation are not the same. See the MSDOG section of INSTALL for
3488the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
a933dad1 3489
9dc15871 3490*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
a933dad1 3491
9dc15871 3492 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
a933dad1 3493
9dc15871
EZ
3494This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
3495on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
3496value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
3497works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
3498support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
3499undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
3500[emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
3501`TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
3502your system works as before.
a933dad1 3503
9dc15871 3504*** MS-DOS: Emacs crashes at startup.
a933dad1 3505
9dc15871
EZ
3506Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
3507and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
3508know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
3509memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
3510However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
a933dad1 3511
9dc15871
EZ
3512You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
3513arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
3514information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
3515is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
a933dad1 3516
9dc15871
EZ
3517Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
3518configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
3519removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
3520and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
3521the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
a933dad1 3522
9dc15871
EZ
3523*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
3524in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
3525drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
a933dad1 3526
9dc15871
EZ
3527This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
3528device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
3529work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
a933dad1 3530
9dc15871 3531*** MS-DOS+DJGPP: Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs.
a933dad1 3532
9dc15871 3533There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
a933dad1 3534
9dc15871
EZ
3535 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
3536 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
3537 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
a933dad1 3538
9dc15871
EZ
3539To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
3540subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
3541them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
3542incorrect library functions.
a933dad1 3543
9dc15871
EZ
3544*** MS-DOS: Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
3545run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
a933dad1 3546
9dc15871
EZ
3547Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
3548immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
3549the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
3550and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
a933dad1 3551
9dc15871
EZ
3552Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
3553the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
3554Lisp.
a933dad1 3555
9dc15871
EZ
3556This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
3557support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
3558characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
3559You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
3560filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
3561compiled with DJGPP v2). The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
3562explains this issue in more detail.
a933dad1 3563
9dc15871
EZ
3564Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
3565MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
3566by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
3567unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
3568them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
3569must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
3570properly truncated.
a933dad1 3571
9dc15871 3572** Archaic window managers and toolkits
a933dad1 3573
9dc15871 3574*** OpenLook: Under OpenLook, the Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
a933dad1 3575
9dc15871
EZ
3576Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
3577command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
3578Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
3579manager to use some other command. You can disable the
3580shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
a933dad1 3581
9dc15871 3582 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
a933dad1 3583
9dc15871 3584**** twm: A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
a933dad1 3585
9dc15871
EZ
3586twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
3587You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
a933dad1 3588
9dc15871 3589 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
a933dad1 3590
9dc15871 3591** Bugs related to old DEC hardware
a933dad1 3592
9dc15871 3593*** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
a933dad1 3594
9dc15871 3595This shell command should fix it:
a933dad1 3596
9dc15871 3597 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
a933dad1 3598
9dc15871
EZ
3599*** Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
3600as a concentrator.
a933dad1 3601
9dc15871
EZ
3602This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
36037 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
a933dad1 3604
9dc15871 3605* Build problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 3606
9dc15871 3607** BSD/386 1.0: --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong.
a933dad1 3608
9dc15871
EZ
3609This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
3610The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
3611such as bash.
a933dad1 3612
9dc15871
EZ
3613** Digital Unix 4.0: Emacs fails to build, giving error message
3614 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
a933dad1 3615
9dc15871
EZ
3616This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
3617Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
a933dad1 3618
9dc15871 3619** Digital Unix 4.0: Failure in unexec while dumping emacs.
a933dad1 3620
9dc15871 3621This problem manifests itself as an error message
a933dad1 3622
9dc15871 3623 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
a933dad1 3624
9dc15871
EZ
3625The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
3626were built for an older system version,
a933dad1 3627
9dc15871 3628 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
a933dad1 3629
9dc15871 3630made the problem go away.
a933dad1 3631
9dc15871 3632** Sunos 4.1.1: there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
a933dad1 3633
9dc15871 3634If you get errors such as
a933dad1 3635
9dc15871
EZ
3636 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3637 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3638 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
a933dad1 3639
9dc15871
EZ
3640This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
3641to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
3642script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
3643make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
3644ones available when you build Emacs.
a933dad1 3645
9dc15871 3646** SunOS 4.1.1: You get this error message from GNU ld:
a933dad1 3647
9dc15871 3648 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
a933dad1 3649
9dc15871 3650The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
a933dad1 3651
9dc15871 3652The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
a933dad1 3653
9dc15871 3654** Sunos 4.1: Undefined symbols when linking using --with-x-toolkit.
a933dad1 3655
9dc15871
EZ
3656If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
3657_iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
3658-lXaw in the command that links temacs.
a933dad1 3659
9dc15871
EZ
3660This problem seems to arise only when the international language
3661extensions to X11R5 are installed.
a933dad1 3662
9dc15871 3663** SunOS: Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
a933dad1 3664
9dc15871
EZ
3665If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
3666`ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
3667that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
3668with a floating point option other than the default.
a933dad1 3669
9dc15871
EZ
3670It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
3671crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
3672However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
3673floating point option: -fsoft.
a933dad1 3674
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3675** HPUX 10.20: Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine.
3676
3677This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
3678
9dc15871 3679** Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
a933dad1
DL
3680
3681You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3682
3683 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3684 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3685
3686These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3687Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3688may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3689on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3690in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3691can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3692that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3693
3694As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3695you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3696can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3697should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3698array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3699 Lisp_Object *args;
3700 ...
3701 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3702putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3703 Lisp_Object *args;
3704 Lisp_Object tem;
3705 ...
3706 tem = args[i];
3707 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3708causes the problem to go away.
3709The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3710so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3711
9dc15871 3712** 68000 C compiler problems
a933dad1
DL
3713
3714Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3715These are some that have been observed.
3716
9dc15871 3717*** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
a933dad1
DL
3718This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3719if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3720
9dc15871 3721*** "cannot reclaim" error.
a933dad1
DL
3722
3723This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3724line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3725simpler expressions.
3726
9dc15871 3727*** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
a933dad1
DL
3728
3729If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3730Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3731
3732struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3733
3734lose (arg)
3735 struct foo arg;
3736{
3737 test ((int *) arg.y);
3738}
3739
3740If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3741In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3742((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3743
6e5cb96f
DN
3744This problem will only happen if USE_LISP_UNION_TYPE is manually
3745defined in lisp.h.
a933dad1 3746
9dc15871 3747*** C compilers lose on returning unions.
a933dad1
DL
3748
3749I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3750Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3751defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3752
6e5cb96f
DN
3753This problem will only happen if USE_LISP_UNION_TYPE is manually
3754defined in lisp.h.
a933dad1 3755
53854552 3756\f
5b87ad55 3757This file is part of GNU Emacs.
fe6b4873 3758
ab73e885 3759GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
5b87ad55 3760it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
ab73e885
GM
3761the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
3762(at your option) any later version.
fe6b4873 3763
5b87ad55
GM
3764GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3765but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3766MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3767GNU General Public License for more details.
3768
3769You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
ab73e885 3770along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
5b87ad55
GM
3771
3772\f
53854552
EZ
3773Local variables:
3774mode: outline
3256a475 3775paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
53854552 3776end:
6b61353c
KH
3777
3778arch-tag: 49fc0d95-88cb-4715-b21c-f27fb5a4764a