Fix doc strings of version-* functions and variables.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / PROBLEMS
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1Known Problems with GNU Emacs
2
5b87ad55 3Copyright (C) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
114f9c96 4 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
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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
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10in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs. Try doing C-c C-t
11and browsing through the outline headers. (See C-h m for help on
12Outline mode.)
a933dad1 13
8589dc17 14* Mule-UCS doesn't work in Emacs 23.
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15
16It's completely redundant now, as far as we know.
17
9dc15871 18* Emacs startup failures
32364f49 19
9dc15871 20** Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
32364f49 21
9dc15871 22A typical error message might be something like
32364f49 23
9dc15871 24 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
6b61353c 25
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26This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
27Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
28are:
6b61353c 29
9dc15871 30 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
6b61353c 31
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32 - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or
33 /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or
34 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
6b61353c 35
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36One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
37fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
38the problematic line(s) and correct them.
6b61353c 39
9dc15871 40** Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
6b61353c 41
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42This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
43installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
44specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
45corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
46the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
47Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
48files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
49original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
50not to work.
6b61353c 51
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52The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
53when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
54is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
55same directory where system header files are kept.
6b61353c 56
9dc15871 57** Emacs does not start, complaining that it cannot open termcap database file.
6b61353c 58
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59If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern
60systems do), this could happen if the proper version of
61ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it
62cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for
63libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is
64obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries.
6b61353c 65
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66The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in
67the developer's form (header files, static libraries and
68symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian)
69it constitutes a separate package.
6b61353c 70
9dc15871 71** Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
5b4ffca2 72
9dc15871 73The typical error message might be like this:
5b4ffca2 74
9dc15871 75 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
c763d515 76
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77This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
78tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
79files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
80Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
81when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
82required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
83it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
f1c231c4 84
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85Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
86file could fail to load if it is compressed.
fc2938d1 87
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88The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
89file.
6b61353c 90
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91Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
92lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
93print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
6b61353c 94
9dc15871 95 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
6b61353c 96
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97If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
98and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
99load-path.
f0f62f71 100
9dc15871 101** Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
f0f62f71 102
9dc15871 103An example of such an error is:
f0f62f71 104
9dc15871 105 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
fc1bfc2a 106
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107This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your load-path.
108The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
109present in load-path:
fc1bfc2a 110
9dc15871 111 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
fc1bfc2a 112
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113If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
114and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
115load-path.
60f553d2 116
9dc15871 117** With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
3f82efb4 118
9dc15871 119Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
3f82efb4 120
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121 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
122 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
123 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
124 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
125 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
126 /******************************************************************
3f82efb4 127
3256a475 128 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
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129 @@ -166,8 +166,8 @@
130 _XimMakeImName(lcd)
3256a475 131 XLCd lcd;
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132 {
133 - char* begin;
134 - char* end;
135 + char* begin = NULL;
136 + char* end = NULL;
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137 char* ret;
138 int i = 0;
139 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
9dc15871 140 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
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141 }
142 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
143 if (ret != NULL) {
144 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
9dc15871 145 + if (begin != NULL) {
3256a475 146 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
9dc15871 147 + } else {
3256a475 148 + ret[0] = '\0';
9dc15871 149 + }
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150 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
151 }
152 return ret;
3f82efb4 153
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154** Emacs crashes on startup after a glibc upgrade.
155
156This is caused by a binary incompatible change to the malloc
157implementation in glibc 2.5.90-22. As a result, Emacs binaries built
158using prior versions of glibc crash when run under 2.5.90-22.
159
0a7aab83 160This problem was first seen in pre-release versions of Fedora 7, and
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161may be fixed in the final Fedora 7 release. To stop the crash from
162happening, first try upgrading to the newest version of glibc; if this
163does not work, rebuild Emacs with the same version of glibc that you
164will run it under. For details, see
165
166https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239344
167
9dc15871 168* Crash bugs
cc305a60 169
9dc15871 170** Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
cc305a60 171
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172This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
173use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
174an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
175happens to exist on your X server).
fc2938d1 176
9dc15871 177** Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
fc2938d1 178
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179This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
180prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
181to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
177c0ea7 182
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183Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
184(src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
fc2938d1 185
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186** Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
187a segmentation fault and core dump.
c93bdf05 188
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189This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
190added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
c93bdf05 191
9dc15871 192 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
c93bdf05 193
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194If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
195untar it :-).
c93bdf05 196
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197** Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
198libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
199Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur
200if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an
201older version.
4593687f 202
9dc15871 203** Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
9272ccfc 204
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205This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
206terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
207If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
208version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
209and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
9272ccfc 210
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211All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
212problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
213terminfo when built.
9272ccfc 214
0d774907 215** Emacs crashes when using some version of the Exceed X server.
7aa70236 216
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217Upgrading to a newer version of Exceed has been reported to prevent
218these crashes. You should consider switching to a free X server, such
219as Xming or Cygwin/X.
7aa70236 220
9dc15871 221** Emacs crashes with SIGSEGV in XtInitializeWidgetClass.
7c22dc9d 222
9dc15871 223It crashes on X, but runs fine when called with option "-nw".
7c22dc9d 224
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225This has been observed when Emacs is linked with GNU ld but without passing
226the -z nocombreloc flag. Emacs normally knows to pass the -z nocombreloc
227flag when needed, so if you come across a situation where the flag is
228necessary but missing, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug.
7c22dc9d 229
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230On platforms such as Solaris, you can also work around this problem by
231configuring your compiler to use the native linker instead of GNU ld.
7c22dc9d 232
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233** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes when closing a display (x-close-connection).
234
235This happens because of bugs in Gtk+. Gtk+ 2.10 seems to be OK. See bug
236http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715.
237
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238** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ may loop forever if a display crashes.
239
62e466d0 240This is related to the bug above. A scenario for this is when emacs is run
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241as a server, and an X frame is created. If the X server for the frame
242crashes or exits unexpectedly and an attempt is made to create a new
243frame on another X display, then a Gtk+ error happens in the emacs
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244server that results in an endless loop. This is not fixed in any known
245Gtk+ version (2.14.4 being current).
c4c122cb 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
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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
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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
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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 ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
e085efdb 568
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569Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
570happen in a non-login shell.
fa99e2a4 571
9dc15871 572*** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
c8d9b4ee 573
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574This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
575smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
576on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
577problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
fe445893 578
9dc15871 579 if ($?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
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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
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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
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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
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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
b1446261
CY
734** Characters are displayed as empty boxes or with wrong font under X.
735
736*** This can occur when two different versions of FontConfig are used.
737For example, XFree86 4.3.0 has one version and Gnome usually comes
738with a newer version. Emacs compiled with Gtk+ will then use the
739newer version. In most cases the problem can be temporarily fixed by
740stopping the application that has the error (it can be Emacs or any
741other application), removing ~/.fonts.cache-1, and then start the
742application again. If removing ~/.fonts.cache-1 and restarting
743doesn't help, the application with problem must be recompiled with the
744same version of FontConfig as the rest of the system uses. For KDE,
745it is sufficient to recompile Qt.
746
747*** Some fonts have a missing glyph and no default character. This is
748known to occur for character number 160 (no-break space) in some
749fonts, such as Lucida but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte
750and Latin-1 version of this character to display a space.
751
752*** Some of the fonts called for in your fontset may not exist on your
753X server.
e9a52cfe 754
9dc15871
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755Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
756supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
b1446261
CY
757many different fonts, collected into a fontset. You can remedy the
758problem by installing additional fonts.
f25eb4f7 759
9dc15871 760The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
9222ba5e
EZ
761display all the characters Emacs supports. The etl-unicode collection
762of fonts (available from <URL:ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/fonts/> and
763<URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/mirror/X.Org/contrib/fonts/>) includes
764fonts that can display many Unicode characters; they can also be used
765by ps-print and ps-mule to print Unicode characters.
f25eb4f7 766
9dc15871 767** Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
f25eb4f7 768
9222ba5e 769You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution
b1446261
CY
770or the etl-unicode collection (see above).
771
772** Under X, an unexpected monospace font is used as the default font.
773
774When compiled with XFT, Emacs tries to use a default font named
775"monospace". This is a "virtual font", which the operating system
776(Fontconfig) redirects to a suitable font such as DejaVu Sans Mono.
777On some systems, there exists a font that is actually named Monospace,
778which takes over the virtual font. This is considered an operating
779system bug; see
f25eb4f7 780
b1446261 781http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-10/msg00696.html
edd7d3be 782
b1446261
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783If you encounter this problem, set the default font to a specific font
784in your .Xresources or initialization file. For instance, you can put
785the following in your .Xresources:
786
787Emacs.font: DejaVu Sans Mono 12
788
789** Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it should.
790
791This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller than
792the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that lines do not
793overlap.
edd7d3be 794
9dc15871 795** Loading fonts is very slow.
edd7d3be 796
9dc15871
EZ
797You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
798Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
799directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
800"fonts.scale".
42303132 801
9dc15871
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802If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
803font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
42303132 804
9dc15871
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805With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
806directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
807Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
42303132 808
9dc15871 809** Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces.
42303132 810
9dc15871
EZ
811By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
812`{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
813any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
814vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
815parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
816in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
817pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
818introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
819through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
820to the end of a very large buffer.
42303132 821
bf247b6e 822Beginning with version 22.1, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero
9dc15871
EZ
823is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment,
824to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with
825indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash.
42303132 826
9dc15871
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827If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
828makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
829fontification by setting the variable
830`font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
831be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
f3d6f4ee 832
9dc15871
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833Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
834in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
f3d6f4ee 835
9dc15871
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836** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
837character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
f3d6f4ee 838
9dc15871
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839One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
840away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
841XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
f3d6f4ee 842
9dc15871 843** Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font.
9f83d8b3 844
9dc15871
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845This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
8462.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
847event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
848Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
f29d1e75 849
9dc15871 850A workaround for this is to add something like
f29d1e75 851
9dc15871 852emacs.waitForWM: false
c24be289 853
9dc15871
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854to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
855frame's parameter list, like this:
c24be289 856
9dc15871 857 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
b35319bf 858
9dc15871 859(this should go into your `.emacs' file).
b35319bf 860
9dc15871 861** Underlines appear at the wrong position.
b35319bf 862
9dc15871
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863This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
864Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
6fc3871e
GM
865neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package prior to version 3.0.17.
866To circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties
867to nil in your `.emacs'.
b35319bf 868
9dc15871
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869To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
870type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
871property.
787994b7 872
9dc15871 873** When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
0a2eeca1 874
9dc15871
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875When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
876(either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
877then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
878correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
879gives the appearance of "double spacing".
0a2eeca1 880
9dc15871
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881To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
882feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
0a2eeca1 883
405b495f
GM
884** Subscript/superscript text in TeX is hard to read.
885
886If `tex-fontify-script' is non-nil, tex-mode displays
887subscript/superscript text in the faces subscript/superscript, which
888are smaller than the normal font and lowered/raised. With some fonts,
889nested superscripts (say) can be hard to read. Switching to a
890different font, or changing your antialiasing setting (on an LCD
891screen), can both make the problem disappear. Alternatively, customize
892the following variables: tex-font-script-display (how much to
893lower/raise); tex-suscript-height-ratio (how much smaller than
894normal); tex-suscript-height-minimum (minimum height).
895
9dc15871 896* Internationalization problems
0a2eeca1 897
de25ebb8
RS
898** M-{ does not work on a Spanish PC keyboard.
899
900Many Spanish keyboards seem to ignore that combination. Emacs can't
901do anything about it.
902
b2d98113
CY
903** International characters aren't displayed under X.
904
905*** Missing X fonts
0a2eeca1 906
9dc15871
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907XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have
908minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font
909name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire
910according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display
911characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be
912able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u
913C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the
914font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont,
915include in the fontset spec:
0a2eeca1 916
9dc15871
EZ
917mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
918mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
919mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1
0a2eeca1 920
b2d98113
CY
921*** Athena/Lucid toolkit limitations
922
923The Athena/Lucid toolkit cannot display UTF-8 strings in the menu, so
924if you have UTF-8 buffer names, the buffer menu won't display the
925names properly. The GTK+ toolkit works properly.
926
9dc15871 927** The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters.
0a2eeca1 928
ce9b56fe
KH
929Emacs directly supports the Unicode BMP whose code points are in the
930ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff, and indirectly supports the parts of
931CJK characters belonging to these legacy charsets:
932
933 GB2312, Big5, JISX0208, JISX0212, JISX0213-1, JISX0213-2, KSC5601
934
935The latter support is done in Utf-Translate-Cjk mode (turned on by
936default). Which Unicode CJK characters are decoded into which Emacs
937charset is decided by the current language environment. For instance,
938in Chinese-GB, most of them are decoded into chinese-gb2312.
119d3665 939
9dc15871
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940If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the
941characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8
942(composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back
943correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences.
944If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are
945substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose
946information.
119d3665 947
9dc15871 948** Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
a933dad1 949
d6b7de9b
EZ
950Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
951other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
952that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
953size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
954when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
955fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
a933dad1 956
d6b7de9b 957To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
a933dad1 958
d6b7de9b 959 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
a933dad1 960
d6b7de9b
EZ
961If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
962problem.
a933dad1 963
d6b7de9b
EZ
964The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
965`fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
966`xset fp rehash'.
177c0ea7 967
9dc15871 968** The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
a933dad1 969
9dc15871
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970This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
971slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more
972flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK
973support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't
974generally read correctly by Emacs 21.
a933dad1 975
9dc15871 976** After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
a933dad1 977
9dc15871
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978The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
979 (standard-display-european t)
980That should be changed to
981 (standard-display-european 1 t)
de121241 982
9dc15871 983* X runtime problems
de121241 984
9dc15871 985** X keyboard problems
de121241 986
9dc15871 987*** You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
a933dad1 988
9dc15871
EZ
989This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
990Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
991character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
992to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
a933dad1 993
9dc15871 994For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
177c0ea7 995
9dc15871 996 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
a933dad1 997
9dc15871
EZ
998If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
999Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
1000xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
a933dad1 1001
9dc15871 1002*** Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
a933dad1 1003
9dc15871 1004Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
a933dad1 1005
9f4f9273 1006*** C-SPC fails to work on Fedora GNU/Linux (or with fcitx input method).
09352e8f
RS
1007
1008Fedora Core 4 steals the C-SPC key by default for the `iiimx' program
1009which is the input method for some languages. It blocks Emacs users
1010from using the C-SPC key for `set-mark-command'.
1011
1012One solutions is to remove the `<Ctrl>space' from the `Iiimx' file
1013which can be found in the `/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults' directory.
1014However, that requires root access.
1015
1016Another is to specify `Emacs*useXIM: false' in your X resources.
1017
1018Another is to build Emacs with the `--without-xim' configure option.
1019
2fb18d13
KH
1020The same problem happens on any other system if you are using fcitx
1021(Chinese input method) which by default use C-SPC for toggling. If
1022you want to use fcitx with Emacs, you have two choices. Toggle fcitx
1023by another key (e.g. C-\) by modifying ~/.fcitx/config, or be
1024accustomed to use C-@ for `set-mark-command'.
1025
9dc15871 1026*** M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
a933dad1 1027
9dc15871
EZ
1028See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1029for character composition.
a933dad1 1030
9dc15871 1031*** The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
a933dad1 1032
9dc15871
EZ
1033This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
1034combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
1035definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
1036might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
1037purposes.
a933dad1 1038
9dc15871
EZ
1039We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
1040you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
a933dad1 1041
9dc15871 1042*** Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
a933dad1
DL
1043
1044These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
1045particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
1046configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
1047configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
1048change this.
1049
9dc15871 1050*** Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
a933dad1 1051
9dc15871
EZ
1052This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
1053a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
1054--without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
a933dad1 1055
9dc15871
EZ
1056*** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
1057directly with an X server.
a933dad1 1058
9dc15871
EZ
1059If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
1060does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
1061whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
1062followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
1063it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
1064have made the key binding correctly.
a933dad1 1065
9dc15871
EZ
1066If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
1067be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
1068server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
1069default.
a933dad1 1070
9dc15871 1071If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
a933dad1 1072
9dc15871
EZ
1073 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1074 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
a933dad1 1075
9dc15871
EZ
1076If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1077commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1078are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1079modifier bit not otherwise used.
a933dad1 1080
9dc15871
EZ
1081If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1082keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1083some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1084commands show above to make them modifier keys.
a933dad1 1085
9dc15871
EZ
1086Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1087into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
a933dad1 1088
9dc15871 1089** Window-manager and toolkit-related problems
a933dad1 1090
6a7ce3a2
JD
1091*** Metacity: Resizing Emacs or ALT-Tab causes X to be unresponsive.
1092
1093This happens sometimes when using Metacity. Resizing Emacs or ALT-Tab:bing
1094makes the system unresponsive to the mouse or the keyboard. Killing Emacs
1095or shifting out from X11 and back again usually cures it (i.e. Ctrl-Alt-F1
1096and then Alt-F7). A bug for it is here:
1097https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/231034.
1098Note that a permanent fix seems to be to disable "assistive technologies".
1099
0e71e4a8
CY
1100*** Gnome: Emacs receives input directly from the keyboard, bypassing XIM.
1101
1102This seems to happen when gnome-settings-daemon version 2.12 or later
1103is running. If gnome-settings-daemon is not running, Emacs receives
1104input through XIM without any problem. Furthermore, this seems only
1105to happen in *.UTF-8 locales; zh_CN.GB2312 and zh_CN.GBK locales, for
1106example, work fine. A bug report has been filed in the Gnome
1107bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357032
1108
9dc15871 1109*** Gnome: Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
a933dad1 1110
9dc15871
EZ
1111A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
1112into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
1113incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
1114other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
1115been filed.
a933dad1 1116
9dc15871
EZ
1117*** KDE: When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
1118or messed up.
a933dad1 1119
9dc15871
EZ
1120For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
1121empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
1122background.
a933dad1 1123
9dc15871
EZ
1124This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
1125definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
1126solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
1127option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option
1128is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style".
a933dad1 1129
9dc15871
EZ
1130Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
1131applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
1132(should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
1133so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
1134Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
1135present or commented out:
a933dad1 1136
9dc15871
EZ
1137 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
1138 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
1139 Emacs*Foreground
1140 Emacs*Background
a933dad1 1141
a3475659
JD
1142It is also reported that a bug in the gtk-engines-qt engine can cause this if
1143Emacs is compiled with Gtk+.
1144The bug is fixed in version 0.7 or newer of gtk-engines-qt.
1145
9dc15871 1146*** KDE: Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
a933dad1 1147
9dc15871
EZ
1148This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1149requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
8576f724 1150of klipper don't implement the ICCCM protocol for large selections,
9dc15871 1151which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
b11e8823 1152while, Emacs may print a message:
a933dad1 1153
9dc15871 1154 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
a933dad1 1155
b11e8823
JD
1156A workaround is to not use `klipper'. An upgrade to the `klipper' that
1157comes with KDE 3.3 or later also solves the problem.
a933dad1 1158
9dc15871 1159*** CDE: Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
a933dad1 1160
9dc15871
EZ
1161This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1162seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1163To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1164and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
d238f982 1165
9dc15871
EZ
1166*** Xaw3d : When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
1167click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
1168is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
1169problem disappears.
d238f982 1170
9dc15871
EZ
1171*** Xaw: There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
1172XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
1173one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
1174For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
1175"C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
1176used with neXtaw at run time.
d7185f9d 1177
9dc15871
EZ
1178The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
1179want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
1180built Emacs with.
d7185f9d 1181
9dc15871 1182*** Open Motif: Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif.
a933dad1 1183
9dc15871
EZ
1184When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the
1185graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter"
1186and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the
1187file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again.
a933dad1 1188
9dc15871
EZ
1189The solution is to use LessTif instead. LessTif is a free replacement
1190for Motif. See the file INSTALL for information on how to do this.
a933dad1 1191
9dc15871
EZ
1192Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts,
1193but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in
1194the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog.
a933dad1 1195
9dc15871 1196*** LessTif: Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
a933dad1 1197
9dc15871
EZ
1198The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
1199emulation for which it is set up.
a933dad1 1200
9dc15871 1201Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
880ea925 1202LessTif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
9dc15871
EZ
1203On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
1204--enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
1205successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
1206lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
1207menu placement.
a933dad1 1208
9dc15871
EZ
1209On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
1210locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
1211what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
1212developers.
a933dad1 1213
9dc15871 1214*** Motif: The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
a933dad1 1215
9dc15871 1216This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
a933dad1 1217
9dc15871 1218 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
a933dad1 1219
9dc15871
EZ
1220That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1221do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1222explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1223the resource prevents the problem.
a933dad1 1224
9dc15871 1225** General X problems
17a37d87 1226
9dc15871 1227*** Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
17a37d87 1228
9dc15871
EZ
1229We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1230scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1231happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1232on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
17a37d87 1233
9dc15871 1234Here's how to do this:
17a37d87 1235
9dc15871 1236 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
a933dad1 1237
9dc15871
EZ
1238If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1239try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1240to normal, do
a933dad1 1241
9dc15871 1242 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
a933dad1 1243
9dc15871 1244*** Error messages about undefined colors on X.
a933dad1 1245
9dc15871 1246The messages might say something like this:
a933dad1 1247
9dc15871 1248 Unable to load color "grey95"
a933dad1 1249
9dc15871 1250(typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
a933dad1 1251
9dc15871 1252 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
a933dad1 1253
9dc15871
EZ
1254These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
1255many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
1256resources to load all the colors it needs.
a933dad1 1257
9dc15871 1258A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
a933dad1 1259
9257b627
EZ
1260"undefined color" messages can also occur if the RgbPath entry in the
1261X configuration file is incorrect, or the rgb.txt file is not where
1262X expects to find it.
1263
9dc15871 1264*** Improving performance with slow X connections.
a933dad1 1265
9dc15871
EZ
1266There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can
1267be carried out at the same time:
a933dad1 1268
9dc15871
EZ
12691) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
1270 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using
1271 the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect
1272 the use of Emacs' own input methods, which are part of the Leim
1273 package.
3d00585e 1274
9dc15871 12752) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
634e516b
EZ
1276 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar. Adding the
1277 following forms to your .emacs file will accomplish that, but only
1278 after the the initial frame is displayed:
1279
1280 (scroll-bar-mode -1)
1281 (menu-bar-mode -1)
1282 (tool-bar-mode -1)
1283
1284 For still quicker startup, put these X resources in your .Xdefaults
1285 file:
1286
1287 Emacs.verticalScrollBars: off
1288 Emacs.menuBar: off
1289 Emacs.toolBar: off
3d00585e 1290
9dc15871
EZ
12913) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this
1292 forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...).
3d00585e 1293
9dc15871
EZ
12944) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface
1295 to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which
1296 improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness
1297 of the X protocol. lbxproxy acheives the performance gain by grouping
1298 several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together,
880ea925 1299 instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a separate
9dc15871
EZ
1300 packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are:
1301 -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents
1302 Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems.
1303 For more about lbxproxy, see:
1304 http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html
3d00585e 1305
34431988
KS
13065) If copying and killing is slow, try to disable the interaction with the
1307 native system's clipboard by adding these lines to your .emacs file:
1308 (setq interprogram-cut-function nil)
1309 (setq interprogram-paste-function nil)
1310
9dc15871 1311*** Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
3d00585e 1312
9dc15871
EZ
1313This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1314a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1315likely to cause it.
a933dad1 1316
9dc15871 1317We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
7838ea1b 1318
9dc15871 1319*** Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
a933dad1 1320
9dc15871
EZ
1321There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
1322that replacing the mouse made it stop.
a933dad1 1323
9dc15871 1324*** You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
a933dad1 1325
9dc15871
EZ
1326On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
1327works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
1328bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
1329the Files menu).
a933dad1 1330
9dc15871
EZ
1331This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
1332due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
1333knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
1334workaround can be found.
a933dad1 1335
9dc15871
EZ
1336*** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1337parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
b5cb4652 1338
9dc15871
EZ
1339This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1340 emacs*Cursor: black
1341(which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1342that isn't a color.)
b5cb4652 1343
9dc15871 1344The fix is to correct your X resources.
a933dad1 1345
9dc15871 1346*** Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
a933dad1 1347
9dc15871
EZ
1348If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
1349resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
1350renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
1351font.
a933dad1 1352
9dc15871
EZ
1353One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
1354your font path, like this:
a933dad1 1355
3256a475 1356 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
a933dad1 1357
9dc15871 1358*** Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
a933dad1 1359
9dc15871 1360An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
a933dad1 1361
9dc15871 1362 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
a933dad1 1363
9dc15871
EZ
1364This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
1365individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
1366want, rewrite the resource.
3156909f 1367
9dc15871
EZ
1368To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
1369-query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
1370the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
a933dad1 1371
9dc15871
EZ
1372*** Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
1373*** `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
e96c5c69 1374
9dc15871
EZ
1375One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
1376your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
1377the environment.
e96c5c69 1378
9dc15871 1379*** Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
a933dad1 1380
9dc15871
EZ
1381The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
1382arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
1383tell Emacs to compensate for this.
a933dad1 1384
9dc15871
EZ
1385I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
1386whether this problem is present on a given system.
a933dad1 1387
9dc15871 1388*** X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
a933dad1 1389
9dc15871
EZ
1390People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
1391not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
1392the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
1393the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
a933dad1 1394
9dc15871
EZ
1395You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
1396However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
1397you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
a933dad1 1398
9dc15871 1399The easy way to do this is to put
a933dad1 1400
9dc15871 1401 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
a933dad1 1402
9dc15871 1403in your site-init.el file.
a933dad1 1404
3256a475
RC
1405*** Prevent double pastes in X
1406
1407The problem: a region, such as a command, is pasted twice when you copy
1408it with your mouse from GNU Emacs to an xterm or an RXVT shell in X.
1409The solution: try the following in your X configuration file,
1410/etc/X11/xorg.conf This should enable both PS/2 and USB mice for
1411single copies. You do not need any other drivers or options.
1412
1413 Section "InputDevice"
1414 Identifier "Generic Mouse"
1415 Driver "mousedev"
1416 Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
1417 EndSection
1418
880ea925 1419* Runtime problems on character terminals
a933dad1 1420
def98666
CY
1421** The meta key does not work on xterm.
1422Typing M-x rings the terminal bell, and inserts a string like ";120~".
1423For recent xterm versions (>= 216), Emacs uses xterm's modifyOtherKeys
1424feature to generate strings for key combinations that are not
1425otherwise usable. One circumstance in which this can cause problems
1426is if you have specified the X resource
1427
1428 xterm*VT100.Translations
1429
1430to contain translations that use the meta key. Then xterm will not
1431use meta in modified function-keys, which confuses Emacs. To fix
1432this, you can remove the X resource or put this in your init file:
1433
1434 (xterm-remove-modify-other-keys)
1435
9dc15871 1436** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
a933dad1 1437
9dc15871
EZ
1438This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
1439used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
1440away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
1441streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
1442user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
1443properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
1444input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
1445easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
a933dad1 1446
9dc15871 1447There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
a933dad1 1448
9dc15871
EZ
1449 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
1450 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
1451 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
a933dad1 1452
9dc15871
EZ
1453First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
1454they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
6e270cdb
GM
1455"no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. (For example, on a VT220
1456you may select "No XOFF" in the setup menu.) Sometimes there is an
9dc15871
EZ
1457escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
1458and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
1459control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
a933dad1 1460
9dc15871
EZ
1461Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
1462needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
1463by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
1464rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
1465your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
1466it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
1467the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
1468problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
1469to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
a933dad1 1470
9dc15871
EZ
1471For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
1472giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
1473codes. You might as well try it.
a933dad1 1474
9dc15871
EZ
1475If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
1476through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
1477computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
1478much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
1479control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
1480you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
1481replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
1482measures can make Emacs semi-work.
4c635a29 1483
9dc15871
EZ
1484You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
1485handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
1486enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
1487now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
1488enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
1489control handling.)
a933dad1 1490
9dc15871
EZ
1491If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
1492is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
1493other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
1494and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
1495other control characters are already used by emacs.
a933dad1 1496
9dc15871
EZ
1497IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
1498Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
1499order to continue.
a933dad1 1500
9dc15871
EZ
1501If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
1502certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
1503`enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
1504automatically. Here is an example:
a933dad1 1505
9dc15871 1506(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1507
9dc15871
EZ
1508If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
1509and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
1510manually.
a933dad1 1511
9dc15871
EZ
1512I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
1513assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
1514control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
1515merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
1516widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
1517use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
1518will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
1519of inferior systems.
a933dad1 1520
9dc15871 1521** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
a933dad1 1522
9dc15871
EZ
1523For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
1524control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
1525terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
1526that wants to use flow control.
a933dad1 1527
9dc15871
EZ
1528You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
1529If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
1530flow control, as described in the preceding section.
a933dad1 1531
9dc15871
EZ
1532If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
1533into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
1534shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
a933dad1 1535
9dc15871 1536** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
a933dad1 1537
9dc15871
EZ
1538This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
1539terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
1540the combination of features specified for that terminal.
a933dad1 1541
9dc15871
EZ
1542The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1543Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1544(open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
1545terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
1546what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
1547and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
1548There are several possibilities:
a933dad1 1549
9dc15871 15501) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
a933dad1 1551
9dc15871
EZ
1552In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1553need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
a933dad1 1554
9dc15871
EZ
15552) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
1556 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
1557 by termcap.
a933dad1 1558
9dc15871
EZ
1559This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
1560Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
1561and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
1562classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
1563Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
1564tested on many kinds of terminals.
a933dad1 1565
9dc15871 15663) The termcap entry is wrong.
a933dad1 1567
9dc15871
EZ
1568See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
1569that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
1570for certain terminals.
a933dad1 1571
9dc15871
EZ
15724) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
1573 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
a933dad1 1574
9dc15871
EZ
1575This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
1576in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
a933dad1 1577
9dc15871 1578** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
a933dad1 1579
9dc15871
EZ
1580Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
1581control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
1582On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
6e270cdb
GM
1583control on the local system. Sometimes `rlogin -8' will avoid this
1584problem.
a933dad1 1585
9dc15871
EZ
1586One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
1587(the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
1588stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
6e270cdb
GM
1589"stty start u stop u" will do this. On some systems, use
1590"stty -ixon" instead.
a933dad1 1591
9dc15871
EZ
1592Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
1593around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
1594issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
a933dad1 1595
9dc15871
EZ
1596If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
1597M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
1598if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
1599following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
a933dad1 1600
9dc15871 1601(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1602
9dc15871
EZ
1603See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
1604info.
a933dad1 1605
9dc15871 1606** Output from Control-V is slow.
a933dad1 1607
9dc15871
EZ
1608On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
1609Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
1610to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
1611before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
1612the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
1613it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
a933dad1 1614
9dc15871
EZ
1615If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
1616that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
1617specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
1618concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
1619send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
1620fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
1621time as the operations really take.
a933dad1 1622
9dc15871
EZ
1623Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
1624at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
1625terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
1626operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
1627flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
1628an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
1629Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
1630cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
1631not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
1632is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
a933dad1 1633
9dc15871
EZ
1634Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
1635multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
1636termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
1637fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
1638each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
1639to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
1640`cm' string.
a933dad1 1641
9dc15871
EZ
1642You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
1643has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
1644take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
a933dad1 1645
9dc15871
EZ
1646A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
1647of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
a933dad1 1648
9dc15871 1649** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
a933dad1 1650
9dc15871
EZ
1651Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
1652after a day or two.
a933dad1 1653
9dc15871
EZ
1654The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
1655the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
1656character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
1657of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
1658overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
1659to it.
a933dad1 1660
9dc15871
EZ
1661For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
1662and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
1663other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
1664but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
1665that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
1666important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
a933dad1 1667
9dc15871
EZ
1668If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
1669you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
1670 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
1671You can probably access help-command via f1.
a933dad1 1672
9dc15871 1673** Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
a933dad1 1674
9dc15871
EZ
1675Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
1676emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
1677entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
1678"Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
1679supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
1680Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
1681uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
1682"colors".
a933dad1 1683
9dc15871
EZ
1684In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
1685``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
1686back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
1687use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
1688doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
1689sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
1690it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
1691capability).
a933dad1 1692
9dc15871
EZ
1693Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
1694attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
1695incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
1696this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
a933dad1 1697
9dc15871
EZ
1698Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
1699of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
1700entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
1701`xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
1702emulator.
a933dad1 1703
bf247b6e 1704Beginning with version 22.1, Emacs supports the --color command-line
9dc15871
EZ
1705option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular
1706modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up
1707for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors.
a933dad1 1708
9dc15871
EZ
1709Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
1710Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
1711Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
1712recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
1713global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
1714`global-font-lock-mode'.
a933dad1 1715
9dc15871 1716* Runtime problems specific to individual Unix variants
f1e54ce1 1717
9dc15871 1718** GNU/Linux
f1e54ce1 1719
f77e4514
KS
1720*** GNU/Linux: Process output is corrupted.
1721
1722There is a bug in Linux kernel 2.6.10 PTYs that can cause emacs to
1723read corrupted process output.
1724
1725*** GNU/Linux: Remote access to CVS with SSH causes file corruption.
1726
1727If you access a remote CVS repository via SSH, files may be corrupted
1728due to bad interaction between CVS, SSH, and libc.
1729
1730To fix the problem, save the following script into a file, make it
1731executable, and set CVS_RSH environment variable to the file name of
1732the script:
1733
1734#!/bin/bash
1735exec 2> >(exec cat >&2 2>/dev/null)
1736exec ssh "$@"
1737
9dc15871
EZ
1738*** GNU/Linux: On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
17395.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
a933dad1 1740
9dc15871
EZ
1741This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1742One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1743known to work.
a933dad1 1744
9dc15871
EZ
1745*** GNU/Linux: After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs,
1746the Meta key stops working.
a01325b8 1747
9dc15871
EZ
1748This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1749Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1750modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1751keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1752modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1753was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1754Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
a01325b8 1755
9dc15871
EZ
1756The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1757modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1758and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1759which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1760the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1761modifier:
a933dad1 1762
9dc15871 1763 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
a933dad1 1764
9dc15871
EZ
1765A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1766is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
a01325b8 1767
9dc15871 1768 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
a933dad1 1769
9dc15871
EZ
1770This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1771keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1772keys can serve as Meta.
a933dad1 1773
9dc15871
EZ
1774The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1775keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
a933dad1 1776
ff3e9dbc 1777*** GNU/Linux: slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
a933dad1 1778
9dc15871
EZ
1779People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1780startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
a933dad1 1781
9dc15871
EZ
1782This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
1783Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
1784improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
1785networked and non-networked machines.
a933dad1 1786
9dc15871 1787Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
a933dad1 1788
9dc15871 1789**** Networked Case.
a933dad1 1790
9dc15871
EZ
1791First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1792exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1793(replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
a933dad1 1794
9dc15871 1795 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME
a933dad1 1796
9dc15871
EZ
1797Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1798lines:
1dd8b979 1799
9dc15871
EZ
1800 order hosts, bind
1801 multi on
10a763e5 1802
9dc15871
EZ
1803Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1804indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1805database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1806dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1dd8b979 1807
9dc15871 1808**** Non-Networked Case.
a933dad1 1809
9dc15871
EZ
1810The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1811However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1812simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1813`touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1814file is not necessary with this approach.
a933dad1 1815
9dc15871 1816*** GNU/Linux: Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
a933dad1 1817
9dc15871
EZ
1818This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
1819ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
1820These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
1821the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
1822(show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
1823blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
1824cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
1825always blinks.
3d00585e 1826
9dc15871
EZ
1827A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
1828enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
1829the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
1830cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
1831the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
1832cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
3d00585e 1833
9dc15871
EZ
1834To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
1835`linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
1836the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
1837produce a modified terminfo entry.
3d00585e 1838
9dc15871
EZ
1839Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor,
1840change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command.
a933dad1 1841
9dc15871 1842*** GNU/Linux: Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1
DL
1843
1844There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1845caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1846problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1847is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1848
1849Using the old library version is a workaround.
1850
9dc15871 1851** FreeBSD
a933dad1 1852
9dc15871
EZ
1853*** FreeBSD 2.1.5: useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1854directories that have the +t bit.
a933dad1 1855
9dc15871
EZ
1856This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1857Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1858with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1859link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
a933dad1 1860
9dc15871
EZ
1861If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1862file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
a933dad1 1863
9dc15871 1864*** FreeBSD: Getting a Meta key on the console.
a933dad1 1865
9dc15871
EZ
1866By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
1867FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
1868current keymap to a file with the command
a933dad1 1869
9dc15871 1870 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1871
9dc15871
EZ
1872Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
1873definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
1874key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
1875to look like this
a933dad1 1876
9dc15871 1877 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
a933dad1 1878
9dc15871 1879to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
a933dad1 1880
9dc15871 1881 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1882
9dc15871 1883** HP-UX
a933dad1 1884
9dc15871 1885*** HP/UX : Shell mode gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
a933dad1 1886
9dc15871 1887christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
a933dad1 1888
9dc15871
EZ
1889The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1890execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
1891tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
1892but tty is giving it back 3.
a933dad1 1893
9dc15871
EZ
1894The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
1895word:
a933dad1 1896
9dc15871 1897if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1898
9dc15871 1899should be changed to:
a933dad1 1900
9dc15871 1901if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1902
9dc15871
EZ
1903Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1904and into .login.
a933dad1 1905
9dc15871 1906*** HP/UX: `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'.
a933dad1 1907
9dc15871
EZ
1908On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1909file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1910does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1911value is just ten seconds.
a933dad1 1912
9dc15871 1913If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
a933dad1 1914
9dc15871
EZ
1915*** HP/UX: The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1916other non-English HP keyboards too).
a933dad1 1917
9dc15871
EZ
1918This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1919shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1920configures the X server.
a933dad1 1921
9dc15871
EZ
1922 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1923 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1924 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1925 EOF
a933dad1 1926
9dc15871
EZ
1927 xmodmap - << EOF
1928 clear mod1
1929 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1930 add mod1 = Meta_L
1931 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1932 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1933 EOF
a933dad1 1934
9dc15871
EZ
1935*** HP/UX: "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes in
1936Emacs built with Motif.
a933dad1 1937
9dc15871
EZ
1938This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1939such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
a933dad1 1940
9dc15871 1941*** HP/UX: Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key.
a933dad1 1942
9dc15871
EZ
1943To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1944rights, containing this text:
a933dad1 1945
9dc15871
EZ
1946--------------------------------
1947xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1948keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1949keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1950EOF
a933dad1 1951
9dc15871
EZ
1952xmodmap - << EOF
1953clear mod1
1954keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1955add mod1 = Meta_L
1956keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1957add mod2 = Mode_switch
1958EOF
1959--------------------------------
a933dad1 1960
9dc15871 1961*** HP/UX 11.0: Emacs makes HP/UX 11.0 crash.
a933dad1 1962
9dc15871 1963This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
a933dad1 1964
9dc15871 1965** AIX
a933dad1 1966
9dc15871 1967*** AIX: Trouble using ptys.
a933dad1 1968
9dc15871
EZ
1969People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
1970Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
a933dad1 1971
9dc15871 1972*** AIXterm: Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal.
a933dad1 1973
9dc15871 1974The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
a933dad1 1975
9dc15871
EZ
1976 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
1977 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
a933dad1 1978
9dc15871 1979This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
a933dad1 1980
9dc15871
EZ
1981*** AIX: If linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
1982are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
1983so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
1984Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
a933dad1 1985
9dc15871 1986*** AIX 4.3.x or 4.4: Compiling fails.
a933dad1 1987
9dc15871
EZ
1988This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
1989the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
1990redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
1991is to use the default compiler `cc'.
a933dad1 1992
9dc15871
EZ
1993*** AIX 4: Some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
1994with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
a933dad1 1995
9dc15871
EZ
1996On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
1997`unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
1998Definitions" to make them defined.
a933dad1 1999
9dc15871 2000** Solaris
a933dad1 2001
9dc15871
EZ
2002We list bugs in current versions here. Solaris 2.x and 4.x are covered in the
2003section on legacy systems.
a933dad1 2004
9dc15871 2005*** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
a933dad1 2006
9dc15871
EZ
2007This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2008C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
a933dad1 2009
9dc15871 2010*** Problem with remote X server on Suns.
a933dad1 2011
9dc15871
EZ
2012On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2013may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2014is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2015As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
a933dad1 2016
0a4dd4e4 2017*** Solaris 2,6: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
a933dad1 2018
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2019We suspect that this is a bug in the X libraries provided by
2020Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
2021makes the problem stop:
a933dad1 2022
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2023105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
2024105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
2025106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
2026105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
a933dad1 2027
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2028Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
2029suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
a933dad1 2030
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2031106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
2032106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
2033105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
a933dad1 2034
0a4dd4e4 2035*** Solaris 7 or 8: Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X)
a933dad1 2036
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2037This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris.
2038Rebuild it on Solaris 8.
a933dad1 2039
9dc15871
EZ
2040*** When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
2041commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
a933dad1 2042
9dc15871 2043You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
a933dad1 2044
9dc15871 2045 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
a933dad1 2046
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2047*** On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
2048the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
a933dad1 2049
0a4dd4e4 2050You can fix this by editing the file:
a933dad1 2051
3256a475 2052 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
a933dad1 2053
0a4dd4e4 2054Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
a933dad1 2055
3256a475 2056 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2057
0a4dd4e4 2058that should read:
a933dad1 2059
3256a475 2060 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2061
0a4dd4e4 2062Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
a933dad1 2063
1b6406b3
CY
2064*** On Solaris, Emacs fails to set menu-bar-update-hook on startup, with error
2065"Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (error Point before start of properties)".
2066This seems to be a GCC optimization bug that occurs for GCC 4.1.2 (-g
2067and -g -O2) and GCC 4.2.3 (-g -O and -g -O2). You can fix this by
2068compiling with GCC 4.2.3 or CC 5.7, with no optimizations.
2069
0a4dd4e4 2070** Irix
a933dad1 2071
9dc15871 2072*** Irix 6.5: Emacs crashes on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
a933dad1 2073
9dc15871 2074This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
a933dad1 2075
0a4dd4e4 2076*** Irix: Trouble using ptys, or running out of ptys.
a933dad1 2077
9dc15871
EZ
2078The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
2079be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
2080to allocate ptys reliably.
a933dad1 2081
9dc15871 2082* Runtime problems specific to MS-Windows
a933dad1 2083
62e466d0
JB
2084** PATH can contain unexpanded environment variables
2085
2086Old releases of TCC (version 9) and 4NT (up to version 8) do not correctly
2087expand App Paths entries of type REG_EXPAND_SZ. When Emacs is run from TCC
2088and such an entry exists for emacs.exe, exec-path will contain the
2089unexpanded entry. This has been fixed in TCC 10. For more information,
2090see bug#2062.
2091
d9b0e161
EZ
2092** Setting w32-pass-rwindow-to-system and w32-pass-lwindow-to-system to nil
2093does not prevent the Start menu from popping up when the left or right
2094``Windows'' key is pressed.
2095
2096This was reported to happen when XKeymacs is installed. At least with
2097XKeymacs Version 3.47, deactivating XKeymacs when Emacs is active is
2098not enough to avoid its messing with the keyboard input. Exiting
2099XKeymacs completely is reported to solve the problem.
2100
ade79051
KS
2101** Windows 95 and networking.
2102
2103To support server sockets, Emacs 22.1 loads ws2_32.dll. If this file
2104is missing, all Emacs networking features are disabled.
2105
2106Old versions of Windows 95 may not have the required DLL. To use
2107Emacs' networking features on Windows 95, you must install the
2108"Windows Socket 2" update available from MicroSoft's support Web.
2109
9dc15871 2110** Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2111
9dc15871
EZ
2112A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
2113Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
2114problem.
177c0ea7 2115
b6ec0fa0
JR
2116** Emacs crashes when opening a file with a UNC path and rails-mode is loaded.
2117
2118Loading rails-mode seems to interfere with UNC path handling. This has been
2119reported as a bug against both Emacs and rails-mode, so look for an updated
2120rails-mode that avoids this crash, or avoid using UNC paths if using
2121rails-mode.
2122
2123** Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 22.3
de66e883 2124
117402b8
JR
2125M-x term does not work on MS-Windows. TTY emulation on Windows is
2126undocumented, and programs such as stty which are used on posix platforms
2127to control tty emulation do not exist for native windows terminals.
2128
de66e883
JR
2129Using create-fontset-from-ascii-font or the --font startup parameter
2130with a Chinese, Japanese or Korean font leads to display problems.
2131Use a Latin-only font as your default font. If you want control over
2132which font is used to display Chinese, Japanese or Korean character,
2133use create-fontset-from-fontset-spec to define a fontset.
a933dad1 2134
9dc15871
EZ
2135Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
2136is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menus is not
2137displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
2138synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
2139waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
2140pop-up menu interaction.
a933dad1 2141
9dc15871
EZ
2142Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text
2143for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows.
a933dad1 2144
af71f3ce
EZ
2145When "ClearType" method is selected as the "method to smooth edges of
2146screen fonts" (in Display Properties, Appearance tab, under
2147"Effects"), there are various problems related to display of
f396bf16
JR
2148characters: Bold fonts can be hard to read, small portions of some
2149characters could appear chopped, etc. This happens because, under
2150ClearType, characters are drawn outside their advertised bounding box.
2151Emacs 21 disabled the use of ClearType, whereas Emacs 22 allows it and
2152has some code to enlarge the width of the bounding box. Apparently,
2153this display feature needs more changes to get it 100% right. A
2154workaround is to disable ClearType.
af71f3ce 2155
9dc15871
EZ
2156There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
2157mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
2158frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
2159after moving back into it.
a933dad1 2160
9dc15871
EZ
2161Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
2162not as severely as in 21.1.
a933dad1 2163
9dc15871
EZ
2164An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
2165Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
a933dad1 2166
4ed1bce5 2167Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs. However, some
9dc15871
EZ
2168of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
2169in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
4ed1bce5
EZ
2170characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make these
2171input methods work with Emacs, set the keyboard coding system to the
2172appropriate value after you activate the Windows input method. For
2173example, if you activate the Hebrew input method, type this:
2174
2175 C-x RET k hebrew-iso-8bit RET
2176
2177(Emacs ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up
2178the appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do
2179that yet.) In addition, to use these Windows input methods, you
2180should set your "Language for non-Unicode programs" (on Windows XP,
2181this is on the Advanced tab of Regional Settings) to the language of
2182the input method.
a933dad1 2183
868c31fe
EZ
2184To bind keys that produce non-ASCII characters with modifiers, you
2185must specify raw byte codes. For instance, if you want to bind
2186META-a-grave to a command, you need to specify this in your `~/.emacs':
2187
2188 (global-set-key [?\M-\340] ...)
2189
2190The above example is for the Latin-1 environment where the byte code
2191of the encoded a-grave is 340 octal. For other environments, use the
2192encoding appropriate to that environment.
a933dad1 2193
9dc15871
EZ
2194The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated
2195month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions
2196of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system
2197library function.
a933dad1 2198
cdc9f5c2
JR
2199The function set-time-zone-rule gives incorrect results for many
2200non-US timezones. This is due to over-simplistic handling of
2201daylight savings switchovers by the Windows libraries.
9f1bc31f 2202
365b9257
EZ
2203Files larger than 4GB cause overflow in the size (represented as a
220432-bit integer) reported by `file-attributes'. This affects Dired as
2205well, since the Windows port uses a Lisp emulation of `ls' that relies
2206on `file-attributes'.
2207
56dc0646
EZ
2208Sound playing is not supported with the `:data DATA' key-value pair.
2209You _must_ use the `:file FILE' method.
2210
0a4dd4e4 2211** Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2212
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2213This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
2214you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
2215and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
2216more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
d169ccbd
EZ
2217or disable it in the "Regional and Language Options" applet of the
2218Control Panel. (The exact sequence of mouse clicks in the "Regional
2219and Language Options" applet needed to find the key combination that
2220changes the keyboard layout depends on your Windows version; for XP,
2221in the Languages tab, click "Details" and then "Key Settings".)
a933dad1 2222
0a4dd4e4 2223** Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
a933dad1 2224
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2225Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
2226MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
2227port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
2228keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
2229of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
a933dad1 2230
0a4dd4e4 2231** Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2232
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2233If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
2234due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
2235and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
2236port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
2237are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
2238confuses ange-ftp.
a933dad1 2239
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2240The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
2241(version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
2242Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
2243directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
2244variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
2245client's executable. For example:
a933dad1 2246
9dc15871 2247 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
a933dad1 2248
9dc15871
EZ
2249If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
2250this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
a933dad1 2251
9dc15871 2252 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
a933dad1 2253
9dc15871 2254** lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers.
a933dad1 2255
9dc15871
EZ
2256This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is
2257likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific.
a933dad1 2258
9dc15871
EZ
2259Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not
2260print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical
2261printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic
2262built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it
2263has):
a933dad1 2264
9dc15871
EZ
2265(setq printer-name "") ;; notepad takes the default
2266(setq lpr-command "notepad") ;; notepad
2267(setq lpr-switches nil) ;; not needed
2268(setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ;; run notepad as batch printer
a933dad1 2269
9dc15871 2270** Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2271
9dc15871
EZ
2272The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
2273work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
2274was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
2275work when an antivirus package is installed.
a933dad1 2276
9dc15871
EZ
2277The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
2278mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
2279or disable it entirely.
a933dad1 2280
9dc15871 2281** Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event.
a933dad1 2282
9dc15871
EZ
2283This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows
2284programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many
2285mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something
2286different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a
2287middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to
2288"scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a
2289generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2290
9dc15871 2291** Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window.
a933dad1 2292
9dc15871
EZ
2293This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of
2294generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar
2295movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple
2296scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2297
9dc15871
EZ
2298** Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
2299mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
2300exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
2301seen.
a933dad1 2302
9dc15871
EZ
2303** On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
2304CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
a933dad1 2305
9dc15871 2306This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
a933dad1 2307
9dc15871
EZ
2308Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
2309events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
2310distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
2311combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
2312AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
2313to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
a933dad1 2314
9dc15871 2315** Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs' display is incorrect.
a933dad1 2316
9dc15871
EZ
2317The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
2318screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
2319display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
2320to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
a933dad1 2321
9dc15871
EZ
2322This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
2323as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
2324problem lies in the X-server settings.
a933dad1 2325
9dc15871
EZ
2326There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
2327running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
2328un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
2329selection".
a933dad1 2330
9dc15871
EZ
2331Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
2332please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
2333If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
2334here.
a933dad1 2335
9dc15871 2336* Build-time problems
a933dad1 2337
9dc15871 2338** Configuration
a933dad1 2339
9dc15871 2340*** The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
a933dad1 2341
9dc15871
EZ
2342There are reports that this happens on some systems because the linker
2343by default only looks for shared libraries, but jpeg distribution by
2344default only installs a nonshared version of the library, `libjpeg.a'.
a933dad1 2345
9dc15871
EZ
2346If this is the problem, you can configure the jpeg library with the
2347`--enable-shared' option and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a
2348shared version of libjpeg, which you need to install. Finally, rerun
2349the Emacs configure script, which should now find the jpeg library.
2350Alternatively, modify the generated src/Makefile to link the .a file
2351explicitly, and edit src/config.h to define HAVE_JPEG.
a933dad1 2352
f4b84ef4
GM
2353*** `configure' warns ``accepted by the compiler, rejected by the preprocessor''.
2354
2355This indicates a mismatch between the C compiler and preprocessor that
2356configure is using. For example, on Solaris 10 trying to use
2357CC=/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc (the Sun Studio compiler) together with
2358CPP=/usr/ccs/lib/cpp can result in errors of this form (you may also
2359see the error ``"/usr/include/sys/isa_defs.h", line 500: undefined control'').
2360
2361The solution is to tell configure to use the correct C preprocessor
2362for your C compiler (CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E" in the above
2363example).
2364
2365*** `configure' fails with ``"junk.c", line 660: invalid input token: 8.elc''
2366
2367The final stage of the Emacs configure process uses the C preprocessor
2368to generate the Makefiles. Errors of this form can occur if the C
2369preprocessor inserts extra whitespace into its output. The solution
2370is to find the switches that stop your preprocessor from inserting extra
2371whitespace, add them to CPPFLAGS, and re-run configure. For example,
2372this error can occur on Solaris 10 when using the Sun Studio compiler
2373``Sun C 5.8'' with its preprocessor CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E".
2374The relevant switch in this case is "-Xs" (``compile assuming
2375(pre-ANSI) K & R C style code'').
2376
9dc15871 2377** Compilation
a933dad1 2378
9dc15871 2379*** Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
a933dad1 2380
9dc15871 2381This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
880ea925 2382(Red Hat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
9dc15871
EZ
2383(SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
2384configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
2385files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
2386left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
2387itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
2388Emacs executable to fail with the above message.
a933dad1 2389
9dc15871
EZ
2390In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
2391machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
2392(it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
2393This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
a933dad1 2394
9dc15871
EZ
2395If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
2396(Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
2397you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
2398force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
2399problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
2400blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
2401`mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
2402options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
2403`/etc/auto.home'.
a933dad1 2404
9dc15871
EZ
2405Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
2406a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
2407waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
2408to work around the problem.
a933dad1 2409
9dc15871
EZ
2410Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
2411onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
2412you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
2413`/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
a933dad1 2414
9dc15871 2415 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
a933dad1 2416
9dc15871 2417The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
a933dad1 2418
9dc15871 2419*** Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
a933dad1 2420
9dc15871
EZ
2421This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
2422of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
2423version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
2424dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
2425around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
2426incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
2427". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
2428directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
2429variables).
a933dad1 2430
9dc15871
EZ
2431The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
2432`-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
2433when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
2434unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
2435run the script like this:
a933dad1 2436
9dc15871 2437 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
a933dad1 2438
9dc15871
EZ
2439(replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
2440the script).
a933dad1 2441
9dc15871
EZ
2442Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
2443Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
a933dad1 2444
9dc15871
EZ
2445*** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2446*** Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
a933dad1 2447
9dc15871
EZ
2448This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2449had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.To solve the
2450problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2451configure script.
a933dad1 2452
9dc15871 2453*** Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
a933dad1 2454
9dc15871
EZ
2455This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2456the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2457Emacs's configure script.
a933dad1 2458
745377e8
GM
2459*** Building a 32-bit executable on a 64-bit GNU/Linux architecture.
2460
2461First ensure that the necessary 32-bit system libraries and include
2462files are installed. Then use:
2463
2464 env CC="gcc -m32" ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu \
2465 --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib
2466
2467(using the location of the 32-bit X libraries on your system).
2468
1020d879 2469*** Building the Cygwin port for MS-Windows can fail with some GCC versions
9c9f0081
EZ
2470
2471Building Emacs 22 with Cygwin builds of GCC 3.4.4-1 and 3.4.4-2 is
2472reported to either fail or cause Emacs to segfault at run time. In
2473addition, the Cygwin GCC 3.4.4-2 has problems with generating debug
2474info. Cygwin users are advised not to use these versions of GCC for
485a6c18
EZ
2475compiling Emacs. GCC versions 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.1.1, and 4.1.2
2476reportedly build a working Cygwin binary of Emacs, so we recommend
2477these GCC versions. Note that these versions of GCC, 4.0.3, 4.0.4,
24784.1.1, and 4.1.2, are currently the _only_ versions known to succeed
2479in building Emacs (as of v22.1).
9c9f0081
EZ
2480
2481*** Building the native MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
a933dad1 2482
ad05a5de 2483Emacs may not build using some Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
9dc15871
EZ
2484version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
2485necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
2486__MSVCRT__, like so:
a933dad1 2487
9dc15871 2488 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
a933dad1 2489
9dc15871 2490*** Building the MS-Windows port fails with a CreateProcess failure.
a933dad1 2491
9dc15871
EZ
2492Some versions of mingw32 make on some versions of Windows do not seem
2493to detect the shell correctly. Try "make SHELL=cmd.exe", or if that
2494fails, try running make from Cygwin bash instead.
a933dad1 2495
9dc15871 2496*** Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
a933dad1 2497
9dc15871
EZ
2498This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
2499defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
2500patch to assert.h should solve this:
a933dad1 2501
0cc69e7d
EZ
2502 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
2503 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
2504 ***************
2505 *** 41,47 ****
2506 /*
2507 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2508 */
2509 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
2510
2511 #else /* debugging enabled */
2512
2513 --- 41,47 ----
2514 /*
2515 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2516 */
2517 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
2518
2519 #else /* debugging enabled */
a933dad1 2520
a933dad1 2521
3e7c244e 2522*** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio 2005 fails.
a933dad1 2523
3e7c244e
JR
2524Microsoft no longer ships the single threaded version of the C library
2525with their compiler, and the multithreaded static library is missing
0cc69e7d 2526some functions that Microsoft have deemed non-threadsafe. The
3e7c244e
JR
2527dynamically linked C library has all the functions, but there is a
2528conflict between the versions of malloc in the DLL and in Emacs, which
2529is not resolvable due to the way Windows does dynamic linking.
a933dad1 2530
8c4fae51 2531We recommend the use of the MinGW port of GCC for compiling Emacs, as
3e7c244e
JR
2532not only does it not suffer these problems, but it is also Free
2533software like Emacs.
a933dad1 2534
8c4fae51
JR
2535*** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio fails compiling emacs.rc
2536
2537If the build fails with the following message then the problem
2538described here most likely applies:
2539
2540../nt/emacs.rc(1) : error RC2176 : old DIB in icons\emacs.ico; pass it
2541through SDKPAINT
2542
2543The Emacs icon contains a high resolution PNG icon for Vista, which is
2544not recognized by older versions of the resource compiler. There are
2545several workarounds for this problem:
2546 1. Use Free MinGW tools to compile, which do not have this problem.
2547 2. Install the latest Windows SDK.
2548 3. Replace emacs.ico with an older or edited icon.
2549
9dc15871 2550** Linking
a933dad1 2551
9dc15871
EZ
2552*** Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
2553undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
a933dad1 2554
9dc15871
EZ
2555This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
2556with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
2557GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
2558from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
2559compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
2560link stage.
a933dad1 2561
9dc15871 2562A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
a933dad1 2563
3256a475 2564 make CC=gcc
a933dad1 2565
9dc15871
EZ
2566Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
2567with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs.
a933dad1 2568
9dc15871 2569*** AIX 1.3 ptf 0013: Link failure.
a933dad1 2570
9dc15871
EZ
2571There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2572the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2573workaround/fix is:
a933dad1 2574
9dc15871
EZ
2575 cd /lib
2576 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2577 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
a933dad1 2578
9dc15871
EZ
2579*** AIX 4.1.2: Linker error messages such as
2580 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
3256a475 2581 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
a933dad1 2582
9dc15871
EZ
2583This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
2584these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
2585you build Emacs:
a933dad1 2586
9dc15871
EZ
2587 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
2588 chmod 664 libIM.a
2589 ranlib libIM.a
a933dad1 2590
9dc15871
EZ
2591Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
2592Makefile).
a933dad1 2593
9dc15871 2594*** Sun with acc: Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
a933dad1 2595
9dc15871 2596To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
a933dad1 2597
9dc15871 2598 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
a933dad1 2599
9dc15871 2600and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
a933dad1 2601
9dc15871
EZ
2602The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2603cannot easily arrange to supply them.
a933dad1 2604
9dc15871 2605*** Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
a933dad1 2606
9dc15871 2607Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
a933dad1 2608
9dc15871 2609*** `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
a933dad1 2610
9dc15871
EZ
2611This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
2612version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
2613definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
2614incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
2615does not work with this version of ncurses.
a933dad1 2616
9dc15871 2617The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
a933dad1 2618
d7ef7cd4
GM
2619** Bootstrapping
2620
2621Bootstrapping (compiling the .el files) is normally only necessary
62e466d0 2622with CVS builds, since the .elc files are pre-compiled in releases.
d7ef7cd4
GM
2623
2624*** "No rule to make target" with Ubuntu 8.04 make 3.81-3build1
2625
2626Compiling the lisp files fails at random places, complaining:
2627"No rule to make target `/path/to/some/lisp.elc'".
2628The causes of this problem are not understood. Using GNU make 3.81 compiled
2629from source, rather than the Ubuntu version, worked. See Bug#327,821.
2630
9dc15871 2631** Dumping
a933dad1 2632
9dc15871 2633*** Linux: Segfault during `make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel.
a933dad1 2634
880ea925 2635With certain recent Linux kernels (like the one of Red Hat Fedora Core
cf14a51c 26361 and newer), the new "Exec-shield" functionality is enabled by default, which
ed214edf
JD
2637creates a different memory layout that breaks the emacs dumper. Emacs tries
2638to handle this at build time, but if the workaround used fails, these
2639instructions can be useful.
cf14a51c
JD
2640The work-around explained here is not enough on Fedora Core 4 (and possible
2641newer). Read the next item.
a933dad1 2642
1f02a4ba
JD
2643Configure can overcome the problem of exec-shield if the architecture is
2644x86 and the program setarch is present. On other architectures no
2645workaround is known.
2646
9dc15871 2647You can check the Exec-shield state like this:
a933dad1 2648
9dc15871 2649 cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2650
1f02a4ba 2651It returns non-zero when Exec-shield is enabled, 0 otherwise. Please
9dc15871 2652read your system documentation for more details on Exec-shield and
1f02a4ba
JD
2653associated commands. Exec-shield can be turned off with this command:
2654
2655 echo "0" > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2656
9dc15871
EZ
2657When Exec-shield is enabled, building Emacs will segfault during the
2658execution of this command:
a933dad1 2659
1f02a4ba 2660 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2661
9dc15871 2662To work around this problem, it is necessary to temporarily disable
1f02a4ba
JD
2663Exec-shield while building Emacs, or, on x86, by using the `setarch'
2664command when running temacs like this:
2665
2666 setarch i386 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2667
ade79051 2668
ff0ab406
RS
2669*** Fedora Core 4 GNU/Linux: Segfault during dumping.
2670
2671In addition to exec-shield explained above "Linux: Segfault during
2672`make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel"
2673item, Linux kernel shipped with Fedora Core 4 randomizes the virtual
cf14a51c
JD
2674address space of a process. As the result dumping may fail even if
2675you turn off exec-shield. In this case, use the -R option to the setarch
ff0ab406
RS
2676command:
2677
25fd144d 2678 setarch i386 -R ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
ff0ab406
RS
2679
2680or
2681
ade79051 2682 setarch i386 -R make bootstrap
a933dad1 2683
9dc15871 2684*** Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump.
a933dad1
DL
2685
2686This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
7c2fb837 2687Makefile in the src subdirectory.
a933dad1
DL
2688
2689It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2690space available on the machine.
2691
9dc15871 2692On 68000s, it has also happened because of bugs in the
a933dad1
DL
2693subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2694for large blocks (many pages).
2695
9dc15871
EZ
2696*** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered.
2697*** or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127".
2698*** or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2699*** or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs.
a933dad1
DL
2700
2701This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2702fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2703binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2704
2705In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2706It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2707a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2708itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2709when unpacking the shell archive.
2710
2711I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2712what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2713file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2714
2715If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2716nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2717
2718 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2719 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2720 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2721 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2722 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2723 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2724 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2725 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2726 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2727 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2728 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2729 and remake temacs.
2730 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2731
9dc15871 2732*** temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted".
a933dad1
DL
2733
2734This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2735files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2736space than was allocated.
2737
2738This could be caused by
2739 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2740 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2741 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2742 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2743 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2744 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2745 deleting that file.
2746 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2747 (not from the directory you expected).
2748 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2749 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2750 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2751 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2752 the space required.
2753
2754If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2755of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2756
2757But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2758of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2759problem.
2760
9dc15871 2761*** Linux: Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
a933dad1 2762
9dc15871
EZ
2763The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
2764C backtrace printed by GDB:
a933dad1 2765
9dc15871
EZ
2766 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2767 (gdb) where
2768 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2769 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
2770 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
2771 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
a933dad1 2772
9dc15871
EZ
2773This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
2774of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
2775but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
2776other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
2777distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
2778GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
2779following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
2780distribution:
a933dad1 2781
9dc15871 2782 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux except for Yellowdog,
3256a475
RC
2783 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
2784 know what's really going on here. */
9dc15871
EZ
2785 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
2786 0x10000000. */
2787 #if defined __linux__
2788 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
2789 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
2790 #endif
2791 #endif
2792 #endif /* 0 */
a933dad1 2793
9dc15871
EZ
2794Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
2795the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
2796should now succeed.
a933dad1 2797
0bce976c
GM
2798*** OpenBSD 4.0 macppc: Segfault during dumping.
2799
2800The build aborts with signal 11 when the command `./temacs --batch
14395431 2801--load loadup bootstrap' tries to load files.el. A workaround seems
464df798 2802to be to reduce the level of compiler optimization used during the
14395431
GM
2803build (from -O2 to -O1). It is possible this is an OpenBSD
2804GCC problem specific to the macppc architecture, possibly only
2805occurring with older versions of GCC (e.g. 3.3.5).
0bce976c 2806
ce46543c
GM
2807*** openSUSE 10.3: Segfault in bcopy during dumping.
2808
2809This is due to a bug in the bcopy implementation in openSUSE 10.3.
2810It is/will be fixed in an openSUSE update.
2811
9dc15871 2812** Installation
a933dad1 2813
9dc15871 2814*** Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
a933dad1 2815
9dc15871
EZ
2816You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
2817supplies the `install-info' command.
a933dad1 2818
6afdff63
GM
2819*** Installing to a directory with spaces in the name fails.
2820
2821For example, if you call configure with a directory-related option
2822with spaces in the value, eg --enable-locallisppath='/path/with\ spaces'.
2823Using directory paths with spaces is not supported at this time: you
2824must re-configure without using spaces.
2825
6c06422c
CY
2826*** Installing to a directory with non-ASCII characters in the name fails.
2827
2828Installation may fail, or the Emacs executable may not start
2829correctly, if a directory name containing non-ASCII characters is used
2830as a `configure' argument (e.g. `--prefix'). The problem can also
2831occur if a non-ASCII directory is specified in the EMACSLOADPATH
2832envvar.
2833
2f6e7d3f
GM
2834*** On Solaris, use GNU Make when installing an out-of-tree build
2835
2836The Emacs configuration process allows you to configure the
2837build environment so that you can build emacs in a directory
2838outside of the distribution tree. When installing Emacs from an
2839out-of-tree build directory on Solaris, you may need to use GNU
2840make. The make programs bundled with Solaris support the VPATH
2841macro but use it differently from the way the VPATH macro is
2842used by GNU make. The differences will cause the "make install"
2843step to fail, leaving you with an incomplete emacs
2844installation. GNU make is available in /usr/sfw/bin on Solaris
284510 and can be installed as /opt/sfw/bin/gmake from the Solaris 9
2846Software Companion CDROM.
2847
2848The problems due to the VPATH processing differences affect only
2849out of tree builds so, if you are on a Solaris installation
2850without GNU make, you can install Emacs completely by installing
2851from a build environment using the original emacs distribution tree.
2852
9dc15871 2853** First execution
a933dad1 2854
9dc15871 2855*** Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
a933dad1 2856
9dc15871
EZ
2857This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
2858via NFS, for some combinations of NFS client and NFS server.
2859Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
2860binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
a933dad1 2861
9dc15871 2862 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
a933dad1 2863
9dc15871
EZ
2864We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
2865build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
a933dad1 2866
9dc15871 2867*** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
a933dad1
DL
2868
2869Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2870
28711) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2872as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2873it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2874value in the man page for a.out (5).
2875
28762) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2877initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2878of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2879not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2880may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2881
9dc15871 2882* Emacs 19 problems
a933dad1 2883
9dc15871 2884** Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'.
a933dad1 2885
9dc15871
EZ
2886This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2887Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2888Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2889where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
a933dad1 2890
9dc15871 2891So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
a933dad1 2892
9dc15871 2893* Runtime problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 2894
9dc15871
EZ
2895This section covers bugs reported on very old hardware or software.
2896If you are using hardware and an operating system shipped after 2000,
2897it is unlikely you will see any of these.
a933dad1 2898
9dc15871 2899** Ancient operating systems
a933dad1 2900
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2901AIX 4.2 was end-of-lifed on Dec 31st, 1999.
2902
2903*** AIX: You get this compiler error message:
2904
2905 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2906 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2907
2908This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2909libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2910X11Dev... with smit.
2911
2912(This report must be ancient. Bootable tapes are long dead.)
2913
2914*** AIX 3.2.4: Releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2915
2916Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2917ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2918lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2919treated as control characters.
2920
2921You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2922releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2923
2924*** AIX 3.2.5: You get this message when running Emacs:
2925
2926 Could not load program emacs
2927 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2928 Error was: Exec format error
2929
2930or this one:
2931
2932 Could not load program .emacs
2933 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2934 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2935 Error was: Exec format error
2936
2937These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2938compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2939
2940*** AIX 4.2: Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup.
2941
2942If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
2943without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
2944
9dc15871 2945*** ISC Unix
a933dad1 2946
9dc15871 2947**** ISC: display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
a933dad1 2948
9dc15871
EZ
2949Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2950versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2951cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2952This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2953processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
a933dad1 2954
9dc15871
EZ
2955Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2956the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
a933dad1 2957
9dc15871 2958The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
a933dad1 2959
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2960**** Sunos 5.3: Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies.
2961
2962A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2963exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2964applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2965communicating through pipes.
2966
9dc15871 2967*** Irix
a933dad1 2968
9dc15871 2969*** Irix 6.2: No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
a933dad1 2970
9dc15871
EZ
2971This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
2972as of 8 Dec 1998.
a933dad1 2973
9dc15871 2974The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
a933dad1 2975
9dc15871
EZ
2976*** Irix 6.3: substituting environment variables in file names
2977in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
a933dad1 2978
9dc15871 2979 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
a933dad1 2980
9dc15871
EZ
2981This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
2982003082 August 11, 1998.
a933dad1 2983
9dc15871 2984*** OPENSTEP
a933dad1 2985
9dc15871 2986**** OPENSTEP 4.2: Compiling syntax.c with gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
a933dad1 2987
9dc15871
EZ
2988The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
2989following message:
a933dad1 2990
9dc15871 2991 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
a933dad1 2992
9dc15871
EZ
2993To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
2994INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
2995functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
a933dad1 2996
9dc15871
EZ
2997 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
2998 {
2999 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
3000 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
a933dad1 3001
9dc15871
EZ
3002Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
3003with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
a933dad1 3004
9dc15871 3005*** Solaris 2.x
a933dad1 3006
9dc15871 3007**** Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
a933dad1 3008
9dc15871
EZ
3009Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
3010editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
3011as GCC.
a933dad1 3012
9dc15871 3013**** On Solaris, Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called.
a933dad1 3014
9dc15871
EZ
3015If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
3016of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
3017called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
a933dad1 3018
9dc15871 3019**** On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
a933dad1 3020
9dc15871
EZ
3021This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
3022version of Solaris that you are using.
a933dad1 3023
9dc15871 3024**** Solaris 2.3 and 2.4: Unpredictable segmentation faults.
a933dad1 3025
9dc15871
EZ
3026A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
3027the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
a933dad1 3028
9dc15871 3029We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
a933dad1 3030
9dc15871 3031**** Solaris 2.4: Emacs dumps core on startup.
a933dad1 3032
9dc15871
EZ
3033Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
3034102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
3035Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
3036by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
3037However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
a933dad1 3038
9dc15871
EZ
3039Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
3040you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
3041We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
3042for certain.
a933dad1 3043
9dc15871
EZ
3044 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
3045 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
3256a475 3046 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
a933dad1 3047
9dc15871
EZ
3048(One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
3049with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
a933dad1 3050
9dc15871
EZ
3051If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
3052bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
a933dad1 3053
9dc15871
EZ
3054Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
3055Solaris 2.5.
a933dad1 3056
9dc15871
EZ
3057**** Solaris 2.4: Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
3058forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
a933dad1 3059
9dc15871
EZ
3060casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
3061after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
a933dad1 3062
9dc15871
EZ
3063 #if ThreadedX
3064 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3065 #endif
a933dad1 3066
9dc15871 3067to:
a933dad1 3068
9dc15871
EZ
3069 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
3070 #if ThreadedX
3071 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3072 #endif
3073 #endif
3074
3075Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
3076(as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
3077OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
3078Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
3079definition for your type of machine and system.
a933dad1 3080
9dc15871
EZ
3081Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
3082the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
3083Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
a933dad1 3084
9dc15871
EZ
3085For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
3086101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
3087to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
3088patch.
a933dad1 3089
9dc15871
EZ
3090However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
3091he changed
3092 #define ThreadedX YES
3093to
3094 #define ThreadedX NO
3095in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
3096`-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
3097typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
a933dad1 3098
9dc15871 3099**** Solaris 2.x: GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported".
a933dad1 3100
9dc15871
EZ
3101This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
3102are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
3103does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
3104later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
3105described in the Solaris FAQ
3106<http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
3107to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
a933dad1 3108
9dc15871
EZ
3109**** Solaris 2.7: Building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
3110C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
3111compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
3112release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
3113another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
3114and the default CFLAGS.
a933dad1 3115
9dc15871 3116**** Solaris 2.x: Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
a933dad1 3117
9dc15871
EZ
3118The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
3119Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
3120(Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
3121You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
3122You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
3123look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
3124are currently recommended for your host.
a933dad1 3125
9dc15871
EZ
3126On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
3127105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
3128105284-18 might fix it again.
a933dad1 3129
0a4dd4e4 3130**** Solaris 2.6 and 7: the Compose key does not work.
a933dad1 3131
9dc15871
EZ
3132This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
3133the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
3134support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
3135If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
a933dad1 3136
9dc15871
EZ
3137One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
3138For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
3139variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
3140lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
3141should do.
a933dad1 3142
9dc15871
EZ
3143pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
3144if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
3145libraries.
a933dad1 3146
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3147*** HP/UX versions before 11.0
3148
bf247b6e 3149HP/UX 9 was end-of-lifed in December 1998.
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3150HP/UX 10 was end-of-lifed in May 1999.
3151
3152**** HP/UX 9: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV after you delete a frame.
3153
3154We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
3155the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
3156does not happen.
3157
3158*** HP/UX 10: Large file support is disabled.
3159
3160See the comments in src/s/hpux10.h.
3161
3162*** HP/UX: Emacs is slow using X11R5.
3163
3164This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
3165doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
3166because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
3167libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
3168those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
3169install them and rebuild Emacs.
3170
9dc15871 3171*** Ultrix and Digital Unix
a933dad1 3172
9dc15871 3173**** Ultrix 4.2: `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
a933dad1 3174
9dc15871
EZ
3175This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
3176commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
3177Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
3178hand.
a933dad1 3179
9dc15871 3180**** Digital Unix 4.0: Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs.
a933dad1 3181
9dc15871
EZ
3182So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
3183is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
3184properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
3185`tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
3186in Emacs.
a933dad1 3187
9dc15871 3188**** Ultrix: `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
a933dad1 3189
9dc15871
EZ
3190On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
3191in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
3192expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
3193in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
a933dad1 3194
9dc15871
EZ
3195The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
3196anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
a933dad1 3197
9dc15871
EZ
3198I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
3199going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
3200Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
3201in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
a933dad1 3202
9dc15871 3203*** SVr4
a933dad1 3204
9dc15871 3205**** SVr4: On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
a933dad1 3206
9dc15871
EZ
3207Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
3208the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
3209sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
a933dad1 3210
9dc15871 3211**** SVr4: After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
a933dad1 3212
9dc15871
EZ
3213Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
3214mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
3215the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
a933dad1 3216
9dc15871
EZ
3217Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
3218you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
3219operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
3220configure script) that reads:
3221#define SYSTEM_MALLOC
3222This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
3223the kernel bug.
a933dad1 3224
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3225*** Irix 5 and earlier
3226
bf247b6e 3227Exactly when Irix-5 end-of-lifed is obscure. But since Irix 6.0
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3228shipped in 1994, it has been some years.
3229
3230**** Irix 5.2: unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
3231
3232The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
3233Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
3234compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
3235workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
3236syms.h.
3237
3238**** Irix 5.3: "out of virtual swap space".
3239
3240This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
3241many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
3242swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
3243can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
3244command `swap -l'.
3245
3246You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
3247line like this:
3248
3249/usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
3250
3251where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
3252by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
3253that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
3254new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
3255information.
3256
3257The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
3258swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
3259on the network that can log on to the host.
3260
3261If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
3262the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
3263some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
3264icons.
3265
3266You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
3267FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
3268("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
3269ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
3270
3271**** Irix 5.3: Emacs crashes in utmpname.
3272
3273This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
3274It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
3275
3276**** Irix 6.0: Make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi.
3277
3278A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
3279in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
3280find that string, and take out the spaces.
3281
3282Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
3283
3284*** SCO Unix and UnixWare
3285
3286**** SCO 3.2v4: Unusable default font.
3287
3288The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
3289that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
3290fonts, so it does not work.
3291
3292This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
3293the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
3294emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
3295that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
3296resources affect Emacs also:
3297
3256a475
RC
3298 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
3299 *Background: scoBackground
3300 *Foreground: scoForeground
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3301
3302The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
3303Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
3304
3256a475
RC
3305 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
3306 Emacs*Background: white
3307 Emacs*Foreground: black
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3308
3309(These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
3310suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
3311starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
3312environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
3313as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
3314/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
3315but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
3316Open Desktop display.
3317
3318These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
3319machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
3320
3321**** SCO 4.2.0: Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
3322
3323On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
3324with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
3325version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
3326C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
3327GCC.
3328
3329**** UnixWare 2.1: Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs.
3330
3331Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
3332virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
3333the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
3334error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
3335exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
3336memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
3337
3338You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
3339But you have to be root to do it.
3340
3341According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
3342
3343 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
3344 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
3345 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
3346 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
3347 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
3348
3349(He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
3350These changes take effect when you reboot.
3351
9dc15871 3352*** Linux 1.x
a933dad1 3353
9dc15871 3354**** Linux 1.0-1.04: Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
a933dad1 3355
9dc15871
EZ
3356This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
3357to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
3358Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
a933dad1 3359
9dc15871
EZ
3360**** Linux 1.3: Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly
3361truncated on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1 3362
9dc15871
EZ
3363This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
33641.3.75.
a933dad1 3365
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3366** Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME
3367
3368*** MS-Windows NT/95: Problems running Perl under Emacs
3369
3370`perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
3371The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
3372
3373The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
3374"CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
3375with the user.
3376
3377On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
3378pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
3379communicate with the subprocess.
3380
3381On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
3382relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
3383redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
3384stdin.
3385
3386A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
3387
3388For Perl 4:
3389
3390 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
3391 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
3392 ***************
3393 *** 68,74 ****
3256a475 3394 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3395 }
3396 else {
3397 ! $console = "con";
3256a475 3398 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3399 }
3400
3401 --- 68,74 ----
3256a475 3402 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3403 }
3404 else {
3405 ! $console = "";
3256a475 3406 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3407 }
3408
3409
3410 For Perl 5:
3411 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
3412 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
3413 ***************
3414 *** 22,28 ****
3256a475 3415 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3416 }
3417 elsif (-e "con") {
3418 ! $console = "con";
3256a475 3419 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3420 }
3421 else {
3422 --- 22,28 ----
3256a475 3423 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3424 }
3425 elsif (-e "con") {
3426 ! $console = "";
3256a475 3427 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3428 }
3429 else {
3430
3431*** MS-Windows 95: Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
3432
3433This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
3434You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
3435
3436*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: subprocesses do not terminate properly.
3437
3438This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
3439when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
3440cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
3441http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/.
3442
3443*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
3444
3445When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
3446Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
3447particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
3448program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
3449PATH.
3450
9dc15871 3451** MS-DOS
a933dad1 3452
bde76d3e 3453*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT or later, "config msdos" fails.
a933dad1 3454
9dc15871
EZ
3455If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
3456Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
3457program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
3458config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
3459the front of your PATH environment variable.
a933dad1 3460
dbf9702e
EZ
3461*** When Emacs compiled with DJGPP runs on Windows 2000 and later, it cannot
3462find your HOME directory.
3463
3464This was reported to happen when you click on "Save for future
3465sessions" button in a Customize buffer. You might see an error
3466message like this one:
3467
3468 basic-save-buffer-2: c:/FOO/BAR/~dosuser/: no such directory
3469
3470(The telltale sign is the "~USER" part at the end of the directory
3471Emacs complains about, where USER is your username or the literal
3472string "dosuser", which is the default username set up by the DJGPP
3473startup file DJGPP.ENV.)
3474
3475This happens when the functions `user-login-name' and
3476`user-real-login-name' return different strings for your username as
3477Emacs sees it. To correct this, make sure both USER and USERNAME
3478environment variables are set to the same value. Windows 2000 and
3479later sets USERNAME, so if you want to keep that, make sure USER is
3480set to the same value. If you don't want to set USER globally, you
3481can do it in the [emacs] section of your DJGPP.ENV file.
3482
bde76d3e
EZ
3483*** When Emacs compiled with DJGPP runs on Vista, it runs out of memory.
3484
3485If Emacs running on Vista displays "!MEM FULL!" in the mode line, you
3486are hitting the memory allocation bugs in the Vista DPMI server. See
3487msdos/INSTALL for how to work around these bugs (search for "Vista").
3488
9dc15871
EZ
3489*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
3490like make-docfile.
a933dad1 3491
9dc15871
EZ
3492This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
3493variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
bde76d3e
EZ
3494compilation are not the same. See msdos/INSTALL for the explanation
3495of how to avoid this problem.
a933dad1 3496
9dc15871 3497*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
a933dad1 3498
9dc15871 3499 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
a933dad1 3500
9dc15871
EZ
3501This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
3502on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
3503value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
3504works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
3505support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
3506undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
3507[emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
3508`TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
3509your system works as before.
a933dad1 3510
9dc15871 3511*** MS-DOS: Emacs crashes at startup.
a933dad1 3512
9dc15871
EZ
3513Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
3514and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
3515know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
3516memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
3517However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
a933dad1 3518
9dc15871
EZ
3519You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
3520arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
3521information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
3522is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
a933dad1 3523
9dc15871
EZ
3524Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
3525configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
3526removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
3527and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
3528the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
a933dad1 3529
9dc15871
EZ
3530*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
3531in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
3532drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
a933dad1 3533
9dc15871
EZ
3534This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
3535device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
3536work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
a933dad1 3537
9dc15871 3538*** MS-DOS+DJGPP: Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs.
a933dad1 3539
9dc15871 3540There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
a933dad1 3541
9dc15871
EZ
3542 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
3543 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
3544 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
a933dad1 3545
9dc15871
EZ
3546To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
3547subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
3548them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
3549incorrect library functions.
a933dad1 3550
9dc15871
EZ
3551*** MS-DOS: Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
3552run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
a933dad1 3553
9dc15871
EZ
3554Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
3555immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
3556the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
3557and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
a933dad1 3558
9dc15871
EZ
3559Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
3560the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
3561Lisp.
a933dad1 3562
9dc15871
EZ
3563This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
3564support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
3565characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
3566You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
3567filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
bde76d3e
EZ
3568compiled with DJGPP v2). The file msdos/INSTALL explains this issue
3569in more detail.
a933dad1 3570
9dc15871
EZ
3571Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
3572MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
3573by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
3574unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
3575them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
3576must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
3577properly truncated.
a933dad1 3578
9dc15871 3579** Archaic window managers and toolkits
a933dad1 3580
9dc15871 3581*** OpenLook: Under OpenLook, the Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
a933dad1 3582
9dc15871
EZ
3583Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
3584command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
3585Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
3586manager to use some other command. You can disable the
3587shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
a933dad1 3588
9dc15871 3589 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
a933dad1 3590
9dc15871 3591**** twm: A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
a933dad1 3592
9dc15871
EZ
3593twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
3594You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
a933dad1 3595
9dc15871 3596 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
a933dad1 3597
9dc15871 3598** Bugs related to old DEC hardware
a933dad1 3599
9dc15871 3600*** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
a933dad1 3601
9dc15871 3602This shell command should fix it:
a933dad1 3603
9dc15871 3604 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
a933dad1 3605
9dc15871
EZ
3606*** Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
3607as a concentrator.
a933dad1 3608
9dc15871
EZ
3609This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
36107 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
a933dad1 3611
9dc15871 3612* Build problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 3613
9dc15871 3614** BSD/386 1.0: --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong.
a933dad1 3615
9dc15871
EZ
3616This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
3617The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
3618such as bash.
a933dad1 3619
9dc15871
EZ
3620** Digital Unix 4.0: Emacs fails to build, giving error message
3621 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
a933dad1 3622
9dc15871
EZ
3623This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
3624Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
a933dad1 3625
9dc15871 3626** Digital Unix 4.0: Failure in unexec while dumping emacs.
a933dad1 3627
9dc15871 3628This problem manifests itself as an error message
a933dad1 3629
9dc15871 3630 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
a933dad1 3631
9dc15871
EZ
3632The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
3633were built for an older system version,
a933dad1 3634
9dc15871 3635 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
a933dad1 3636
9dc15871 3637made the problem go away.
a933dad1 3638
9dc15871 3639** Sunos 4.1.1: there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
a933dad1 3640
9dc15871 3641If you get errors such as
a933dad1 3642
9dc15871
EZ
3643 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3644 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3645 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
a933dad1 3646
9dc15871
EZ
3647This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
3648to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
3649script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
3650make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
3651ones available when you build Emacs.
a933dad1 3652
9dc15871 3653** SunOS 4.1.1: You get this error message from GNU ld:
a933dad1 3654
9dc15871 3655 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
a933dad1 3656
9dc15871 3657The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
a933dad1 3658
9dc15871 3659The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
a933dad1 3660
9dc15871 3661** Sunos 4.1: Undefined symbols when linking using --with-x-toolkit.
a933dad1 3662
9dc15871
EZ
3663If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
3664_iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
3665-lXaw in the command that links temacs.
a933dad1 3666
9dc15871
EZ
3667This problem seems to arise only when the international language
3668extensions to X11R5 are installed.
a933dad1 3669
9dc15871 3670** SunOS: Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
a933dad1 3671
9dc15871
EZ
3672If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
3673`ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
3674that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
3675with a floating point option other than the default.
a933dad1 3676
9dc15871
EZ
3677It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
3678crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
3679However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
3680floating point option: -fsoft.
a933dad1 3681
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3682** HPUX 10.20: Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine.
3683
3684This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
3685
9dc15871 3686** Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
a933dad1
DL
3687
3688You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3689
3690 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3691 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3692
3693These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3694Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3695may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3696on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3697in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3698can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3699that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3700
3701As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3702you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3703can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3704should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3705array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3706 Lisp_Object *args;
3707 ...
3708 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3709putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3710 Lisp_Object *args;
3711 Lisp_Object tem;
3712 ...
3713 tem = args[i];
3714 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3715causes the problem to go away.
3716The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3717so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3718
9dc15871 3719** 68000 C compiler problems
a933dad1
DL
3720
3721Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3722These are some that have been observed.
3723
9dc15871 3724*** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
a933dad1
DL
3725This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3726if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3727
9dc15871 3728*** "cannot reclaim" error.
a933dad1
DL
3729
3730This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3731line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3732simpler expressions.
3733
9dc15871 3734*** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
a933dad1
DL
3735
3736If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3737Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3738
3739struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3740
3741lose (arg)
3742 struct foo arg;
3743{
3744 test ((int *) arg.y);
3745}
3746
3747If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3748In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3749((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3750
6e5cb96f
DN
3751This problem will only happen if USE_LISP_UNION_TYPE is manually
3752defined in lisp.h.
a933dad1 3753
9dc15871 3754*** C compilers lose on returning unions.
a933dad1
DL
3755
3756I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3757Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3758defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3759
6e5cb96f
DN
3760This problem will only happen if USE_LISP_UNION_TYPE is manually
3761defined in lisp.h.
a933dad1 3762
53854552 3763\f
5b87ad55 3764This file is part of GNU Emacs.
fe6b4873 3765
ab73e885 3766GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
5b87ad55 3767it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
ab73e885
GM
3768the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
3769(at your option) any later version.
fe6b4873 3770
5b87ad55
GM
3771GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3772but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3773MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3774GNU General Public License for more details.
3775
3776You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
ab73e885 3777along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
5b87ad55
GM
3778
3779\f
53854552
EZ
3780Local variables:
3781mode: outline
3256a475 3782paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
53854552 3783end:
6b61353c
KH
3784
3785arch-tag: 49fc0d95-88cb-4715-b21c-f27fb5a4764a