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5e14abf8
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1Known Problems with GNU Emacs
2
5b87ad55 3Copyright (C) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
8cabe764 4 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
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5 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6See the end of the file for license conditions.
7
8
a933dad1 9This file describes various problems that have been encountered
0a4dd4e4 10in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs. Try doing Ctl-C Ctl-t
9dc15871 11and browsing through the outline headers.
a933dad1 12
8589dc17 13* Mule-UCS doesn't work in Emacs 23.
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14
15It's completely redundant now, as far as we know.
16
9dc15871 17* Emacs startup failures
32364f49 18
9dc15871 19** Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
32364f49 20
9dc15871 21A typical error message might be something like
32364f49 22
9dc15871 23 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
6b61353c 24
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25This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
26Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
27are:
6b61353c 28
9dc15871 29 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
6b61353c 30
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31 - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or
32 /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or
33 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
6b61353c 34
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35One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
36fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
37the problematic line(s) and correct them.
6b61353c 38
9dc15871 39** Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
6b61353c 40
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41This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
42installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
43specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
44corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
45the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
46Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
47files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
48original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
49not to work.
6b61353c 50
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51The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
52when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
53is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
54same directory where system header files are kept.
6b61353c 55
9dc15871 56** Emacs does not start, complaining that it cannot open termcap database file.
6b61353c 57
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58If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern
59systems do), this could happen if the proper version of
60ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it
61cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for
62libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is
63obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries.
6b61353c 64
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65The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in
66the developer's form (header files, static libraries and
67symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian)
68it constitutes a separate package.
6b61353c 69
9dc15871 70** Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
5b4ffca2 71
9dc15871 72The typical error message might be like this:
5b4ffca2 73
9dc15871 74 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
c763d515 75
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76This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
77tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
78files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
79Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
80when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
81required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
82it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
f1c231c4 83
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84Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
85file could fail to load if it is compressed.
fc2938d1 86
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87The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
88file.
6b61353c 89
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90Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
91lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
92print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
6b61353c 93
9dc15871 94 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
6b61353c 95
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96If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
97and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
98load-path.
f0f62f71 99
9dc15871 100** Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
f0f62f71 101
9dc15871 102An example of such an error is:
f0f62f71 103
9dc15871 104 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
fc1bfc2a 105
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106This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your load-path.
107The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
108present in load-path:
fc1bfc2a 109
9dc15871 110 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
fc1bfc2a 111
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112If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
113and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
114load-path.
60f553d2 115
9dc15871 116** With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
3f82efb4 117
9dc15871 118Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
3f82efb4 119
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120 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
121 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
122 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
123 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
124 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
125 /******************************************************************
3f82efb4 126
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127 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
128 @@ -166,8 +166,8 @@
129 _XimMakeImName(lcd)
130 XLCd lcd;
131 {
132 - char* begin;
133 - char* end;
134 + char* begin = NULL;
135 + char* end = NULL;
136 char* ret;
137 int i = 0;
138 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
139 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
140 }
141 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
142 if (ret != NULL) {
143 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
144 + if (begin != NULL) {
145 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
146 + } else {
147 + ret[0] = '\0';
148 + }
149 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
150 }
151 return ret;
3f82efb4 152
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153** Emacs crashes on startup after a glibc upgrade.
154
155This is caused by a binary incompatible change to the malloc
156implementation in glibc 2.5.90-22. As a result, Emacs binaries built
157using prior versions of glibc crash when run under 2.5.90-22.
158
0a7aab83 159This problem was first seen in pre-release versions of Fedora 7, and
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160may be fixed in the final Fedora 7 release. To stop the crash from
161happening, first try upgrading to the newest version of glibc; if this
162does not work, rebuild Emacs with the same version of glibc that you
163will run it under. For details, see
164
165https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239344
166
9dc15871 167* Crash bugs
cc305a60 168
9dc15871 169** Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
cc305a60 170
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171This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
172use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
173an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
174happens to exist on your X server).
fc2938d1 175
9dc15871 176** Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
fc2938d1 177
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178This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
179prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
180to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
177c0ea7 181
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182Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
183(src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
fc2938d1 184
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185** Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
186a segmentation fault and core dump.
c93bdf05 187
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188This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
189added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
c93bdf05 190
9dc15871 191 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
c93bdf05 192
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193If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
194untar it :-).
c93bdf05 195
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196** Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
197libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
198Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur
199if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an
200older version.
4593687f 201
9dc15871 202** Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
9272ccfc 203
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204This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
205terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
206If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
207version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
208and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
9272ccfc 209
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210All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
211problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
212terminfo when built.
9272ccfc 213
9dc15871 214** Emacs crashes when using the Exceed 6.0 X server.
7aa70236 215
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216If you are using Exceed 6.1, upgrade to a later version. This was
217reported to prevent the crashes.
7aa70236 218
9dc15871 219** Emacs crashes with SIGSEGV in XtInitializeWidgetClass.
7c22dc9d 220
9dc15871 221It crashes on X, but runs fine when called with option "-nw".
7c22dc9d 222
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223This has been observed when Emacs is linked with GNU ld but without passing
224the -z nocombreloc flag. Emacs normally knows to pass the -z nocombreloc
225flag when needed, so if you come across a situation where the flag is
226necessary but missing, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug.
7c22dc9d 227
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228On platforms such as Solaris, you can also work around this problem by
229configuring your compiler to use the native linker instead of GNU ld.
7c22dc9d 230
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231** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes when closing a display (x-close-connection).
232
233This happens because of bugs in Gtk+. Gtk+ 2.10 seems to be OK. See bug
234http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715.
235
1020d879 236** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes on startup on Cygwin.
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237
238A typical error message is
dc13f3f5 239 ***MEMORY-ERROR***: emacs[5172]: GSlice: failed to allocate 504 bytes
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240 (alignment: 512): Function not implemented
241
242Emacs supplies its own malloc, but glib (part of Gtk+) calls memalign and on
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243Cygwin, that becomes the Cygwin supplied memalign. As malloc is not the
244Cygwin malloc, the Cygwin memalign always returns ENOSYS. A fix for this
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245problem would be welcome.
246
9dc15871 247* General runtime problems
7c22dc9d 248
9dc15871 249** Lisp problems
677e7496 250
9dc15871 251*** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
677e7496 252
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253You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
254Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
255will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
256and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
677e7496 257
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258Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
259than the corresponding .el file.
677e7496 260
9dc15871 261*** Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars.
677e7496 262
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263These control the actions of Emacs.
264~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
265EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
266"load" will search.
677e7496 267
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268If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
269of them, then try again.
9ed04369 270
9dc15871 271*** Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error.
9ed04369 272
9dc15871 273The error message might be something like this:
b87207a0 274
9dc15871 275 "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth"
b87207a0 276
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277This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a
278built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch
279for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3
280corrects that.
177c0ea7 281
9dc15871 282*** Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
177c0ea7 283
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284Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
285problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
286documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
177c0ea7 287
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288*** The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
289Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
290`add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
291'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
177c0ea7 292
9dc15871 293** Keyboard problems
b87207a0 294
9dc15871 295*** "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
61638355 296
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297If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
298will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
299in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
300did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
301character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
302must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
61638355 303
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304You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
305them to two different keys.
a47a639f 306
9dc15871 307*** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
a47a639f 308
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309You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
310though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
311or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
a47a639f 312
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313*** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
314to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
a47a639f 315
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316This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
317with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
318another escape character in kermit. One user did
61638355 319
9dc15871 320 set escape-character 17
61638355 321
9dc15871 322in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
61638355 323
9dc15871 324** Mailers and other helper programs
61638355 325
9dc15871 326*** movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
61638355 327
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328Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
329NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
330entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
331listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
332the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
333old POP protocol.
61638355 334
9dc15871 335*** RMAIL gets error getting new mail.
61638355 336
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337RMAIL gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
338called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
339the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
61638355 340
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341There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
342the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
343`movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
344this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
345the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
346IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
347SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
61638355 348
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349If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
350prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
351you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
352`mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
353make install.
61638355 354
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355 chgrp mail movemail
356 chmod 2755 movemail
61638355 357
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358Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
359installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
360installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
361/usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
362mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
363directory copy is ineffective.
61638355 364
9dc15871 365*** rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
61638355 366
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367This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
368The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
61638355 369
9dc15871 370** Problems with hostname resolution
61638355 371
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372*** Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
373the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
374*** Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
20dc2215 375*** Gnus can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
61638355 376
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377This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
378libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
379shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
380similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
556a9fad 381
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382The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
383the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
61638355 384
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385The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
386installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
49172314 387
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388If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
389then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
390do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
391or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
392that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
393be careful not to lose the others.
ed0d1d91 394
9dc15871 395Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
6e1a66dc 396
9dc15871 397#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
6e1a66dc 398
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399Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
400the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
401again to say this:
3c418e54 402
9dc15871 403#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
3c418e54 404
9dc15871 405*** Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
3c418e54 406
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407For example, (system-name) returns some variation on
408"localhost.localdomain", rather the name you were expecting.
409
9dc15871 410You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
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411(i.e. a name with at least one ".") either in /etc/hosts,
412/etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system calls for specifying
413this.
f9130829 414
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415If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
416mail-host-address to the value you want.
f9130829 417
9dc15871 418** NFS and RFS
f9130829 419
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420*** Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
421appear on disk.
f9130829 422
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423This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
424remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
425implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
426detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
427calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
428where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
f9130829 429
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430*** Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
431It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
432but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
433causes it.
f9130829 434
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435 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
436 call in the RFS server.
f9130829 437
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438 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
439 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
440 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
441 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
ed85f61d 442
9dc15871 443 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
b300fd77 444
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445 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
446 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
447 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
448 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
449 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
450 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
451 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
b300fd77 452
9dc15871 453 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
ed85f61d 454
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455 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
456 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
457 retrieving revision 1.2
458 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
459 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
460 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
461 ***************
462 *** 163,169 ****
463 /*
464 * No return sent for close or fsync!
465 */
466 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
467 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
468 else
469 {
470 --- 166,172 ----
471 /*
472 * No return sent for close or fsync!
473 */
474 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
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
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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
9dc15871
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551This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
552with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
553corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
b87207a0 554
9dc15871
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555*** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
556terminal type.
b87207a0 557
9dc15871
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558The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
559environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
560provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
561emulates.
b87207a0 562
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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
9dc15871
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599If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
600representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
601ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux, kernel
602version 2.4.3, with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other
603systems as well. To avoid this problem, switch to using the standard
604ftp client. On a Debian system, type
a38f41c4 605
9dc15871 606 update-alternatives --config ftp
a38f41c4 607
9dc15871 608and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
a38f41c4 609
9dc15871 610*** JPEG images aren't displayed.
b87207a0 611
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612This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
613Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem. Configure checks for the
614correct version, but this problem could occur if a binary built
615against a shared libjpeg is run on a system with an older version.
b87207a0 616
9dc15871 617*** Dired is very slow.
4e0bd469
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618
619This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long
620time. Possible reasons for this include:
621
622 - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df'
623 response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds);
624
625 - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix;
626
627 - slow operation of some versions of `df'.
628
629To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable
630`directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from
631invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or
632(c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase.
633
9dc15871 634*** Versions of the W3 package released before Emacs 21.1 don't run
fc2938d1 635under Emacs 21. This fixed in W3 version 4.0pre.47.
a953a8d3 636
9dc15871 637*** The LDAP support rely on ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 2.
8f4df059
PJ
638
639It can fail to work with ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 1.
640Version 1 of OpenLDAP is now deprecated. If you are still using it,
641please upgrade to version 2. As a temporary workaround, remove
642argument "-x" from the variable `ldap-ldapsearch-args'.
643
9dc15871 644*** ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps.
cc2f2825
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645
646This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it
647defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it
648runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory.
649
650The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version.
651
9dc15871 652*** On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
f4f4ee4d
GM
653from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
654shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
655These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
656library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
657
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658Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build
659process invokes Emacs several times.
660
f4f4ee4d
GM
661On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
662environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
663can be found.
664
665Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
666Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
667specified run-time search path in the executable.
668
8643647c 669On some systems, Emacs can crash due to problems with dynamic
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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
9dc15871 734** Under X11, some characters appear as hollow boxes.
e9a52cfe 735
9dc15871
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736Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
737supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
738many different fonts, collected into a fontset.
f25eb4f7 739
9dc15871
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740If some of the fonts called for in your fontset do not exist on your X
741server, then the characters that have no font appear as hollow boxes.
742You can remedy the problem by installing additional fonts.
f25eb4f7 743
9dc15871 744The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
9222ba5e
EZ
745display all the characters Emacs supports. The etl-unicode collection
746of fonts (available from <URL:ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/fonts/> and
747<URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/mirror/X.Org/contrib/fonts/>) includes
748fonts that can display many Unicode characters; they can also be used
749by ps-print and ps-mule to print Unicode characters.
f25eb4f7 750
9dc15871
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751Another cause of this for specific characters is fonts which have a
752missing glyph and no default character. This is known to occur for
753character number 160 (no-break space) in some fonts, such as Lucida
754but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte and Latin-1 version
755of this character to display a space.
f25eb4f7 756
9dc15871 757** Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
f25eb4f7 758
9222ba5e
EZ
759You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution
760or the etl-unicode collection (see the previous entry).
f25eb4f7 761
9dc15871 762** Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it "should".
edd7d3be 763
9dc15871
EZ
764This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller
765than the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that
766lines do not overlap.
edd7d3be 767
9dc15871 768** Loading fonts is very slow.
edd7d3be 769
9dc15871
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770You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
771Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
772directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
773"fonts.scale".
42303132 774
9dc15871
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775If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
776font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
42303132 777
9dc15871
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778With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
779directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
780Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
42303132 781
9dc15871 782** Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces.
42303132 783
9dc15871
EZ
784By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
785`{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
786any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
787vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
788parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
789in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
790pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
791introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
792through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
793to the end of a very large buffer.
42303132 794
bf247b6e 795Beginning with version 22.1, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero
9dc15871
EZ
796is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment,
797to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with
798indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash.
42303132 799
9dc15871
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800If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
801makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
802fontification by setting the variable
803`font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
804be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
f3d6f4ee 805
9dc15871
EZ
806Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
807in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
f3d6f4ee 808
9dc15871
EZ
809** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
810character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
f3d6f4ee 811
9dc15871
EZ
812One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
813away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
814XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
f3d6f4ee 815
9dc15871 816** Characters are displayed as empty boxes or with wrong font under X.
9f83d8b3 817
9dc15871
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818This can occur when two different versions of FontConfig are used.
819For example, XFree86 4.3.0 has one version and Gnome usually comes
c42e773e 820with a newer version. Emacs compiled with Gtk+ will then use
9dc15871
EZ
821the newer version. In most cases the problem can be temporarily
822fixed by stopping the application that has the error (it can be
823Emacs or any other application), removing ~/.fonts.cache-1,
824and then start the application again.
825If removing ~/.fonts.cache-1 and restarting doesn't help, the
826application with problem must be recompiled with the same version
827of FontConfig as the rest of the system uses. For KDE, it is
828sufficient to recompile Qt.
9f83d8b3 829
9dc15871 830** Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font.
9f83d8b3 831
9dc15871
EZ
832This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
8332.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
834event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
835Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
f29d1e75 836
9dc15871 837A workaround for this is to add something like
f29d1e75 838
9dc15871 839emacs.waitForWM: false
c24be289 840
9dc15871
EZ
841to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
842frame's parameter list, like this:
c24be289 843
9dc15871 844 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
b35319bf 845
9dc15871 846(this should go into your `.emacs' file).
b35319bf 847
9dc15871 848** Underlines appear at the wrong position.
b35319bf 849
9dc15871
EZ
850This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
851Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
6fc3871e
GM
852neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package prior to version 3.0.17.
853To circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties
854to nil in your `.emacs'.
b35319bf 855
9dc15871
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856To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
857type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
858property.
787994b7 859
9dc15871 860** When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
0a2eeca1 861
9dc15871
EZ
862When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
863(either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
864then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
865correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
866gives the appearance of "double spacing".
0a2eeca1 867
9dc15871
EZ
868To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
869feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
0a2eeca1 870
405b495f
GM
871** Subscript/superscript text in TeX is hard to read.
872
873If `tex-fontify-script' is non-nil, tex-mode displays
874subscript/superscript text in the faces subscript/superscript, which
875are smaller than the normal font and lowered/raised. With some fonts,
876nested superscripts (say) can be hard to read. Switching to a
877different font, or changing your antialiasing setting (on an LCD
878screen), can both make the problem disappear. Alternatively, customize
879the following variables: tex-font-script-display (how much to
880lower/raise); tex-suscript-height-ratio (how much smaller than
881normal); tex-suscript-height-minimum (minimum height).
882
9dc15871 883* Internationalization problems
0a2eeca1 884
de25ebb8
RS
885** M-{ does not work on a Spanish PC keyboard.
886
887Many Spanish keyboards seem to ignore that combination. Emacs can't
888do anything about it.
889
9dc15871 890** Characters from the mule-unicode charsets aren't displayed under X.
0a2eeca1 891
9dc15871
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892XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have
893minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font
894name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire
895according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display
896characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be
897able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u
898C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the
899font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont,
900include in the fontset spec:
0a2eeca1 901
9dc15871
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902mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
903mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
904mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1
0a2eeca1 905
9dc15871 906** The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters.
0a2eeca1 907
ce9b56fe
KH
908Emacs directly supports the Unicode BMP whose code points are in the
909ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff, and indirectly supports the parts of
910CJK characters belonging to these legacy charsets:
911
912 GB2312, Big5, JISX0208, JISX0212, JISX0213-1, JISX0213-2, KSC5601
913
914The latter support is done in Utf-Translate-Cjk mode (turned on by
915default). Which Unicode CJK characters are decoded into which Emacs
916charset is decided by the current language environment. For instance,
917in Chinese-GB, most of them are decoded into chinese-gb2312.
119d3665 918
9dc15871
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919If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the
920characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8
921(composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back
922correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences.
923If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are
924substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose
925information.
119d3665 926
9dc15871 927** Mule-UCS loads very slowly.
a933dad1 928
9dc15871
EZ
929Changes to Emacs internals interact badly with Mule-UCS's `un-define'
930library, which is the usual interface to Mule-UCS. Apply the
931following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 and rebuild it. That will help,
932though loading will still be slower than in Emacs 20. (Some
933distributions, such as Debian, may already have applied such a patch.)
0de9f9a8 934
9dc15871
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935--- lisp/un-define.el 6 Mar 2001 22:41:38 -0000 1.30
936+++ lisp/un-define.el 19 Apr 2002 18:34:26 -0000
937@@ -610,13 +624,21 @@ by calling post-read-conversion and pre-
0de9f9a8 938
9dc15871
EZ
939 (mapcar
940 (lambda (x)
941- (mapcar
942- (lambda (y)
943- (mucs-define-coding-system
944- (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
945- (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
946- (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x))))
947- (cdr x)))
948+ (if (fboundp 'register-char-codings)
949+ ;; Mule 5, where we don't need the eol-type specified and
950+ ;; register-char-codings may be very slow for these coding
951+ ;; system definitions.
952+ (let ((y (cadr x)))
953+ (mucs-define-coding-system
954+ (car x) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
955+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y)))
956+ (mapcar
957+ (lambda (y)
958+ (mucs-define-coding-system
959+ (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
960+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
961+ (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x)))))
962+ (cdr x)))
963 `((utf-8
964 (utf-8-unix
965 ?u "UTF-8 coding system"
0de9f9a8 966
9dc15871
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967Note that Emacs has native support for Unicode, roughly equivalent to
968Mule-UCS's, so you may not need it.
a933dad1 969
d87ceee0
KH
970** Mule-UCS compilation problem.
971
972Emacs of old versions and XEmacs byte-compile the form `(progn progn
973...)' the same way as `(progn ...)', but Emacs of version 21.3 and the
974later process that form just as interpreter does, that is, as `progn'
975variable reference. Apply the following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 to
976make it compiled by the latest Emacs.
977
978--- mucs-ccl.el 2 Sep 2005 00:42:23 -0000 1.1.1.1
979+++ mucs-ccl.el 2 Sep 2005 01:31:51 -0000 1.3
980@@ -639,10 +639,14 @@
981 (mucs-notify-embedment 'mucs-ccl-required name)
982 (setq ccl-pgm-list (cdr ccl-pgm-list)))
983 ; (message "MCCLREGFIN:%S" result)
984- `(progn
985- (setq mucs-ccl-facility-alist
986- (quote ,mucs-ccl-facility-alist))
987- ,@result)))
988+ ;; The only way the function is used in this package is included
989+ ;; in `mucs-package-definition-end-hook' value, where it must
990+ ;; return (possibly empty) *list* of forms. Do this. Do not rely
ade79051 991+ ;; on byte compiler to remove extra `progn's in `(progn ...)'
d87ceee0
KH
992+ ;; form.
993+ `((setq mucs-ccl-facility-alist
994+ (quote ,mucs-ccl-facility-alist))
995+ ,@result)))
ade79051 996
d87ceee0
KH
997 ;;; Add hook for embedding translation informations to a package.
998 (add-hook 'mucs-package-definition-end-hook
999
9dc15871 1000** Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
a933dad1 1001
d6b7de9b
EZ
1002Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
1003other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
1004that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
1005size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
1006when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
1007fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
a933dad1 1008
d6b7de9b 1009To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
a933dad1 1010
d6b7de9b 1011 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
a933dad1 1012
d6b7de9b
EZ
1013If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
1014problem.
a933dad1 1015
d6b7de9b
EZ
1016The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
1017`fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
1018`xset fp rehash'.
177c0ea7 1019
9dc15871 1020** The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
a933dad1 1021
9dc15871
EZ
1022This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
1023slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more
1024flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK
1025support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't
1026generally read correctly by Emacs 21.
a933dad1 1027
9dc15871 1028** After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
a933dad1 1029
9dc15871
EZ
1030The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
1031 (standard-display-european t)
1032That should be changed to
1033 (standard-display-european 1 t)
de121241 1034
9dc15871 1035* X runtime problems
de121241 1036
9dc15871 1037** X keyboard problems
de121241 1038
9dc15871 1039*** You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
a933dad1 1040
9dc15871
EZ
1041This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
1042Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
1043character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
1044to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
a933dad1 1045
9dc15871 1046For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
177c0ea7 1047
9dc15871 1048 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
a933dad1 1049
9dc15871
EZ
1050If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
1051Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
1052xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
a933dad1 1053
9dc15871 1054*** Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
a933dad1 1055
9dc15871 1056Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
a933dad1 1057
9f4f9273 1058*** C-SPC fails to work on Fedora GNU/Linux (or with fcitx input method).
09352e8f
RS
1059
1060Fedora Core 4 steals the C-SPC key by default for the `iiimx' program
1061which is the input method for some languages. It blocks Emacs users
1062from using the C-SPC key for `set-mark-command'.
1063
1064One solutions is to remove the `<Ctrl>space' from the `Iiimx' file
1065which can be found in the `/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults' directory.
1066However, that requires root access.
1067
1068Another is to specify `Emacs*useXIM: false' in your X resources.
1069
1070Another is to build Emacs with the `--without-xim' configure option.
1071
2fb18d13
KH
1072The same problem happens on any other system if you are using fcitx
1073(Chinese input method) which by default use C-SPC for toggling. If
1074you want to use fcitx with Emacs, you have two choices. Toggle fcitx
1075by another key (e.g. C-\) by modifying ~/.fcitx/config, or be
1076accustomed to use C-@ for `set-mark-command'.
1077
9dc15871 1078*** M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
a933dad1 1079
9dc15871
EZ
1080See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1081for character composition.
a933dad1 1082
9dc15871 1083*** The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
a933dad1 1084
9dc15871
EZ
1085This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
1086combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
1087definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
1088might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
1089purposes.
a933dad1 1090
9dc15871
EZ
1091We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
1092you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
a933dad1 1093
9dc15871 1094*** Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
a933dad1
DL
1095
1096These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
1097particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
1098configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
1099configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
1100change this.
1101
9dc15871 1102*** Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
a933dad1 1103
9dc15871
EZ
1104This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
1105a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
1106--without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
a933dad1 1107
9dc15871
EZ
1108*** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
1109directly with an X server.
a933dad1 1110
9dc15871
EZ
1111If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
1112does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
1113whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
1114followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
1115it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
1116have made the key binding correctly.
a933dad1 1117
9dc15871
EZ
1118If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
1119be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
1120server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
1121default.
a933dad1 1122
9dc15871 1123If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
a933dad1 1124
9dc15871
EZ
1125 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1126 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
a933dad1 1127
9dc15871
EZ
1128If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1129commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1130are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1131modifier bit not otherwise used.
a933dad1 1132
9dc15871
EZ
1133If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1134keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1135some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1136commands show above to make them modifier keys.
a933dad1 1137
9dc15871
EZ
1138Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1139into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
a933dad1 1140
9dc15871 1141** Window-manager and toolkit-related problems
a933dad1 1142
0e71e4a8
CY
1143*** Gnome: Emacs receives input directly from the keyboard, bypassing XIM.
1144
1145This seems to happen when gnome-settings-daemon version 2.12 or later
1146is running. If gnome-settings-daemon is not running, Emacs receives
1147input through XIM without any problem. Furthermore, this seems only
1148to happen in *.UTF-8 locales; zh_CN.GB2312 and zh_CN.GBK locales, for
1149example, work fine. A bug report has been filed in the Gnome
1150bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357032
1151
9dc15871 1152*** Gnome: Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
a933dad1 1153
9dc15871
EZ
1154A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
1155into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
1156incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
1157other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
1158been filed.
a933dad1 1159
9dc15871
EZ
1160*** KDE: When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
1161or messed up.
a933dad1 1162
9dc15871
EZ
1163For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
1164empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
1165background.
a933dad1 1166
9dc15871
EZ
1167This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
1168definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
1169solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
1170option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option
1171is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style".
a933dad1 1172
9dc15871
EZ
1173Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
1174applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
1175(should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
1176so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
1177Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
1178present or commented out:
a933dad1 1179
9dc15871
EZ
1180 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
1181 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
1182 Emacs*Foreground
1183 Emacs*Background
a933dad1 1184
a3475659
JD
1185It is also reported that a bug in the gtk-engines-qt engine can cause this if
1186Emacs is compiled with Gtk+.
1187The bug is fixed in version 0.7 or newer of gtk-engines-qt.
1188
9dc15871 1189*** KDE: Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
a933dad1 1190
9dc15871
EZ
1191This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1192requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
8576f724 1193of klipper don't implement the ICCCM protocol for large selections,
9dc15871 1194which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
b11e8823 1195while, Emacs may print a message:
a933dad1 1196
9dc15871 1197 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
a933dad1 1198
b11e8823
JD
1199A workaround is to not use `klipper'. An upgrade to the `klipper' that
1200comes with KDE 3.3 or later also solves the problem.
a933dad1 1201
9dc15871 1202*** CDE: Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
a933dad1 1203
9dc15871
EZ
1204This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1205seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1206To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1207and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
d238f982 1208
9dc15871
EZ
1209*** Xaw3d : When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
1210click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
1211is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
1212problem disappears.
d238f982 1213
9dc15871
EZ
1214*** Xaw: There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
1215XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
1216one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
1217For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
1218"C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
1219used with neXtaw at run time.
d7185f9d 1220
9dc15871
EZ
1221The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
1222want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
1223built Emacs with.
d7185f9d 1224
9dc15871 1225*** Open Motif: Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif.
a933dad1 1226
9dc15871
EZ
1227When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the
1228graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter"
1229and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the
1230file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again.
a933dad1 1231
9dc15871
EZ
1232The solution is to use LessTif instead. LessTif is a free replacement
1233for Motif. See the file INSTALL for information on how to do this.
a933dad1 1234
9dc15871
EZ
1235Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts,
1236but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in
1237the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog.
a933dad1 1238
9dc15871 1239*** LessTif: Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
a933dad1 1240
9dc15871
EZ
1241The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
1242emulation for which it is set up.
a933dad1 1243
9dc15871 1244Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
880ea925 1245LessTif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
9dc15871
EZ
1246On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
1247--enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
1248successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
1249lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
1250menu placement.
a933dad1 1251
9dc15871
EZ
1252On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
1253locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
1254what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
1255developers.
a933dad1 1256
9dc15871 1257*** Motif: The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
a933dad1 1258
9dc15871 1259This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
a933dad1 1260
9dc15871 1261 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
a933dad1 1262
9dc15871
EZ
1263That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1264do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1265explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1266the resource prevents the problem.
a933dad1 1267
9dc15871 1268** General X problems
17a37d87 1269
9dc15871 1270*** Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
17a37d87 1271
9dc15871
EZ
1272We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1273scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1274happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1275on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
17a37d87 1276
9dc15871 1277Here's how to do this:
17a37d87 1278
9dc15871 1279 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
a933dad1 1280
9dc15871
EZ
1281If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1282try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1283to normal, do
a933dad1 1284
9dc15871 1285 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
a933dad1 1286
9dc15871 1287*** Error messages about undefined colors on X.
a933dad1 1288
9dc15871 1289The messages might say something like this:
a933dad1 1290
9dc15871 1291 Unable to load color "grey95"
a933dad1 1292
9dc15871 1293(typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
a933dad1 1294
9dc15871 1295 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
a933dad1 1296
9dc15871
EZ
1297These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
1298many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
1299resources to load all the colors it needs.
a933dad1 1300
9dc15871 1301A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
a933dad1 1302
9257b627
EZ
1303"undefined color" messages can also occur if the RgbPath entry in the
1304X configuration file is incorrect, or the rgb.txt file is not where
1305X expects to find it.
1306
9dc15871 1307*** Improving performance with slow X connections.
a933dad1 1308
9dc15871
EZ
1309There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can
1310be carried out at the same time:
a933dad1 1311
9dc15871
EZ
13121) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
1313 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using
1314 the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect
1315 the use of Emacs' own input methods, which are part of the Leim
1316 package.
3d00585e 1317
9dc15871 13182) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
634e516b
EZ
1319 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar. Adding the
1320 following forms to your .emacs file will accomplish that, but only
1321 after the the initial frame is displayed:
1322
1323 (scroll-bar-mode -1)
1324 (menu-bar-mode -1)
1325 (tool-bar-mode -1)
1326
1327 For still quicker startup, put these X resources in your .Xdefaults
1328 file:
1329
1330 Emacs.verticalScrollBars: off
1331 Emacs.menuBar: off
1332 Emacs.toolBar: off
3d00585e 1333
9dc15871
EZ
13343) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this
1335 forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...).
3d00585e 1336
9dc15871
EZ
13374) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface
1338 to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which
1339 improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness
1340 of the X protocol. lbxproxy acheives the performance gain by grouping
1341 several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together,
880ea925 1342 instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a separate
9dc15871
EZ
1343 packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are:
1344 -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents
1345 Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems.
1346 For more about lbxproxy, see:
1347 http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html
3d00585e 1348
34431988
KS
13495) If copying and killing is slow, try to disable the interaction with the
1350 native system's clipboard by adding these lines to your .emacs file:
1351 (setq interprogram-cut-function nil)
1352 (setq interprogram-paste-function nil)
1353
9dc15871 1354*** Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
3d00585e 1355
9dc15871
EZ
1356This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1357a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1358likely to cause it.
a933dad1 1359
9dc15871 1360We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
7838ea1b 1361
9dc15871 1362*** Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
a933dad1 1363
9dc15871
EZ
1364There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
1365that replacing the mouse made it stop.
a933dad1 1366
9dc15871 1367*** You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
a933dad1 1368
9dc15871
EZ
1369On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
1370works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
1371bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
1372the Files menu).
a933dad1 1373
9dc15871
EZ
1374This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
1375due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
1376knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
1377workaround can be found.
a933dad1 1378
9dc15871
EZ
1379*** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1380parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
b5cb4652 1381
9dc15871
EZ
1382This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1383 emacs*Cursor: black
1384(which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1385that isn't a color.)
b5cb4652 1386
9dc15871 1387The fix is to correct your X resources.
a933dad1 1388
9dc15871 1389*** Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
a933dad1 1390
9dc15871
EZ
1391If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
1392resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
1393renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
1394font.
a933dad1 1395
9dc15871
EZ
1396One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
1397your font path, like this:
a933dad1 1398
9dc15871 1399 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
a933dad1 1400
9dc15871 1401*** Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
a933dad1 1402
9dc15871 1403An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
a933dad1 1404
9dc15871 1405 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
a933dad1 1406
9dc15871
EZ
1407This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
1408individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
1409want, rewrite the resource.
3156909f 1410
9dc15871
EZ
1411To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
1412-query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
1413the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
a933dad1 1414
9dc15871
EZ
1415*** Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
1416*** `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
e96c5c69 1417
9dc15871
EZ
1418One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
1419your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
1420the environment.
e96c5c69 1421
9dc15871 1422*** Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
a933dad1 1423
9dc15871
EZ
1424The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
1425arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
1426tell Emacs to compensate for this.
a933dad1 1427
9dc15871
EZ
1428I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
1429whether this problem is present on a given system.
a933dad1 1430
9dc15871 1431*** X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
a933dad1 1432
9dc15871
EZ
1433People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
1434not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
1435the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
1436the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
a933dad1 1437
9dc15871
EZ
1438You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
1439However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
1440you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
a933dad1 1441
9dc15871 1442The easy way to do this is to put
a933dad1 1443
9dc15871 1444 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
a933dad1 1445
9dc15871 1446in your site-init.el file.
a933dad1 1447
880ea925 1448* Runtime problems on character terminals
a933dad1 1449
9dc15871 1450** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
a933dad1 1451
9dc15871
EZ
1452This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
1453used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
1454away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
1455streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
1456user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
1457properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
1458input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
1459easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
a933dad1 1460
9dc15871 1461There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
a933dad1 1462
9dc15871
EZ
1463 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
1464 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
1465 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
a933dad1 1466
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1467First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
1468they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
1469"no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
1470escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
1471and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
1472control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
a933dad1 1473
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1474Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
1475needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
1476by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
1477rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
1478your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
1479it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
1480the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
1481problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
1482to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
a933dad1 1483
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1484For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
1485giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
1486codes. You might as well try it.
a933dad1 1487
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1488If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
1489through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
1490computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
1491much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
1492control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
1493you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
1494replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
1495measures can make Emacs semi-work.
4c635a29 1496
9dc15871
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1497You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
1498handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
1499enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
1500now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
1501enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
1502control handling.)
a933dad1 1503
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1504If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
1505is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
1506other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
1507and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
1508other control characters are already used by emacs.
a933dad1 1509
9dc15871
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1510IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
1511Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
1512order to continue.
a933dad1 1513
9dc15871
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1514If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
1515certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
1516`enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
1517automatically. Here is an example:
a933dad1 1518
9dc15871 1519(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1520
9dc15871
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1521If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
1522and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
1523manually.
a933dad1 1524
9dc15871
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1525I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
1526assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
1527control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
1528merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
1529widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
1530use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
1531will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
1532of inferior systems.
a933dad1 1533
9dc15871 1534** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
a933dad1 1535
9dc15871
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1536For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
1537control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
1538terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
1539that wants to use flow control.
a933dad1 1540
9dc15871
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1541You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
1542If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
1543flow control, as described in the preceding section.
a933dad1 1544
9dc15871
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1545If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
1546into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
1547shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
a933dad1 1548
9dc15871 1549** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
a933dad1 1550
9dc15871
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1551This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
1552terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
1553the combination of features specified for that terminal.
a933dad1 1554
9dc15871
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1555The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1556Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1557(open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
1558terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
1559what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
1560and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
1561There are several possibilities:
a933dad1 1562
9dc15871 15631) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
a933dad1 1564
9dc15871
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1565In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1566need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
a933dad1 1567
9dc15871
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15682) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
1569 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
1570 by termcap.
a933dad1 1571
9dc15871
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1572This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
1573Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
1574and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
1575classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
1576Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
1577tested on many kinds of terminals.
a933dad1 1578
9dc15871 15793) The termcap entry is wrong.
a933dad1 1580
9dc15871
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1581See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
1582that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
1583for certain terminals.
a933dad1 1584
9dc15871
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15854) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
1586 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
a933dad1 1587
9dc15871
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1588This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
1589in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
a933dad1 1590
9dc15871 1591** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
a933dad1 1592
9dc15871
EZ
1593Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
1594control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
1595On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
1596control on the local system.
a933dad1 1597
9dc15871
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1598One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
1599(the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
1600stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
1601"stty start u stop u" will do this.
a933dad1 1602
9dc15871
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1603Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
1604around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
1605issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
a933dad1 1606
9dc15871
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1607If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
1608M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
1609if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
1610following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
a933dad1 1611
9dc15871 1612(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1613
9dc15871
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1614See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
1615info.
a933dad1 1616
9dc15871 1617** Output from Control-V is slow.
a933dad1 1618
9dc15871
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1619On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
1620Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
1621to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
1622before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
1623the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
1624it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
a933dad1 1625
9dc15871
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1626If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
1627that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
1628specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
1629concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
1630send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
1631fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
1632time as the operations really take.
a933dad1 1633
9dc15871
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1634Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
1635at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
1636terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
1637operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
1638flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
1639an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
1640Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
1641cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
1642not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
1643is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
a933dad1 1644
9dc15871
EZ
1645Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
1646multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
1647termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
1648fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
1649each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
1650to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
1651`cm' string.
a933dad1 1652
9dc15871
EZ
1653You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
1654has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
1655take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
a933dad1 1656
9dc15871
EZ
1657A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
1658of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
a933dad1 1659
9dc15871 1660** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
a933dad1 1661
9dc15871
EZ
1662Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
1663after a day or two.
a933dad1 1664
9dc15871
EZ
1665The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
1666the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
1667character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
1668of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
1669overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
1670to it.
a933dad1 1671
9dc15871
EZ
1672For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
1673and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
1674other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
1675but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
1676that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
1677important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
a933dad1 1678
9dc15871
EZ
1679If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
1680you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
1681 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
1682You can probably access help-command via f1.
a933dad1 1683
9dc15871 1684** Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
a933dad1 1685
9dc15871
EZ
1686Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
1687emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
1688entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
1689"Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
1690supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
1691Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
1692uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
1693"colors".
a933dad1 1694
9dc15871
EZ
1695In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
1696``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
1697back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
1698use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
1699doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
1700sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
1701it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
1702capability).
a933dad1 1703
9dc15871
EZ
1704Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
1705attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
1706incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
1707this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
a933dad1 1708
9dc15871
EZ
1709Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
1710of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
1711entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
1712`xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
1713emulator.
a933dad1 1714
bf247b6e 1715Beginning with version 22.1, Emacs supports the --color command-line
9dc15871
EZ
1716option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular
1717modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up
1718for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors.
a933dad1 1719
9dc15871
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1720Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
1721Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
1722Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
1723recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
1724global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
1725`global-font-lock-mode'.
a933dad1 1726
9dc15871 1727* Runtime problems specific to individual Unix variants
f1e54ce1 1728
9dc15871 1729** GNU/Linux
f1e54ce1 1730
f77e4514
KS
1731*** GNU/Linux: Process output is corrupted.
1732
1733There is a bug in Linux kernel 2.6.10 PTYs that can cause emacs to
1734read corrupted process output.
1735
1736*** GNU/Linux: Remote access to CVS with SSH causes file corruption.
1737
1738If you access a remote CVS repository via SSH, files may be corrupted
1739due to bad interaction between CVS, SSH, and libc.
1740
1741To fix the problem, save the following script into a file, make it
1742executable, and set CVS_RSH environment variable to the file name of
1743the script:
1744
1745#!/bin/bash
1746exec 2> >(exec cat >&2 2>/dev/null)
1747exec ssh "$@"
1748
9dc15871
EZ
1749*** GNU/Linux: On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
17505.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
a933dad1 1751
9dc15871
EZ
1752This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1753One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1754known to work.
a933dad1 1755
9dc15871
EZ
1756*** GNU/Linux: After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs,
1757the Meta key stops working.
a01325b8 1758
9dc15871
EZ
1759This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1760Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1761modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1762keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1763modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1764was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1765Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
a01325b8 1766
9dc15871
EZ
1767The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1768modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1769and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1770which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1771the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1772modifier:
a933dad1 1773
9dc15871 1774 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
a933dad1 1775
9dc15871
EZ
1776A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1777is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
a01325b8 1778
9dc15871 1779 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
a933dad1 1780
9dc15871
EZ
1781This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1782keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1783keys can serve as Meta.
a933dad1 1784
9dc15871
EZ
1785The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1786keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
a933dad1 1787
ff3e9dbc 1788*** GNU/Linux: slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
a933dad1 1789
9dc15871
EZ
1790People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1791startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
a933dad1 1792
9dc15871
EZ
1793This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
1794Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
1795improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
1796networked and non-networked machines.
a933dad1 1797
9dc15871 1798Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
a933dad1 1799
9dc15871 1800**** Networked Case.
a933dad1 1801
9dc15871
EZ
1802First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1803exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1804(replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
a933dad1 1805
9dc15871 1806 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME
a933dad1 1807
9dc15871
EZ
1808Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1809lines:
1dd8b979 1810
9dc15871
EZ
1811 order hosts, bind
1812 multi on
10a763e5 1813
9dc15871
EZ
1814Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1815indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1816database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1817dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1dd8b979 1818
9dc15871 1819**** Non-Networked Case.
a933dad1 1820
9dc15871
EZ
1821The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1822However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1823simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1824`touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1825file is not necessary with this approach.
a933dad1 1826
9dc15871 1827*** GNU/Linux: Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
a933dad1 1828
9dc15871
EZ
1829This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
1830ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
1831These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
1832the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
1833(show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
1834blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
1835cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
1836always blinks.
3d00585e 1837
9dc15871
EZ
1838A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
1839enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
1840the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
1841cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
1842the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
1843cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
3d00585e 1844
9dc15871
EZ
1845To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
1846`linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
1847the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
1848produce a modified terminfo entry.
3d00585e 1849
9dc15871
EZ
1850Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor,
1851change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command.
a933dad1 1852
9dc15871 1853*** GNU/Linux: Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1
DL
1854
1855There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1856caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1857problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1858is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1859
1860Using the old library version is a workaround.
1861
9dc15871 1862** Mac OS X
a933dad1 1863
9dc15871 1864*** Mac OS X (Carbon): Environment Variables from dotfiles are ignored.
a933dad1 1865
9dc15871
EZ
1866When starting Emacs from the Dock or the Finder on Mac OS X, the
1867environment variables that are set up in dotfiles, such as .cshrc or
1868.profile, are ignored. This is because the Finder and Dock are not
1869started from a shell, but instead from the Window Manager itself.
a933dad1 1870
9dc15871
EZ
1871The workaround for this is to create a .MacOSX/environment.plist file to
1872setup these environment variables. These environment variables will
1873apply to all processes regardless of where they are started.
1874For me information, see http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1067.html.
a933dad1 1875
9dc15871 1876*** Mac OS X (Carbon): Process output truncated when using ptys.
a933dad1 1877
9dc15871
EZ
1878There appears to be a problem with the implementation of pty's on the
1879Mac OS X that causes process output to be truncated. To avoid this,
1880leave process-connection-type set to its default value of nil.
a933dad1 1881
4b340319
YM
1882*** Mac OS X 10.3.9 (Carbon): QuickTime updater breaks build.
1883
1884Some QuickTime updaters such as 7.0.4 and 7.2.0 are known to break
1885build at the link stage with the message like "Undefined symbols:
1886_HICopyAccessibilityActionDescription referenced from QuickTime
1887expected to be defined in Carbon". A workaround is to use a QuickTime
1888reinstaller. Alternatively, you can link with the frameworks in the
1889corresponding SDK by specifying LDFLAGS as
1890"-Wl,-F/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.0.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks".
e9452469 1891
9dc15871 1892** FreeBSD
a933dad1 1893
9dc15871
EZ
1894*** FreeBSD 2.1.5: useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1895directories that have the +t bit.
a933dad1 1896
9dc15871
EZ
1897This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1898Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1899with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1900link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
a933dad1 1901
9dc15871
EZ
1902If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1903file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
a933dad1 1904
9dc15871 1905*** FreeBSD: Getting a Meta key on the console.
a933dad1 1906
9dc15871
EZ
1907By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
1908FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
1909current keymap to a file with the command
a933dad1 1910
9dc15871 1911 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1912
9dc15871
EZ
1913Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
1914definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
1915key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
1916to look like this
a933dad1 1917
9dc15871 1918 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
a933dad1 1919
9dc15871 1920to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
a933dad1 1921
9dc15871 1922 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1923
9dc15871 1924** HP-UX
a933dad1 1925
9dc15871 1926*** HP/UX : Shell mode gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
a933dad1 1927
9dc15871 1928christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
a933dad1 1929
9dc15871
EZ
1930The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1931execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
1932tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
1933but tty is giving it back 3.
a933dad1 1934
9dc15871
EZ
1935The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
1936word:
a933dad1 1937
9dc15871 1938if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1939
9dc15871 1940should be changed to:
a933dad1 1941
9dc15871 1942if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1943
9dc15871
EZ
1944Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1945and into .login.
a933dad1 1946
9dc15871 1947*** HP/UX: `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'.
a933dad1 1948
9dc15871
EZ
1949On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1950file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1951does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1952value is just ten seconds.
a933dad1 1953
9dc15871 1954If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
a933dad1 1955
9dc15871
EZ
1956*** HP/UX: The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1957other non-English HP keyboards too).
a933dad1 1958
9dc15871
EZ
1959This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1960shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1961configures the X server.
a933dad1 1962
9dc15871
EZ
1963 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1964 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1965 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1966 EOF
a933dad1 1967
9dc15871
EZ
1968 xmodmap - << EOF
1969 clear mod1
1970 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1971 add mod1 = Meta_L
1972 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1973 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1974 EOF
a933dad1 1975
9dc15871
EZ
1976*** HP/UX: "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes in
1977Emacs built with Motif.
a933dad1 1978
9dc15871
EZ
1979This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1980such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
a933dad1 1981
9dc15871 1982*** HP/UX: Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key.
a933dad1 1983
9dc15871
EZ
1984To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1985rights, containing this text:
a933dad1 1986
9dc15871
EZ
1987--------------------------------
1988xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1989keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1990keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1991EOF
a933dad1 1992
9dc15871
EZ
1993xmodmap - << EOF
1994clear mod1
1995keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1996add mod1 = Meta_L
1997keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1998add mod2 = Mode_switch
1999EOF
2000--------------------------------
a933dad1 2001
9dc15871 2002*** HP/UX 11.0: Emacs makes HP/UX 11.0 crash.
a933dad1 2003
9dc15871 2004This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
a933dad1 2005
9dc15871 2006** AIX
a933dad1 2007
9dc15871 2008*** AIX: Trouble using ptys.
a933dad1 2009
9dc15871
EZ
2010People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
2011Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
a933dad1 2012
9dc15871 2013*** AIXterm: Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal.
a933dad1 2014
9dc15871 2015The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
a933dad1 2016
9dc15871
EZ
2017 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
2018 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
a933dad1 2019
9dc15871 2020This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
a933dad1 2021
9dc15871
EZ
2022*** AIX: If linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
2023are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
2024so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
2025Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
a933dad1 2026
9dc15871 2027*** AIX 4.3.x or 4.4: Compiling fails.
a933dad1 2028
9dc15871
EZ
2029This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
2030the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
2031redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
2032is to use the default compiler `cc'.
a933dad1 2033
9dc15871
EZ
2034*** AIX 4: Some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
2035with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
a933dad1 2036
9dc15871
EZ
2037On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
2038`unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
2039Definitions" to make them defined.
a933dad1 2040
9dc15871 2041** Solaris
a933dad1 2042
9dc15871
EZ
2043We list bugs in current versions here. Solaris 2.x and 4.x are covered in the
2044section on legacy systems.
a933dad1 2045
9dc15871 2046*** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
a933dad1 2047
9dc15871
EZ
2048This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2049C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
a933dad1 2050
9dc15871 2051*** Problem with remote X server on Suns.
a933dad1 2052
9dc15871
EZ
2053On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2054may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2055is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2056As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
a933dad1 2057
0a4dd4e4 2058*** Solaris 2,6: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
a933dad1 2059
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2060We suspect that this is a bug in the X libraries provided by
2061Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
2062makes the problem stop:
a933dad1 2063
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2064105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
2065105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
2066106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
2067105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
a933dad1 2068
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2069Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
2070suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
a933dad1 2071
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2072106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
2073106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
2074105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
a933dad1 2075
0a4dd4e4 2076*** Solaris 7 or 8: Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X)
a933dad1 2077
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2078This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris.
2079Rebuild it on Solaris 8.
a933dad1 2080
9dc15871
EZ
2081*** When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
2082commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
a933dad1 2083
9dc15871 2084You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
a933dad1 2085
9dc15871 2086 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
a933dad1 2087
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2088*** On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
2089the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
a933dad1 2090
0a4dd4e4 2091You can fix this by editing the file:
a933dad1 2092
0a4dd4e4 2093 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
a933dad1 2094
0a4dd4e4 2095Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
a933dad1 2096
0a4dd4e4 2097 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2098
0a4dd4e4 2099that should read:
a933dad1 2100
0a4dd4e4 2101 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2102
0a4dd4e4 2103Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
a933dad1 2104
1b6406b3
CY
2105*** On Solaris, Emacs fails to set menu-bar-update-hook on startup, with error
2106"Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (error Point before start of properties)".
2107This seems to be a GCC optimization bug that occurs for GCC 4.1.2 (-g
2108and -g -O2) and GCC 4.2.3 (-g -O and -g -O2). You can fix this by
2109compiling with GCC 4.2.3 or CC 5.7, with no optimizations.
2110
0a4dd4e4 2111** Irix
a933dad1 2112
9dc15871 2113*** Irix 6.5: Emacs crashes on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
a933dad1 2114
9dc15871 2115This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
a933dad1 2116
0a4dd4e4 2117*** Irix: Trouble using ptys, or running out of ptys.
a933dad1 2118
9dc15871
EZ
2119The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
2120be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
2121to allocate ptys reliably.
a933dad1 2122
9dc15871 2123* Runtime problems specific to MS-Windows
a933dad1 2124
ade79051
KS
2125** Windows 95 and networking.
2126
2127To support server sockets, Emacs 22.1 loads ws2_32.dll. If this file
2128is missing, all Emacs networking features are disabled.
2129
2130Old versions of Windows 95 may not have the required DLL. To use
2131Emacs' networking features on Windows 95, you must install the
2132"Windows Socket 2" update available from MicroSoft's support Web.
2133
9dc15871 2134** Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2135
9dc15871
EZ
2136A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
2137Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
2138problem.
177c0ea7 2139
de66e883
JR
2140** Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 22.1
2141
117402b8
JR
2142M-x term does not work on MS-Windows. TTY emulation on Windows is
2143undocumented, and programs such as stty which are used on posix platforms
2144to control tty emulation do not exist for native windows terminals.
2145
de66e883
JR
2146Using create-fontset-from-ascii-font or the --font startup parameter
2147with a Chinese, Japanese or Korean font leads to display problems.
2148Use a Latin-only font as your default font. If you want control over
2149which font is used to display Chinese, Japanese or Korean character,
2150use create-fontset-from-fontset-spec to define a fontset.
a933dad1 2151
9dc15871
EZ
2152Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
2153is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menus is not
2154displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
2155synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
2156waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
2157pop-up menu interaction.
a933dad1 2158
9dc15871
EZ
2159Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text
2160for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows.
a933dad1 2161
af71f3ce
EZ
2162When "ClearType" method is selected as the "method to smooth edges of
2163screen fonts" (in Display Properties, Appearance tab, under
2164"Effects"), there are various problems related to display of
f396bf16
JR
2165characters: Bold fonts can be hard to read, small portions of some
2166characters could appear chopped, etc. This happens because, under
2167ClearType, characters are drawn outside their advertised bounding box.
2168Emacs 21 disabled the use of ClearType, whereas Emacs 22 allows it and
2169has some code to enlarge the width of the bounding box. Apparently,
2170this display feature needs more changes to get it 100% right. A
2171workaround is to disable ClearType.
af71f3ce 2172
9dc15871
EZ
2173There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
2174mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
2175frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
2176after moving back into it.
a933dad1 2177
9dc15871
EZ
2178Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
2179not as severely as in 21.1.
a933dad1 2180
9dc15871
EZ
2181An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
2182Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
a933dad1 2183
4ed1bce5 2184Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs. However, some
9dc15871
EZ
2185of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
2186in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
4ed1bce5
EZ
2187characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make these
2188input methods work with Emacs, set the keyboard coding system to the
2189appropriate value after you activate the Windows input method. For
2190example, if you activate the Hebrew input method, type this:
2191
2192 C-x RET k hebrew-iso-8bit RET
2193
2194(Emacs ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up
2195the appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do
2196that yet.) In addition, to use these Windows input methods, you
2197should set your "Language for non-Unicode programs" (on Windows XP,
2198this is on the Advanced tab of Regional Settings) to the language of
2199the input method.
a933dad1 2200
868c31fe
EZ
2201To bind keys that produce non-ASCII characters with modifiers, you
2202must specify raw byte codes. For instance, if you want to bind
2203META-a-grave to a command, you need to specify this in your `~/.emacs':
2204
2205 (global-set-key [?\M-\340] ...)
2206
2207The above example is for the Latin-1 environment where the byte code
2208of the encoded a-grave is 340 octal. For other environments, use the
2209encoding appropriate to that environment.
a933dad1 2210
9dc15871
EZ
2211The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated
2212month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions
2213of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system
2214library function.
a933dad1 2215
cdc9f5c2
JR
2216The function set-time-zone-rule gives incorrect results for many
2217non-US timezones. This is due to over-simplistic handling of
2218daylight savings switchovers by the Windows libraries.
9f1bc31f 2219
365b9257
EZ
2220Files larger than 4GB cause overflow in the size (represented as a
222132-bit integer) reported by `file-attributes'. This affects Dired as
2222well, since the Windows port uses a Lisp emulation of `ls' that relies
2223on `file-attributes'.
2224
56dc0646
EZ
2225Sound playing is not supported with the `:data DATA' key-value pair.
2226You _must_ use the `:file FILE' method.
2227
0a4dd4e4 2228** Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2229
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2230This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
2231you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
2232and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
2233more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
d169ccbd
EZ
2234or disable it in the "Regional and Language Options" applet of the
2235Control Panel. (The exact sequence of mouse clicks in the "Regional
2236and Language Options" applet needed to find the key combination that
2237changes the keyboard layout depends on your Windows version; for XP,
2238in the Languages tab, click "Details" and then "Key Settings".)
a933dad1 2239
651f8172
EZ
2240** Cygwin build of Emacs hangs after rebasing Cygwin DLLs
2241
2242Usually, on Cygwin, one needs to rebase the DLLs if an application
2243aborts with a message like this:
2244
2245 C:\cygwin\bin\python.exe: *** unable to remap C:\cygwin\bin\cygssl.dll to
2246 same address as parent(0xDF0000) != 0xE00000
2247
2248However, since Cygwin DLL 1.5.17 was released, after such rebasing,
2249Emacs hangs.
2250
2251This was reported to happen for Emacs 21.2 and also for the pretest of
2252Emacs 22.1 on Cygwin.
2253
2254To work around this, build Emacs like this:
2255
2256 LDFLAGS='-Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base' ./configure
2257 make LD='$(CC)'
2258 make LD='$(CC)' install
2259
2260This produces an Emacs binary that is independent of rebasing.
2261
2262Note that you _must_ use LD='$(CC)' in the last two commands above, to
2263prevent GCC from passing the "--image-base 0x20000000" option to the
2264linker, which is what it does by default. That option produces an
2265Emacs binary with the base address 0x20000000, which will cause Emacs
2266to hang after Cygwin DLLs are rebased.
2267
0a4dd4e4 2268** Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
a933dad1 2269
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2270Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
2271MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
2272port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
2273keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
2274of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
a933dad1 2275
0a4dd4e4 2276** Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2277
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2278If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
2279due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
2280and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
2281port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
2282are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
2283confuses ange-ftp.
a933dad1 2284
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2285The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
2286(version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
2287Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
2288directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
2289variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
2290client's executable. For example:
a933dad1 2291
9dc15871 2292 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
a933dad1 2293
9dc15871
EZ
2294If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
2295this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
a933dad1 2296
9dc15871 2297 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
a933dad1 2298
9dc15871 2299** lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers.
a933dad1 2300
9dc15871
EZ
2301This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is
2302likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific.
a933dad1 2303
9dc15871
EZ
2304Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not
2305print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical
2306printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic
2307built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it
2308has):
a933dad1 2309
9dc15871
EZ
2310(setq printer-name "") ;; notepad takes the default
2311(setq lpr-command "notepad") ;; notepad
2312(setq lpr-switches nil) ;; not needed
2313(setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ;; run notepad as batch printer
a933dad1 2314
9dc15871 2315** Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2316
9dc15871
EZ
2317The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
2318work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
2319was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
2320work when an antivirus package is installed.
a933dad1 2321
9dc15871
EZ
2322The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
2323mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
2324or disable it entirely.
a933dad1 2325
9dc15871 2326** Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event.
a933dad1 2327
9dc15871
EZ
2328This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows
2329programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many
2330mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something
2331different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a
2332middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to
2333"scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a
2334generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2335
9dc15871 2336** Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window.
a933dad1 2337
9dc15871
EZ
2338This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of
2339generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar
2340movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple
2341scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2342
9dc15871
EZ
2343** Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
2344mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
2345exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
2346seen.
a933dad1 2347
9dc15871
EZ
2348** On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
2349CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
a933dad1 2350
9dc15871 2351This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
a933dad1 2352
9dc15871
EZ
2353Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
2354events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
2355distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
2356combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
2357AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
2358to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
a933dad1 2359
9dc15871 2360** Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs' display is incorrect.
a933dad1 2361
9dc15871
EZ
2362The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
2363screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
2364display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
2365to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
a933dad1 2366
9dc15871
EZ
2367This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
2368as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
2369problem lies in the X-server settings.
a933dad1 2370
9dc15871
EZ
2371There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
2372running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
2373un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
2374selection".
a933dad1 2375
9dc15871
EZ
2376Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
2377please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
2378If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
2379here.
a933dad1 2380
9dc15871 2381* Build-time problems
a933dad1 2382
9dc15871 2383** Configuration
a933dad1 2384
9dc15871 2385*** The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
a933dad1 2386
9dc15871
EZ
2387There are reports that this happens on some systems because the linker
2388by default only looks for shared libraries, but jpeg distribution by
2389default only installs a nonshared version of the library, `libjpeg.a'.
a933dad1 2390
9dc15871
EZ
2391If this is the problem, you can configure the jpeg library with the
2392`--enable-shared' option and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a
2393shared version of libjpeg, which you need to install. Finally, rerun
2394the Emacs configure script, which should now find the jpeg library.
2395Alternatively, modify the generated src/Makefile to link the .a file
2396explicitly, and edit src/config.h to define HAVE_JPEG.
a933dad1 2397
f4b84ef4
GM
2398*** `configure' warns ``accepted by the compiler, rejected by the preprocessor''.
2399
2400This indicates a mismatch between the C compiler and preprocessor that
2401configure is using. For example, on Solaris 10 trying to use
2402CC=/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc (the Sun Studio compiler) together with
2403CPP=/usr/ccs/lib/cpp can result in errors of this form (you may also
2404see the error ``"/usr/include/sys/isa_defs.h", line 500: undefined control'').
2405
2406The solution is to tell configure to use the correct C preprocessor
2407for your C compiler (CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E" in the above
2408example).
2409
2410*** `configure' fails with ``"junk.c", line 660: invalid input token: 8.elc''
2411
2412The final stage of the Emacs configure process uses the C preprocessor
2413to generate the Makefiles. Errors of this form can occur if the C
2414preprocessor inserts extra whitespace into its output. The solution
2415is to find the switches that stop your preprocessor from inserting extra
2416whitespace, add them to CPPFLAGS, and re-run configure. For example,
2417this error can occur on Solaris 10 when using the Sun Studio compiler
2418``Sun C 5.8'' with its preprocessor CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E".
2419The relevant switch in this case is "-Xs" (``compile assuming
2420(pre-ANSI) K & R C style code'').
2421
9dc15871 2422** Compilation
a933dad1 2423
9dc15871 2424*** Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
a933dad1 2425
9dc15871 2426This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
880ea925 2427(Red Hat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
9dc15871
EZ
2428(SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
2429configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
2430files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
2431left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
2432itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
2433Emacs executable to fail with the above message.
a933dad1 2434
9dc15871
EZ
2435In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
2436machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
2437(it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
2438This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
a933dad1 2439
9dc15871
EZ
2440If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
2441(Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
2442you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
2443force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
2444problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
2445blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
2446`mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
2447options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
2448`/etc/auto.home'.
a933dad1 2449
9dc15871
EZ
2450Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
2451a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
2452waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
2453to work around the problem.
a933dad1 2454
9dc15871
EZ
2455Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
2456onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
2457you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
2458`/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
a933dad1 2459
9dc15871 2460 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
a933dad1 2461
9dc15871 2462The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
a933dad1 2463
9dc15871 2464*** Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
a933dad1 2465
9dc15871
EZ
2466This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
2467of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
2468version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
2469dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
2470around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
2471incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
2472". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
2473directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
2474variables).
a933dad1 2475
9dc15871
EZ
2476The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
2477`-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
2478when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
2479unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
2480run the script like this:
a933dad1 2481
9dc15871 2482 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
a933dad1 2483
9dc15871
EZ
2484(replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
2485the script).
a933dad1 2486
9dc15871
EZ
2487Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
2488Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
a933dad1 2489
9dc15871
EZ
2490*** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2491*** Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
a933dad1 2492
9dc15871
EZ
2493This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2494had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.To solve the
2495problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2496configure script.
a933dad1 2497
9dc15871 2498*** Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
a933dad1 2499
9dc15871
EZ
2500This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2501the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2502Emacs's configure script.
a933dad1 2503
745377e8
GM
2504*** Building a 32-bit executable on a 64-bit GNU/Linux architecture.
2505
2506First ensure that the necessary 32-bit system libraries and include
2507files are installed. Then use:
2508
2509 env CC="gcc -m32" ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu \
2510 --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib
2511
2512(using the location of the 32-bit X libraries on your system).
2513
1020d879 2514*** Building the Cygwin port for MS-Windows can fail with some GCC versions
9c9f0081
EZ
2515
2516Building Emacs 22 with Cygwin builds of GCC 3.4.4-1 and 3.4.4-2 is
2517reported to either fail or cause Emacs to segfault at run time. In
2518addition, the Cygwin GCC 3.4.4-2 has problems with generating debug
2519info. Cygwin users are advised not to use these versions of GCC for
485a6c18
EZ
2520compiling Emacs. GCC versions 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.1.1, and 4.1.2
2521reportedly build a working Cygwin binary of Emacs, so we recommend
2522these GCC versions. Note that these versions of GCC, 4.0.3, 4.0.4,
25234.1.1, and 4.1.2, are currently the _only_ versions known to succeed
2524in building Emacs (as of v22.1).
9c9f0081
EZ
2525
2526*** Building the native MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
a933dad1 2527
ad05a5de 2528Emacs may not build using some Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
9dc15871
EZ
2529version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
2530necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
2531__MSVCRT__, like so:
a933dad1 2532
9dc15871 2533 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
a933dad1 2534
9dc15871 2535*** Building the MS-Windows port fails with a CreateProcess failure.
a933dad1 2536
9dc15871
EZ
2537Some versions of mingw32 make on some versions of Windows do not seem
2538to detect the shell correctly. Try "make SHELL=cmd.exe", or if that
2539fails, try running make from Cygwin bash instead.
a933dad1 2540
9dc15871 2541*** Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
a933dad1 2542
9dc15871
EZ
2543This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
2544defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
2545patch to assert.h should solve this:
a933dad1 2546
0cc69e7d
EZ
2547 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
2548 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
2549 ***************
2550 *** 41,47 ****
2551 /*
2552 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2553 */
2554 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
2555
2556 #else /* debugging enabled */
2557
2558 --- 41,47 ----
2559 /*
2560 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2561 */
2562 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
2563
2564 #else /* debugging enabled */
a933dad1 2565
a933dad1 2566
3e7c244e 2567*** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio 2005 fails.
a933dad1 2568
3e7c244e
JR
2569Microsoft no longer ships the single threaded version of the C library
2570with their compiler, and the multithreaded static library is missing
0cc69e7d 2571some functions that Microsoft have deemed non-threadsafe. The
3e7c244e
JR
2572dynamically linked C library has all the functions, but there is a
2573conflict between the versions of malloc in the DLL and in Emacs, which
2574is not resolvable due to the way Windows does dynamic linking.
a933dad1 2575
3e7c244e
JR
2576We recommend the use of the MingW port of GCC for compiling Emacs, as
2577not only does it not suffer these problems, but it is also Free
2578software like Emacs.
a933dad1 2579
9dc15871 2580** Linking
a933dad1 2581
9dc15871
EZ
2582*** Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
2583undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
a933dad1 2584
9dc15871
EZ
2585This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
2586with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
2587GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
2588from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
2589compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
2590link stage.
a933dad1 2591
9dc15871 2592A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
a933dad1 2593
9dc15871 2594 make CC=gcc
a933dad1 2595
9dc15871
EZ
2596Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
2597with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs.
a933dad1 2598
9dc15871 2599*** AIX 1.3 ptf 0013: Link failure.
a933dad1 2600
9dc15871
EZ
2601There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2602the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2603workaround/fix is:
a933dad1 2604
9dc15871
EZ
2605 cd /lib
2606 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2607 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
a933dad1 2608
9dc15871
EZ
2609*** AIX 4.1.2: Linker error messages such as
2610 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
2611 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
a933dad1 2612
9dc15871
EZ
2613This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
2614these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
2615you build Emacs:
a933dad1 2616
9dc15871
EZ
2617 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
2618 chmod 664 libIM.a
2619 ranlib libIM.a
a933dad1 2620
9dc15871
EZ
2621Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
2622Makefile).
a933dad1 2623
9dc15871 2624*** Sun with acc: Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
a933dad1 2625
9dc15871 2626To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
a933dad1 2627
9dc15871 2628 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
a933dad1 2629
9dc15871 2630and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
a933dad1 2631
9dc15871
EZ
2632The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2633cannot easily arrange to supply them.
a933dad1 2634
9dc15871 2635*** Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
a933dad1 2636
9dc15871 2637Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
a933dad1 2638
9dc15871 2639*** `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
a933dad1 2640
9dc15871
EZ
2641This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
2642version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
2643definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
2644incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
2645does not work with this version of ncurses.
a933dad1 2646
9dc15871 2647The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
a933dad1 2648
9dc15871 2649** Dumping
a933dad1 2650
9dc15871 2651*** Linux: Segfault during `make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel.
a933dad1 2652
880ea925 2653With certain recent Linux kernels (like the one of Red Hat Fedora Core
cf14a51c 26541 and newer), the new "Exec-shield" functionality is enabled by default, which
ed214edf
JD
2655creates a different memory layout that breaks the emacs dumper. Emacs tries
2656to handle this at build time, but if the workaround used fails, these
2657instructions can be useful.
cf14a51c
JD
2658The work-around explained here is not enough on Fedora Core 4 (and possible
2659newer). Read the next item.
a933dad1 2660
1f02a4ba
JD
2661Configure can overcome the problem of exec-shield if the architecture is
2662x86 and the program setarch is present. On other architectures no
2663workaround is known.
2664
9dc15871 2665You can check the Exec-shield state like this:
a933dad1 2666
9dc15871 2667 cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2668
1f02a4ba 2669It returns non-zero when Exec-shield is enabled, 0 otherwise. Please
9dc15871 2670read your system documentation for more details on Exec-shield and
1f02a4ba
JD
2671associated commands. Exec-shield can be turned off with this command:
2672
2673 echo "0" > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2674
9dc15871
EZ
2675When Exec-shield is enabled, building Emacs will segfault during the
2676execution of this command:
a933dad1 2677
1f02a4ba 2678 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2679
9dc15871 2680To work around this problem, it is necessary to temporarily disable
1f02a4ba
JD
2681Exec-shield while building Emacs, or, on x86, by using the `setarch'
2682command when running temacs like this:
2683
2684 setarch i386 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2685
ade79051 2686
ff0ab406
RS
2687*** Fedora Core 4 GNU/Linux: Segfault during dumping.
2688
2689In addition to exec-shield explained above "Linux: Segfault during
2690`make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel"
2691item, Linux kernel shipped with Fedora Core 4 randomizes the virtual
cf14a51c
JD
2692address space of a process. As the result dumping may fail even if
2693you turn off exec-shield. In this case, use the -R option to the setarch
ff0ab406
RS
2694command:
2695
25fd144d 2696 setarch i386 -R ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
ff0ab406
RS
2697
2698or
2699
ade79051 2700 setarch i386 -R make bootstrap
a933dad1 2701
9dc15871 2702*** Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump.
a933dad1
DL
2703
2704This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
2705Makefile in the src subdirectory, or by build.com on VMS.
2706
2707It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2708space available on the machine.
2709
9dc15871 2710On 68000s, it has also happened because of bugs in the
a933dad1
DL
2711subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2712for large blocks (many pages).
2713
9dc15871
EZ
2714*** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered.
2715*** or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127".
2716*** or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2717*** or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs.
a933dad1
DL
2718
2719This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2720fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2721binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2722
2723In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2724It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2725a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2726itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2727when unpacking the shell archive.
2728
2729I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2730what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2731file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2732
2733If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2734nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2735
2736 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2737 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2738 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2739 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2740 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2741 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2742 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2743 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2744 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2745 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2746 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2747 and remake temacs.
2748 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2749
9dc15871 2750*** temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted".
a933dad1
DL
2751
2752This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2753files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2754space than was allocated.
2755
2756This could be caused by
2757 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2758 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2759 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2760 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2761 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2762 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2763 deleting that file.
2764 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2765 (not from the directory you expected).
2766 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2767 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2768 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2769 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2770 the space required.
2771
2772If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2773of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2774
2775But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2776of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2777problem.
2778
9dc15871 2779*** Linux: Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
a933dad1 2780
9dc15871
EZ
2781The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
2782C backtrace printed by GDB:
a933dad1 2783
9dc15871
EZ
2784 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2785 (gdb) where
2786 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2787 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
2788 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
2789 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
a933dad1 2790
9dc15871
EZ
2791This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
2792of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
2793but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
2794other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
2795distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
2796GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
2797following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
2798distribution:
a933dad1 2799
9dc15871
EZ
2800 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux except for Yellowdog,
2801 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
2802 know what's really going on here. */
2803 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
2804 0x10000000. */
2805 #if defined __linux__
2806 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
2807 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
2808 #endif
2809 #endif
2810 #endif /* 0 */
a933dad1 2811
9dc15871
EZ
2812Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
2813the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
2814should now succeed.
a933dad1 2815
0bce976c
GM
2816*** OpenBSD 4.0 macppc: Segfault during dumping.
2817
2818The build aborts with signal 11 when the command `./temacs --batch
14395431 2819--load loadup bootstrap' tries to load files.el. A workaround seems
464df798 2820to be to reduce the level of compiler optimization used during the
14395431
GM
2821build (from -O2 to -O1). It is possible this is an OpenBSD
2822GCC problem specific to the macppc architecture, possibly only
2823occurring with older versions of GCC (e.g. 3.3.5).
0bce976c 2824
ce46543c
GM
2825*** openSUSE 10.3: Segfault in bcopy during dumping.
2826
2827This is due to a bug in the bcopy implementation in openSUSE 10.3.
2828It is/will be fixed in an openSUSE update.
2829
9dc15871 2830** Installation
a933dad1 2831
9dc15871 2832*** Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
a933dad1 2833
9dc15871
EZ
2834You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
2835supplies the `install-info' command.
a933dad1 2836
6afdff63
GM
2837*** Installing to a directory with spaces in the name fails.
2838
2839For example, if you call configure with a directory-related option
2840with spaces in the value, eg --enable-locallisppath='/path/with\ spaces'.
2841Using directory paths with spaces is not supported at this time: you
2842must re-configure without using spaces.
2843
6c06422c
CY
2844*** Installing to a directory with non-ASCII characters in the name fails.
2845
2846Installation may fail, or the Emacs executable may not start
2847correctly, if a directory name containing non-ASCII characters is used
2848as a `configure' argument (e.g. `--prefix'). The problem can also
2849occur if a non-ASCII directory is specified in the EMACSLOADPATH
2850envvar.
2851
2f6e7d3f
GM
2852*** On Solaris, use GNU Make when installing an out-of-tree build
2853
2854The Emacs configuration process allows you to configure the
2855build environment so that you can build emacs in a directory
2856outside of the distribution tree. When installing Emacs from an
2857out-of-tree build directory on Solaris, you may need to use GNU
2858make. The make programs bundled with Solaris support the VPATH
2859macro but use it differently from the way the VPATH macro is
2860used by GNU make. The differences will cause the "make install"
2861step to fail, leaving you with an incomplete emacs
2862installation. GNU make is available in /usr/sfw/bin on Solaris
286310 and can be installed as /opt/sfw/bin/gmake from the Solaris 9
2864Software Companion CDROM.
2865
2866The problems due to the VPATH processing differences affect only
2867out of tree builds so, if you are on a Solaris installation
2868without GNU make, you can install Emacs completely by installing
2869from a build environment using the original emacs distribution tree.
2870
9dc15871 2871** First execution
a933dad1 2872
9dc15871 2873*** Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
a933dad1 2874
9dc15871
EZ
2875This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
2876via NFS, for some combinations of NFS client and NFS server.
2877Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
2878binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
a933dad1 2879
9dc15871 2880 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
a933dad1 2881
9dc15871
EZ
2882We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
2883build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
a933dad1 2884
9dc15871 2885*** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
a933dad1
DL
2886
2887Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2888
28891) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2890as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2891it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2892value in the man page for a.out (5).
2893
28942) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2895initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2896of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2897not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2898may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2899
9dc15871 2900* Emacs 19 problems
a933dad1 2901
9dc15871 2902** Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'.
a933dad1 2903
9dc15871
EZ
2904This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2905Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2906Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2907where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
a933dad1 2908
9dc15871 2909So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
a933dad1 2910
9dc15871 2911* Runtime problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 2912
9dc15871
EZ
2913This section covers bugs reported on very old hardware or software.
2914If you are using hardware and an operating system shipped after 2000,
2915it is unlikely you will see any of these.
a933dad1 2916
9dc15871 2917** Ancient operating systems
a933dad1 2918
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2919AIX 4.2 was end-of-lifed on Dec 31st, 1999.
2920
2921*** AIX: You get this compiler error message:
2922
2923 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2924 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2925
2926This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2927libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2928X11Dev... with smit.
2929
2930(This report must be ancient. Bootable tapes are long dead.)
2931
2932*** AIX 3.2.4: Releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2933
2934Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2935ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2936lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2937treated as control characters.
2938
2939You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2940releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2941
2942*** AIX 3.2.5: You get this message when running Emacs:
2943
2944 Could not load program emacs
2945 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2946 Error was: Exec format error
2947
2948or this one:
2949
2950 Could not load program .emacs
2951 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2952 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2953 Error was: Exec format error
2954
2955These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2956compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2957
2958*** AIX 4.2: Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup.
2959
2960If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
2961without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
2962
9dc15871 2963*** ISC Unix
a933dad1 2964
9dc15871 2965**** ISC: display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
a933dad1 2966
9dc15871
EZ
2967Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2968versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2969cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2970This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2971processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
a933dad1 2972
9dc15871
EZ
2973Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2974the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
a933dad1 2975
9dc15871 2976The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
a933dad1 2977
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2978**** Sunos 5.3: Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies.
2979
2980A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2981exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2982applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2983communicating through pipes.
2984
9dc15871 2985*** Irix
a933dad1 2986
9dc15871 2987*** Irix 6.2: No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
a933dad1 2988
9dc15871
EZ
2989This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
2990as of 8 Dec 1998.
a933dad1 2991
9dc15871 2992The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
a933dad1 2993
9dc15871
EZ
2994*** Irix 6.3: substituting environment variables in file names
2995in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
a933dad1 2996
9dc15871 2997 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
a933dad1 2998
9dc15871
EZ
2999This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
3000003082 August 11, 1998.
a933dad1 3001
9dc15871 3002*** OPENSTEP
a933dad1 3003
9dc15871 3004**** OPENSTEP 4.2: Compiling syntax.c with gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
a933dad1 3005
9dc15871
EZ
3006The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
3007following message:
a933dad1 3008
9dc15871 3009 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
a933dad1 3010
9dc15871
EZ
3011To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
3012INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
3013functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
a933dad1 3014
9dc15871
EZ
3015 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
3016 {
3017 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
3018 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
a933dad1 3019
9dc15871
EZ
3020Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
3021with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
a933dad1 3022
9dc15871 3023*** Solaris 2.x
a933dad1 3024
9dc15871 3025**** Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
a933dad1 3026
9dc15871
EZ
3027Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
3028editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
3029as GCC.
a933dad1 3030
9dc15871 3031**** On Solaris, Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called.
a933dad1 3032
9dc15871
EZ
3033If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
3034of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
3035called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
a933dad1 3036
9dc15871 3037**** On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
a933dad1 3038
9dc15871
EZ
3039This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
3040version of Solaris that you are using.
a933dad1 3041
9dc15871 3042**** Solaris 2.3 and 2.4: Unpredictable segmentation faults.
a933dad1 3043
9dc15871
EZ
3044A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
3045the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
a933dad1 3046
9dc15871 3047We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
a933dad1 3048
9dc15871 3049**** Solaris 2.4: Emacs dumps core on startup.
a933dad1 3050
9dc15871
EZ
3051Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
3052102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
3053Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
3054by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
3055However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
a933dad1 3056
9dc15871
EZ
3057Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
3058you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
3059We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
3060for certain.
a933dad1 3061
9dc15871
EZ
3062 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
3063 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
3064 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
a933dad1 3065
9dc15871
EZ
3066(One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
3067with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
a933dad1 3068
9dc15871
EZ
3069If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
3070bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
a933dad1 3071
9dc15871
EZ
3072Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
3073Solaris 2.5.
a933dad1 3074
9dc15871
EZ
3075**** Solaris 2.4: Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
3076forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
a933dad1 3077
9dc15871
EZ
3078casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
3079after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
a933dad1 3080
9dc15871
EZ
3081 #if ThreadedX
3082 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3083 #endif
a933dad1 3084
9dc15871 3085to:
a933dad1 3086
9dc15871
EZ
3087 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
3088 #if ThreadedX
3089 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3090 #endif
3091 #endif
3092
3093Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
3094(as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
3095OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
3096Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
3097definition for your type of machine and system.
a933dad1 3098
9dc15871
EZ
3099Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
3100the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
3101Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
a933dad1 3102
9dc15871
EZ
3103For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
3104101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
3105to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
3106patch.
a933dad1 3107
9dc15871
EZ
3108However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
3109he changed
3110 #define ThreadedX YES
3111to
3112 #define ThreadedX NO
3113in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
3114`-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
3115typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
a933dad1 3116
9dc15871 3117**** Solaris 2.x: GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported".
a933dad1 3118
9dc15871
EZ
3119This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
3120are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
3121does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
3122later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
3123described in the Solaris FAQ
3124<http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
3125to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
a933dad1 3126
9dc15871
EZ
3127**** Solaris 2.7: Building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
3128C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
3129compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
3130release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
3131another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
3132and the default CFLAGS.
a933dad1 3133
9dc15871 3134**** Solaris 2.x: Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
a933dad1 3135
9dc15871
EZ
3136The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
3137Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
3138(Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
3139You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
3140You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
3141look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
3142are currently recommended for your host.
a933dad1 3143
9dc15871
EZ
3144On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
3145105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
3146105284-18 might fix it again.
a933dad1 3147
0a4dd4e4 3148**** Solaris 2.6 and 7: the Compose key does not work.
a933dad1 3149
9dc15871
EZ
3150This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
3151the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
3152support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
3153If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
a933dad1 3154
9dc15871
EZ
3155One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
3156For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
3157variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
3158lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
3159should do.
a933dad1 3160
9dc15871
EZ
3161pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
3162if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
3163libraries.
a933dad1 3164
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3165*** HP/UX versions before 11.0
3166
bf247b6e 3167HP/UX 9 was end-of-lifed in December 1998.
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3168HP/UX 10 was end-of-lifed in May 1999.
3169
3170**** HP/UX 9: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV after you delete a frame.
3171
3172We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
3173the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
3174does not happen.
3175
3176*** HP/UX 10: Large file support is disabled.
3177
3178See the comments in src/s/hpux10.h.
3179
3180*** HP/UX: Emacs is slow using X11R5.
3181
3182This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
3183doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
3184because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
3185libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
3186those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
3187install them and rebuild Emacs.
3188
9dc15871 3189*** Ultrix and Digital Unix
a933dad1 3190
9dc15871 3191**** Ultrix 4.2: `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
a933dad1 3192
9dc15871
EZ
3193This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
3194commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
3195Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
3196hand.
a933dad1 3197
9dc15871 3198**** Digital Unix 4.0: Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs.
a933dad1 3199
9dc15871
EZ
3200So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
3201is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
3202properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
3203`tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
3204in Emacs.
a933dad1 3205
9dc15871 3206**** Ultrix: `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
a933dad1 3207
9dc15871
EZ
3208On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
3209in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
3210expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
3211in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
a933dad1 3212
9dc15871
EZ
3213The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
3214anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
a933dad1 3215
9dc15871
EZ
3216I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
3217going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
3218Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
3219in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
a933dad1 3220
9dc15871 3221*** SVr4
a933dad1 3222
9dc15871 3223**** SVr4: On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
a933dad1 3224
9dc15871
EZ
3225Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
3226the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
3227sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
a933dad1 3228
9dc15871 3229**** SVr4: After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
a933dad1 3230
9dc15871
EZ
3231Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
3232mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
3233the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
a933dad1 3234
9dc15871
EZ
3235Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
3236you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
3237operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
3238configure script) that reads:
3239#define SYSTEM_MALLOC
3240This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
3241the kernel bug.
a933dad1 3242
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3243*** Irix 5 and earlier
3244
bf247b6e 3245Exactly when Irix-5 end-of-lifed is obscure. But since Irix 6.0
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3246shipped in 1994, it has been some years.
3247
3248**** Irix 5.2: unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
3249
3250The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
3251Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
3252compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
3253workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
3254syms.h.
3255
3256**** Irix 5.3: "out of virtual swap space".
3257
3258This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
3259many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
3260swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
3261can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
3262command `swap -l'.
3263
3264You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
3265line like this:
3266
3267/usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
3268
3269where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
3270by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
3271that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
3272new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
3273information.
3274
3275The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
3276swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
3277on the network that can log on to the host.
3278
3279If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
3280the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
3281some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
3282icons.
3283
3284You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
3285FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
3286("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
3287ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
3288
3289**** Irix 5.3: Emacs crashes in utmpname.
3290
3291This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
3292It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
3293
3294**** Irix 6.0: Make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi.
3295
3296A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
3297in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
3298find that string, and take out the spaces.
3299
3300Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
3301
3302*** SCO Unix and UnixWare
3303
3304**** SCO 3.2v4: Unusable default font.
3305
3306The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
3307that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
3308fonts, so it does not work.
3309
3310This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
3311the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
3312emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
3313that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
3314resources affect Emacs also:
3315
3316 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
3317 *Background: scoBackground
3318 *Foreground: scoForeground
3319
3320The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
3321Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
3322
3323 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
3324 Emacs*Background: white
3325 Emacs*Foreground: black
3326
3327(These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
3328suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
3329starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
3330environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
3331as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
3332/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
3333but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
3334Open Desktop display.
3335
3336These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
3337machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
3338
3339**** SCO 4.2.0: Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
3340
3341On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
3342with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
3343version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
3344C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
3345GCC.
3346
3347**** UnixWare 2.1: Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs.
3348
3349Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
3350virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
3351the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
3352error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
3353exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
3354memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
3355
3356You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
3357But you have to be root to do it.
3358
3359According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
3360
3361 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
3362 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
3363 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
3364 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
3365 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
3366
3367(He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
3368These changes take effect when you reboot.
3369
9dc15871 3370*** Linux 1.x
a933dad1 3371
9dc15871 3372**** Linux 1.0-1.04: Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
a933dad1 3373
9dc15871
EZ
3374This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
3375to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
3376Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
a933dad1 3377
9dc15871
EZ
3378**** Linux 1.3: Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly
3379truncated on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1 3380
9dc15871
EZ
3381This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
33821.3.75.
a933dad1 3383
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3384** Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME
3385
3386*** MS-Windows NT/95: Problems running Perl under Emacs
3387
3388`perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
3389The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
3390
3391The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
3392"CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
3393with the user.
3394
3395On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
3396pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
3397communicate with the subprocess.
3398
3399On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
3400relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
3401redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
3402stdin.
3403
3404A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
3405
3406For Perl 4:
3407
3408 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
3409 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
3410 ***************
3411 *** 68,74 ****
3412 $rcfile=".perldb";
3413 }
3414 else {
3415 ! $console = "con";
3416 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3417 }
3418
3419 --- 68,74 ----
3420 $rcfile=".perldb";
3421 }
3422 else {
3423 ! $console = "";
3424 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3425 }
3426
3427
3428 For Perl 5:
3429 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
3430 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
3431 ***************
3432 *** 22,28 ****
3433 $rcfile=".perldb";
3434 }
3435 elsif (-e "con") {
3436 ! $console = "con";
3437 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3438 }
3439 else {
3440 --- 22,28 ----
3441 $rcfile=".perldb";
3442 }
3443 elsif (-e "con") {
3444 ! $console = "";
3445 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3446 }
3447 else {
3448
3449*** MS-Windows 95: Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
3450
3451This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
3452You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
3453
3454*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: subprocesses do not terminate properly.
3455
3456This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
3457when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
3458cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
3459http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/.
3460
3461*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
3462
3463When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
3464Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
3465particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
3466program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
3467PATH.
3468
9dc15871 3469** MS-DOS
a933dad1 3470
9dc15871 3471*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT, "config msdos" fails.
a933dad1 3472
9dc15871
EZ
3473If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
3474Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
3475program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
3476config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
3477the front of your PATH environment variable.
a933dad1 3478
9dc15871
EZ
3479*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
3480like make-docfile.
a933dad1 3481
9dc15871
EZ
3482This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
3483variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
3484compilation are not the same. See the MSDOG section of INSTALL for
3485the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
a933dad1 3486
9dc15871 3487*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
a933dad1 3488
9dc15871 3489 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
a933dad1 3490
9dc15871
EZ
3491This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
3492on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
3493value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
3494works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
3495support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
3496undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
3497[emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
3498`TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
3499your system works as before.
a933dad1 3500
9dc15871 3501*** MS-DOS: Emacs crashes at startup.
a933dad1 3502
9dc15871
EZ
3503Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
3504and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
3505know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
3506memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
3507However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
a933dad1 3508
9dc15871
EZ
3509You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
3510arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
3511information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
3512is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
a933dad1 3513
9dc15871
EZ
3514Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
3515configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
3516removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
3517and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
3518the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
a933dad1 3519
9dc15871
EZ
3520*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
3521in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
3522drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
a933dad1 3523
9dc15871
EZ
3524This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
3525device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
3526work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
a933dad1 3527
9dc15871 3528*** MS-DOS+DJGPP: Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs.
a933dad1 3529
9dc15871 3530There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
a933dad1 3531
9dc15871
EZ
3532 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
3533 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
3534 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
a933dad1 3535
9dc15871
EZ
3536To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
3537subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
3538them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
3539incorrect library functions.
a933dad1 3540
9dc15871
EZ
3541*** MS-DOS: Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
3542run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
a933dad1 3543
9dc15871
EZ
3544Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
3545immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
3546the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
3547and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
a933dad1 3548
9dc15871
EZ
3549Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
3550the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
3551Lisp.
a933dad1 3552
9dc15871
EZ
3553This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
3554support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
3555characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
3556You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
3557filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
3558compiled with DJGPP v2). The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
3559explains this issue in more detail.
a933dad1 3560
9dc15871
EZ
3561Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
3562MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
3563by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
3564unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
3565them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
3566must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
3567properly truncated.
a933dad1 3568
9dc15871 3569** Archaic window managers and toolkits
a933dad1 3570
9dc15871 3571*** OpenLook: Under OpenLook, the Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
a933dad1 3572
9dc15871
EZ
3573Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
3574command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
3575Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
3576manager to use some other command. You can disable the
3577shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
a933dad1 3578
9dc15871 3579 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
a933dad1 3580
9dc15871 3581**** twm: A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
a933dad1 3582
9dc15871
EZ
3583twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
3584You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
a933dad1 3585
9dc15871 3586 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
a933dad1 3587
9dc15871 3588** Bugs related to old DEC hardware
a933dad1 3589
9dc15871 3590*** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
a933dad1 3591
9dc15871 3592This shell command should fix it:
a933dad1 3593
9dc15871 3594 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
a933dad1 3595
9dc15871
EZ
3596*** Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
3597as a concentrator.
a933dad1 3598
9dc15871
EZ
3599This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
36007 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
a933dad1 3601
9dc15871 3602* Build problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 3603
9dc15871 3604** BSD/386 1.0: --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong.
a933dad1 3605
9dc15871
EZ
3606This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
3607The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
3608such as bash.
a933dad1 3609
9dc15871
EZ
3610** Digital Unix 4.0: Emacs fails to build, giving error message
3611 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
a933dad1 3612
9dc15871
EZ
3613This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
3614Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
a933dad1 3615
9dc15871 3616** Digital Unix 4.0: Failure in unexec while dumping emacs.
a933dad1 3617
9dc15871 3618This problem manifests itself as an error message
a933dad1 3619
9dc15871 3620 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
a933dad1 3621
9dc15871
EZ
3622The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
3623were built for an older system version,
a933dad1 3624
9dc15871 3625 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
a933dad1 3626
9dc15871 3627made the problem go away.
a933dad1 3628
9dc15871 3629** Sunos 4.1.1: there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
a933dad1 3630
9dc15871 3631If you get errors such as
a933dad1 3632
9dc15871
EZ
3633 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3634 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3635 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
a933dad1 3636
9dc15871
EZ
3637This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
3638to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
3639script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
3640make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
3641ones available when you build Emacs.
a933dad1 3642
9dc15871 3643** SunOS 4.1.1: You get this error message from GNU ld:
a933dad1 3644
9dc15871 3645 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
a933dad1 3646
9dc15871 3647The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
a933dad1 3648
9dc15871 3649The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
a933dad1 3650
9dc15871 3651** Sunos 4.1: Undefined symbols when linking using --with-x-toolkit.
a933dad1 3652
9dc15871
EZ
3653If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
3654_iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
3655-lXaw in the command that links temacs.
a933dad1 3656
9dc15871
EZ
3657This problem seems to arise only when the international language
3658extensions to X11R5 are installed.
a933dad1 3659
9dc15871 3660** SunOS: Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
a933dad1 3661
9dc15871
EZ
3662If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
3663`ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
3664that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
3665with a floating point option other than the default.
a933dad1 3666
9dc15871
EZ
3667It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
3668crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
3669However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
3670floating point option: -fsoft.
a933dad1 3671
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3672** HPUX 10.20: Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine.
3673
3674This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
3675
9dc15871 3676** VMS: Compilation errors on VMS.
a933dad1 3677
9dc15871
EZ
3678You will get warnings when compiling on VMS because there are
3679variable names longer than 32 (or whatever it is) characters.
3680This is not an error. Ignore it.
a933dad1 3681
9dc15871
EZ
3682VAX C does not support #if defined(foo). Uses of this construct
3683were removed, but some may have crept back in. They must be rewritten.
a933dad1 3684
9dc15871
EZ
3685There is a bug in the C compiler which fails to sign extend characters
3686in conditional expressions. The bug is:
3687 char c = -1, d = 1;
3688 int i;
a933dad1 3689
9dc15871
EZ
3690 i = d ? c : d;
3691The result is i == 255; the fix is to typecast the char in the
3692conditional expression as an (int). Known occurrences of such
3693constructs in Emacs have been fixed.
a933dad1 3694
9dc15871 3695** Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
a933dad1
DL
3696
3697You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3698
3699 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3700 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3701
3702These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3703Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3704may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3705on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3706in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3707can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3708that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3709
3710As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3711you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3712can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3713should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3714array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3715 Lisp_Object *args;
3716 ...
3717 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3718putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3719 Lisp_Object *args;
3720 Lisp_Object tem;
3721 ...
3722 tem = args[i];
3723 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3724causes the problem to go away.
3725The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3726so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3727
9dc15871 3728** 68000 C compiler problems
a933dad1
DL
3729
3730Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3731These are some that have been observed.
3732
9dc15871 3733*** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
a933dad1
DL
3734This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3735if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3736
9dc15871 3737*** "cannot reclaim" error.
a933dad1
DL
3738
3739This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3740line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3741simpler expressions.
3742
9dc15871 3743*** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
a933dad1
DL
3744
3745If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3746Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3747
3748struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3749
3750lose (arg)
3751 struct foo arg;
3752{
3753 test ((int *) arg.y);
3754}
3755
3756If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3757In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3758((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3759
3760This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3761of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE. That is the recommended setting now.
3762
9dc15871 3763*** C compilers lose on returning unions.
a933dad1
DL
3764
3765I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3766Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3767defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3768
3769This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3770of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE.
3771
53854552 3772\f
5b87ad55 3773This file is part of GNU Emacs.
fe6b4873 3774
ab73e885 3775GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
5b87ad55 3776it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
ab73e885
GM
3777the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
3778(at your option) any later version.
fe6b4873 3779
5b87ad55
GM
3780GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3781but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3782MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3783GNU General Public License for more details.
3784
3785You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
ab73e885 3786along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
5b87ad55
GM
3787
3788\f
53854552
EZ
3789Local variables:
3790mode: outline
3791paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
3792end:
6b61353c
KH
3793
3794arch-tag: 49fc0d95-88cb-4715-b21c-f27fb5a4764a