Revision: miles@gnu.org--gnu-2005/emacs--unicode--0--patch-13
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / PROBLEMS
CommitLineData
a933dad1 1This file describes various problems that have been encountered
0a4dd4e4 2in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs. Try doing Ctl-C Ctl-t
9dc15871 3and browsing through the outline headers.
a933dad1 4
2c311b39
DL
5* Mule-UCS doesn't work in Emacs 22.
6
7It's completely redundant now, as far as we know.
8
9dc15871 9* Emacs startup failures
32364f49 10
9dc15871 11** Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
32364f49 12
9dc15871 13A typical error message might be something like
32364f49 14
9dc15871 15 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
6b61353c 16
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17This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
18Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
19are:
6b61353c 20
9dc15871 21 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
6b61353c 22
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23 - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or
24 /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or
25 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
6b61353c 26
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27One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
28fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
29the problematic line(s) and correct them.
6b61353c 30
9dc15871 31** Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
6b61353c 32
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33This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
34installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
35specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
36corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
37the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
38Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
39files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
40original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
41not to work.
6b61353c 42
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43The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
44when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
45is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
46same directory where system header files are kept.
6b61353c 47
9dc15871 48** Emacs does not start, complaining that it cannot open termcap database file.
6b61353c 49
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50If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern
51systems do), this could happen if the proper version of
52ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it
53cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for
54libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is
55obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries.
6b61353c 56
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57The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in
58the developer's form (header files, static libraries and
59symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian)
60it constitutes a separate package.
6b61353c 61
9dc15871 62** Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
5b4ffca2 63
9dc15871 64The typical error message might be like this:
5b4ffca2 65
9dc15871 66 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
c763d515 67
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68This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
69tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
70files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
71Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
72when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
73required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
74it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
f1c231c4 75
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76Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
77file could fail to load if it is compressed.
fc2938d1 78
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79The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
80file.
6b61353c 81
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82Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
83lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
84print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
6b61353c 85
9dc15871 86 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
6b61353c 87
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88If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
89and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
90load-path.
f0f62f71 91
9dc15871 92** Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
f0f62f71 93
9dc15871 94An example of such an error is:
f0f62f71 95
9dc15871 96 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
fc1bfc2a 97
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98This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your load-path.
99The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
100present in load-path:
fc1bfc2a 101
9dc15871 102 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
fc1bfc2a 103
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104If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
105and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
106load-path.
60f553d2 107
9dc15871 108** With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
3f82efb4 109
9dc15871 110Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
3f82efb4 111
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112 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
113 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
114 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
115 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
116 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
117 /******************************************************************
3f82efb4 118
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119 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
120 @@ -166,8 +166,8 @@
121 _XimMakeImName(lcd)
122 XLCd lcd;
123 {
124 - char* begin;
125 - char* end;
126 + char* begin = NULL;
127 + char* end = NULL;
128 char* ret;
129 int i = 0;
130 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
131 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
132 }
133 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
134 if (ret != NULL) {
135 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
136 + if (begin != NULL) {
137 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
138 + } else {
139 + ret[0] = '\0';
140 + }
141 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
142 }
143 return ret;
3f82efb4 144
9dc15871 145* Crash bugs
cc305a60 146
9dc15871 147** Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
cc305a60 148
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149This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
150use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
151an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
152happens to exist on your X server).
fc2938d1 153
9dc15871 154** Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
fc2938d1 155
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156This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
157prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
158to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
177c0ea7 159
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160Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
161(src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
fc2938d1 162
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163** Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
164a segmentation fault and core dump.
c93bdf05 165
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166This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
167added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
c93bdf05 168
9dc15871 169 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
c93bdf05 170
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171If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
172untar it :-).
c93bdf05 173
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174** Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
175libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
176Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur
177if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an
178older version.
4593687f 179
9dc15871 180** Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
9272ccfc 181
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182This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
183terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
184If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
185version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
186and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
9272ccfc 187
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188All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
189problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
190terminfo when built.
9272ccfc 191
9dc15871 192** Emacs crashes when using the Exceed 6.0 X server.
7aa70236 193
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194If you are using Exceed 6.1, upgrade to a later version. This was
195reported to prevent the crashes.
7aa70236 196
9dc15871 197** Emacs crashes with SIGSEGV in XtInitializeWidgetClass.
7c22dc9d 198
9dc15871 199It crashes on X, but runs fine when called with option "-nw".
7c22dc9d 200
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201This has been observed when Emacs is linked with GNU ld but without passing
202the -z nocombreloc flag. Emacs normally knows to pass the -z nocombreloc
203flag when needed, so if you come across a situation where the flag is
204necessary but missing, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug.
7c22dc9d 205
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206On platforms such as Solaris, you can also work around this problem by
207configuring your compiler to use the native linker instead of GNU ld.
7c22dc9d 208
9dc15871 209* General runtime problems
7c22dc9d 210
9dc15871 211** Lisp problems
677e7496 212
9dc15871 213*** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
677e7496 214
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215You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
216Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
217will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
218and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
677e7496 219
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220Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
221than the corresponding .el file.
677e7496 222
9dc15871 223*** Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars.
677e7496 224
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225These control the actions of Emacs.
226~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
227EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
228"load" will search.
677e7496 229
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230If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
231of them, then try again.
9ed04369 232
9dc15871 233*** Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error.
9ed04369 234
9dc15871 235The error message might be something like this:
b87207a0 236
9dc15871 237 "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth"
b87207a0 238
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239This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a
240built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch
241for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3
242corrects that.
177c0ea7 243
9dc15871 244*** Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
177c0ea7 245
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246Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
247problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
248documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
177c0ea7 249
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250*** The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
251Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
252`add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
253'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
177c0ea7 254
9dc15871 255** Keyboard problems
b87207a0 256
9dc15871 257*** "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
61638355 258
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259If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
260will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
261in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
262did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
263character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
264must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
61638355 265
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266You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
267them to two different keys.
a47a639f 268
9dc15871 269*** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
a47a639f 270
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271You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
272though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
273or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
a47a639f 274
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275*** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
276to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
a47a639f 277
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278This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
279with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
280another escape character in kermit. One user did
61638355 281
9dc15871 282 set escape-character 17
61638355 283
9dc15871 284in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
61638355 285
9dc15871 286** Mailers and other helper programs
61638355 287
9dc15871 288*** movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
61638355 289
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290Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
291NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
292entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
293listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
294the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
295old POP protocol.
61638355 296
9dc15871 297*** RMAIL gets error getting new mail.
61638355 298
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299RMAIL gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
300called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
301the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
61638355 302
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303There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
304the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
305`movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
306this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
307the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
308IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
309SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
61638355 310
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311If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
312prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
313you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
314`mail'. You can use these commands (as root):
61638355 315
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316 chgrp mail movemail
317 chmod 2755 movemail
61638355 318
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319If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
320prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
321you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
322`mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
323make install.
61638355 324
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325 chgrp mail movemail
326 chmod 2755 movemail
61638355 327
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328Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
329installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
330installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
331/usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
332mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
333directory copy is ineffective.
61638355 334
9dc15871 335*** rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
61638355 336
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337This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
338The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
61638355 339
9dc15871 340** Problems with hostname resolution
61638355 341
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342*** Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
343the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
344*** Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
345*** GNUs can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
61638355 346
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347This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
348libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
349shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
350similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
556a9fad 351
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352The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
353the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
61638355 354
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355The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
356installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
49172314 357
9dc15871 358On SunOS 4.1, simply define HAVE_RES_INIT.
96bde66b 359
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360If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
361then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
362do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
363or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
364that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
365be careful not to lose the others.
ed0d1d91 366
9dc15871 367Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
6e1a66dc 368
9dc15871 369#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
6e1a66dc 370
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371Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
372the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
373again to say this:
3c418e54 374
9dc15871 375#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
3c418e54 376
9dc15871 377*** Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
3c418e54 378
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379You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
380either in /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system
381calls for specifying this.
f9130829 382
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383If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
384mail-host-address to the value you want.
f9130829 385
9dc15871 386** NFS and RFS
f9130829 387
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388*** Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
389appear on disk.
f9130829 390
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391This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
392remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
393implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
394detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
395calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
396where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
f9130829 397
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398*** Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
399It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
400but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
401causes it.
f9130829 402
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403 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
404 call in the RFS server.
f9130829 405
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406 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
407 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
408 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
409 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
ed85f61d 410
9dc15871 411 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
b300fd77 412
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413 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
414 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
415 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
416 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
417 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
418 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
419 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
b300fd77 420
9dc15871 421 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
ed85f61d 422
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423 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
424 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
425 retrieving revision 1.2
426 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
427 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
428 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
429 ***************
430 *** 163,169 ****
431 /*
432 * No return sent for close or fsync!
433 */
434 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
435 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
436 else
437 {
438 --- 166,172 ----
439 /*
440 * No return sent for close or fsync!
441 */
442 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
443 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
444 else
445 {
ed85f61d 446
9dc15871 447** PSGML
fa2301bf 448
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449*** Old versions of the PSGML package use the obsolete variables
450`before-change-function' and `after-change-function', which are no
451longer used by Emacs. Please use PSGML 1.2.3 or later.
ed85f61d 452
9dc15871 453*** PSGML conflicts with sgml-mode.
d0cf6c7d 454
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455PSGML package uses the same names of some variables (like keymap)
456as built-in sgml-mode.el because it was created as a replacement
457of that package. The conflict will be shown if you load
458sgml-mode.el before psgml.el. E.g. this could happen if you edit
459HTML page and then start to work with SGML or XML file. html-mode
460(from sgml-mode.el) is used for HTML file and loading of psgml.el
461(for sgml-mode or xml-mode) will cause an error.
d0cf6c7d 462
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463*** Versions of the PSGML package earlier than 1.0.3 (stable) or 1.1.2
464(alpha) fail to parse DTD files correctly in Emacs 20.3 and later.
465Here is a patch for psgml-parse.el from PSGML 1.0.1 and, probably,
466earlier versions.
d0cf6c7d 467
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468--- psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:18:18 1.1
469+++ psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:20:00
470@@ -2383,7 +2383,7 @@ (defun sgml-push-to-entity (entity &opti
471 (setq sgml-buffer-parse-state nil))
472 (cond
473 ((stringp entity) ; a file name
474- (save-excursion (insert-file-contents entity))
475+ (insert-file-contents entity)
476 (setq default-directory (file-name-directory entity)))
477 ((consp (sgml-entity-text entity)) ; external id?
478 (let* ((extid (sgml-entity-text entity))
d0cf6c7d 479
90a02640 480** AUCTeX
c289e7f0 481
90a02640
DK
482You should not be using a version older than 11.52 if you can avoid
483it.
339b95d5 484
90a02640 485*** Emacs 21 freezes when visiting a TeX file with AUCTeX installed.
339b95d5 486
90a02640 487Emacs 21 needs version 10 or later of AUCTeX; upgrading should solve
9dc15871 488these problems.
339b95d5 489
90a02640 490*** No colors in AUCTeX with Emacs 21.
339b95d5 491
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492Upgrade to AUC TeX version 10 or later, and make sure it is
493byte-compiled with Emacs 21.
b87207a0 494
9dc15871 495** Miscellaneous problems
f936978f 496
9dc15871 497*** Self-documentation messages are garbled.
6fb6f3ac 498
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499This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
500with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
501corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
b87207a0 502
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503*** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
504terminal type.
b87207a0 505
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506The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
507environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
508provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
509emulates.
b87207a0 510
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511Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
512in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
513it only if it is undefined.
b87207a0 514
9dc15871 515 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
e085efdb 516
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517Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
518happen in a non-login shell.
fa99e2a4 519
9dc15871 520*** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
c8d9b4ee 521
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522This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
523smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
524on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
525problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
fe445893 526
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527 if ($?EMACS) then
528 if ($EMACS == "t") then
529 unset edit
530 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
531 endif
532 endif
c8d9b4ee 533
9dc15871 534*** Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow.
d9810886 535
9dc15871
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536This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the
537full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the
538/etc/hosts file, something like this:
a408ce18 539
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540127.0.0.1 localhost
541129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04
a408ce18 542
9dc15871 543The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems.
a38f41c4 544
9dc15871 545*** Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails.
a38f41c4 546
9dc15871
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547If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
548representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
549ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux, kernel
550version 2.4.3, with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other
551systems as well. To avoid this problem, switch to using the standard
552ftp client. On a Debian system, type
a38f41c4 553
9dc15871 554 update-alternatives --config ftp
a38f41c4 555
9dc15871 556and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
a38f41c4 557
9dc15871 558*** JPEG images aren't displayed.
b87207a0 559
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560This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
561Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem. Configure checks for the
562correct version, but this problem could occur if a binary built
563against a shared libjpeg is run on a system with an older version.
b87207a0 564
9dc15871 565*** Dired is very slow.
4e0bd469
EZ
566
567This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long
568time. Possible reasons for this include:
569
570 - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df'
571 response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds);
572
573 - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix;
574
575 - slow operation of some versions of `df'.
576
577To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable
578`directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from
579invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or
580(c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase.
581
9dc15871 582*** Versions of the W3 package released before Emacs 21.1 don't run
fc2938d1 583under Emacs 21. This fixed in W3 version 4.0pre.47.
a953a8d3 584
9dc15871 585*** The LDAP support rely on ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 2.
8f4df059
PJ
586
587It can fail to work with ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 1.
588Version 1 of OpenLDAP is now deprecated. If you are still using it,
589please upgrade to version 2. As a temporary workaround, remove
590argument "-x" from the variable `ldap-ldapsearch-args'.
591
9dc15871 592*** ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps.
cc2f2825
EZ
593
594This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it
595defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it
596runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory.
597
598The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version.
599
9dc15871 600*** On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
f4f4ee4d
GM
601from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
602shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
603These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
604library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
605
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606Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build
607process invokes Emacs several times.
608
f4f4ee4d
GM
609On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
610environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
611can be found.
612
613Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
614Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
615specified run-time search path in the executable.
616
8643647c 617On some systems, Emacs can crash due to problems with dynamic
c31138a1
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618linking. Specifically, on SGI Irix 6.5, crashes were reported with
619backtraces like this:
620
621 (dbx) where
622 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]
623 1 general_find_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
624 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":2140, 0xfb65a98]
625 2 resolve_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x0, 0xfbdd438, 0x0, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
626 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":1947, 0xfb657e4]
627 3 lazy_text_resolve(0xd18, 0x1a3, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
628 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":997, 0xfb64d44]
629 4 _rld_text_resolve(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
630 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld_bridge.s":175, 0xfb6032c]
631
8643647c
RS
632(`rld' is the dynamic linker.) We don't know yet why this
633happens, but setting the environment variable LD_BIND_NOW to 1 (which
c31138a1
EZ
634forces the dynamic linker to bind all shared objects early on) seems
635to work around the problem.
636
f4f4ee4d
GM
637Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details.
638
9dc15871
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639*** You request inverse video, and the first Emacs frame is in inverse
640video, but later frames are not in inverse video.
b1739b51 641
9dc15871
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642This can happen if you have an old version of the custom library in
643your search path for Lisp packages. Use M-x list-load-path-shadows to
644check whether this is true. If it is, delete the old custom library.
b1739b51 645
9dc15871 646*** When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error.
b1739b51 647
9dc15871
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648This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII
649characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII
650characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with
651support for 8-bit characters.
b1739b51 652
9dc15871
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653To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type
654this at your shell's prompt:
b1739b51 655
9dc15871 656 ispell -vv
b1739b51 657
9dc15871
EZ
658and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says
659"!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it
660does not.
e9a52cfe 661
9dc15871
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662To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file
663in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT.
664Then rebuild the speller.
e9a52cfe 665
9dc15871
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666Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the
667version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade.
e9a52cfe 668
9dc15871
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669Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word
670in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by
671Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because
672it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are
673spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other.
e9a52cfe 674
9dc15871
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675If your spell-checking program is Aspell, it has been reported that if
676you have a personal configuration file (normally ~/.aspell.conf), it
677can cause this error. Remove that file, execute `ispell-kill-ispell'
678in Emacs, and then try spell-checking again.
e9a52cfe 679
9dc15871 680* Runtime problems related to font handling
e9a52cfe 681
9dc15871 682** Under X11, some characters appear as hollow boxes.
e9a52cfe 683
9dc15871
EZ
684Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
685supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
686many different fonts, collected into a fontset.
f25eb4f7 687
9dc15871
EZ
688If some of the fonts called for in your fontset do not exist on your X
689server, then the characters that have no font appear as hollow boxes.
690You can remedy the problem by installing additional fonts.
f25eb4f7 691
9dc15871
EZ
692The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
693display all the characters Emacs supports.
f25eb4f7 694
9dc15871
EZ
695Another cause of this for specific characters is fonts which have a
696missing glyph and no default character. This is known to occur for
697character number 160 (no-break space) in some fonts, such as Lucida
698but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte and Latin-1 version
699of this character to display a space.
f25eb4f7 700
9dc15871 701** Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
f25eb4f7 702
9dc15871 703You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution.
f25eb4f7 704
9dc15871 705** Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it "should".
edd7d3be 706
9dc15871
EZ
707This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller
708than the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that
709lines do not overlap.
edd7d3be 710
9dc15871 711** Loading fonts is very slow.
edd7d3be 712
9dc15871
EZ
713You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
714Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
715directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
716"fonts.scale".
42303132 717
9dc15871
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718If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
719font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
42303132 720
9dc15871
EZ
721With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
722directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
723Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
42303132 724
9dc15871 725** Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces.
42303132 726
9dc15871
EZ
727By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
728`{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
729any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
730vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
731parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
732in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
733pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
734introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
735through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
736to the end of a very large buffer.
42303132 737
bf247b6e 738Beginning with version 22.1, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero
9dc15871
EZ
739is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment,
740to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with
741indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash.
42303132 742
9dc15871
EZ
743If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
744makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
745fontification by setting the variable
746`font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
747be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
f3d6f4ee 748
9dc15871
EZ
749Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
750in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
f3d6f4ee 751
9dc15871
EZ
752** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
753character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
f3d6f4ee 754
9dc15871
EZ
755One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
756away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
757XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
f3d6f4ee 758
9dc15871 759** Characters are displayed as empty boxes or with wrong font under X.
9f83d8b3 760
9dc15871
EZ
761This can occur when two different versions of FontConfig are used.
762For example, XFree86 4.3.0 has one version and Gnome usually comes
763with a newer version. Emacs compiled with --with-gtk will then use
764the newer version. In most cases the problem can be temporarily
765fixed by stopping the application that has the error (it can be
766Emacs or any other application), removing ~/.fonts.cache-1,
767and then start the application again.
768If removing ~/.fonts.cache-1 and restarting doesn't help, the
769application with problem must be recompiled with the same version
770of FontConfig as the rest of the system uses. For KDE, it is
771sufficient to recompile Qt.
9f83d8b3 772
9dc15871 773** Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font.
9f83d8b3 774
9dc15871
EZ
775This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
7762.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
777event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
778Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
f29d1e75 779
9dc15871 780A workaround for this is to add something like
f29d1e75 781
9dc15871 782emacs.waitForWM: false
c24be289 783
9dc15871
EZ
784to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
785frame's parameter list, like this:
c24be289 786
9dc15871 787 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
b35319bf 788
9dc15871 789(this should go into your `.emacs' file).
b35319bf 790
9dc15871 791** Underlines appear at the wrong position.
b35319bf 792
9dc15871
EZ
793This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
794Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
795neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package. To circumvent this
796problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties to nil in your
797`.emacs'.
b35319bf 798
9dc15871
EZ
799To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
800type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
801property.
787994b7 802
9dc15871 803** When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
0a2eeca1 804
9dc15871
EZ
805When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
806(either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
807then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
808correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
809gives the appearance of "double spacing".
0a2eeca1 810
9dc15871
EZ
811To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
812feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
0a2eeca1 813
9dc15871 814* Internationalization problems
0a2eeca1 815
9dc15871 816** Characters from the mule-unicode charsets aren't displayed under X.
0a2eeca1 817
9dc15871
EZ
818XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have
819minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font
820name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire
821according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display
822characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be
823able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u
824C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the
825font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont,
826include in the fontset spec:
0a2eeca1 827
9dc15871
EZ
828mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
829mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
830mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1
0a2eeca1 831
9dc15871 832** The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters.
0a2eeca1 833
9dc15871
EZ
834Emacs by default only supports the parts of the Unicode BMP whose code
835points are in the ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff. This excludes: most
836of CJK, Yi and Hangul, as well as everything outside the BMP.
119d3665 837
9dc15871
EZ
838If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the
839characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8
840(composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back
841correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences.
842If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are
843substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose
844information.
119d3665 845
9dc15871
EZ
846To edit such UTF data, turn on Utf-Translate-Cjk mode, which makes
847many common CJK characters available for encoding and decoding and can
848be extended by updating the tables it uses. This also allows you to
849save as UTF buffers containing characters decoded by the chinese-,
850japanese- and korean- coding systems, e.g. cut and pasted from
851elsewhere.
a933dad1 852
9dc15871 853** Mule-UCS loads very slowly.
a933dad1 854
9dc15871
EZ
855Changes to Emacs internals interact badly with Mule-UCS's `un-define'
856library, which is the usual interface to Mule-UCS. Apply the
857following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 and rebuild it. That will help,
858though loading will still be slower than in Emacs 20. (Some
859distributions, such as Debian, may already have applied such a patch.)
0de9f9a8 860
9dc15871
EZ
861--- lisp/un-define.el 6 Mar 2001 22:41:38 -0000 1.30
862+++ lisp/un-define.el 19 Apr 2002 18:34:26 -0000
863@@ -610,13 +624,21 @@ by calling post-read-conversion and pre-
0de9f9a8 864
9dc15871
EZ
865 (mapcar
866 (lambda (x)
867- (mapcar
868- (lambda (y)
869- (mucs-define-coding-system
870- (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
871- (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
872- (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x))))
873- (cdr x)))
874+ (if (fboundp 'register-char-codings)
875+ ;; Mule 5, where we don't need the eol-type specified and
876+ ;; register-char-codings may be very slow for these coding
877+ ;; system definitions.
878+ (let ((y (cadr x)))
879+ (mucs-define-coding-system
880+ (car x) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
881+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y)))
882+ (mapcar
883+ (lambda (y)
884+ (mucs-define-coding-system
885+ (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
886+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
887+ (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x)))))
888+ (cdr x)))
889 `((utf-8
890 (utf-8-unix
891 ?u "UTF-8 coding system"
0de9f9a8 892
9dc15871
EZ
893Note that Emacs has native support for Unicode, roughly equivalent to
894Mule-UCS's, so you may not need it.
a933dad1 895
9dc15871 896** Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
a933dad1 897
d6b7de9b
EZ
898Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
899other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
900that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
901size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
902when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
903fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
a933dad1 904
d6b7de9b 905To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
a933dad1 906
d6b7de9b 907 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
a933dad1 908
d6b7de9b
EZ
909If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
910problem.
a933dad1 911
d6b7de9b
EZ
912The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
913`fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
914`xset fp rehash'.
177c0ea7 915
9dc15871 916** The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
a933dad1 917
9dc15871
EZ
918This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
919slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more
920flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK
921support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't
922generally read correctly by Emacs 21.
a933dad1 923
9dc15871 924** After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
a933dad1 925
9dc15871
EZ
926The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
927 (standard-display-european t)
928That should be changed to
929 (standard-display-european 1 t)
de121241 930
9dc15871 931* X runtime problems
de121241 932
9dc15871 933** X keyboard problems
de121241 934
9dc15871 935*** You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
a933dad1 936
9dc15871
EZ
937This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
938Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
939character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
940to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
a933dad1 941
9dc15871 942For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
177c0ea7 943
9dc15871 944 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
a933dad1 945
9dc15871
EZ
946If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
947Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
948xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
a933dad1 949
9dc15871 950*** Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
a933dad1 951
9dc15871 952Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
a933dad1 953
9dc15871 954*** M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
a933dad1 955
9dc15871
EZ
956See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
957for character composition.
a933dad1 958
9dc15871 959*** The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
a933dad1 960
9dc15871
EZ
961This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
962combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
963definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
964might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
965purposes.
a933dad1 966
9dc15871
EZ
967We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
968you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
a933dad1 969
9dc15871 970*** Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
a933dad1
DL
971
972These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
973particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
974configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
975configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
976change this.
977
9dc15871 978*** Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
a933dad1 979
9dc15871
EZ
980This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
981a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
982--without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
a933dad1 983
9dc15871
EZ
984*** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
985directly with an X server.
a933dad1 986
9dc15871
EZ
987If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
988does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
989whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
990followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
991it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
992have made the key binding correctly.
a933dad1 993
9dc15871
EZ
994If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
995be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
996server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
997default.
a933dad1 998
9dc15871 999If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
a933dad1 1000
9dc15871
EZ
1001 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1002 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
a933dad1 1003
9dc15871
EZ
1004If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1005commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1006are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1007modifier bit not otherwise used.
a933dad1 1008
9dc15871
EZ
1009If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1010keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1011some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1012commands show above to make them modifier keys.
a933dad1 1013
9dc15871
EZ
1014Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1015into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
a933dad1 1016
9dc15871 1017** Window-manager and toolkit-related problems
a933dad1 1018
9dc15871 1019*** Gnome: Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
a933dad1 1020
9dc15871
EZ
1021A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
1022into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
1023incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
1024other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
1025been filed.
a933dad1 1026
9dc15871
EZ
1027*** KDE: When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
1028or messed up.
a933dad1 1029
9dc15871
EZ
1030For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
1031empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
1032background.
a933dad1 1033
9dc15871
EZ
1034This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
1035definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
1036solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
1037option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option
1038is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style".
a933dad1 1039
9dc15871
EZ
1040Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
1041applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
1042(should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
1043so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
1044Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
1045present or commented out:
a933dad1 1046
9dc15871
EZ
1047 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
1048 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
1049 Emacs*Foreground
1050 Emacs*Background
a933dad1 1051
9dc15871 1052*** KDE: Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
a933dad1 1053
9dc15871
EZ
1054This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1055requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
1056of klipper don't implement the ICCM protocol for large selections,
1057which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
b11e8823 1058while, Emacs may print a message:
a933dad1 1059
9dc15871 1060 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
a933dad1 1061
b11e8823
JD
1062A workaround is to not use `klipper'. An upgrade to the `klipper' that
1063comes with KDE 3.3 or later also solves the problem.
a933dad1 1064
9dc15871 1065*** CDE: Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
a933dad1 1066
9dc15871
EZ
1067This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1068seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1069To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1070and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
d238f982 1071
9dc15871
EZ
1072*** Xaw3d : When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
1073click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
1074is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
1075problem disappears.
d238f982 1076
9dc15871
EZ
1077*** Xaw: There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
1078XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
1079one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
1080For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
1081"C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
1082used with neXtaw at run time.
d7185f9d 1083
9dc15871
EZ
1084The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
1085want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
1086built Emacs with.
d7185f9d 1087
9dc15871 1088*** Open Motif: Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif.
a933dad1 1089
9dc15871
EZ
1090When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the
1091graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter"
1092and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the
1093file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again.
a933dad1 1094
9dc15871
EZ
1095The solution is to use LessTif instead. LessTif is a free replacement
1096for Motif. See the file INSTALL for information on how to do this.
a933dad1 1097
9dc15871
EZ
1098Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts,
1099but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in
1100the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog.
a933dad1 1101
9dc15871 1102*** LessTif: Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
a933dad1 1103
9dc15871
EZ
1104The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
1105emulation for which it is set up.
a933dad1 1106
9dc15871
EZ
1107Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
1108Lesstif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
1109On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
1110--enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
1111successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
1112lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
1113menu placement.
a933dad1 1114
9dc15871
EZ
1115On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
1116locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
1117what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
1118developers.
a933dad1 1119
9dc15871 1120*** Motif: The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
a933dad1 1121
9dc15871 1122This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
a933dad1 1123
9dc15871 1124 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
a933dad1 1125
9dc15871
EZ
1126That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1127do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1128explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1129the resource prevents the problem.
a933dad1 1130
9dc15871 1131** General X problems
17a37d87 1132
9dc15871 1133*** Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
17a37d87 1134
9dc15871
EZ
1135We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1136scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1137happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1138on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
17a37d87 1139
9dc15871 1140Here's how to do this:
17a37d87 1141
9dc15871 1142 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
a933dad1 1143
9dc15871
EZ
1144If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1145try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1146to normal, do
a933dad1 1147
9dc15871 1148 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
a933dad1 1149
9dc15871 1150*** Error messages about undefined colors on X.
a933dad1 1151
9dc15871 1152The messages might say something like this:
a933dad1 1153
9dc15871 1154 Unable to load color "grey95"
a933dad1 1155
9dc15871 1156(typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
a933dad1 1157
9dc15871 1158 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
a933dad1 1159
9dc15871
EZ
1160These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
1161many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
1162resources to load all the colors it needs.
a933dad1 1163
9dc15871 1164A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
a933dad1 1165
9dc15871 1166*** Improving performance with slow X connections.
a933dad1 1167
9dc15871
EZ
1168There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can
1169be carried out at the same time:
a933dad1 1170
9dc15871
EZ
11711) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
1172 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using
1173 the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect
1174 the use of Emacs' own input methods, which are part of the Leim
1175 package.
3d00585e 1176
9dc15871
EZ
11772) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
1178 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar.
3d00585e 1179
9dc15871
EZ
11803) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this
1181 forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...).
3d00585e 1182
9dc15871
EZ
11834) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface
1184 to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which
1185 improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness
1186 of the X protocol. lbxproxy acheives the performance gain by grouping
1187 several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together,
1188 instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a seperate
1189 packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are:
1190 -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents
1191 Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems.
1192 For more about lbxproxy, see:
1193 http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html
3d00585e 1194
9dc15871 1195*** Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
3d00585e 1196
9dc15871
EZ
1197This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1198a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1199likely to cause it.
a933dad1 1200
9dc15871 1201We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
7838ea1b 1202
9dc15871 1203*** Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
a933dad1 1204
9dc15871
EZ
1205There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
1206that replacing the mouse made it stop.
a933dad1 1207
9dc15871 1208*** You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
a933dad1 1209
9dc15871
EZ
1210On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
1211works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
1212bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
1213the Files menu).
a933dad1 1214
9dc15871
EZ
1215This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
1216due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
1217knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
1218workaround can be found.
a933dad1 1219
9dc15871
EZ
1220*** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1221parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
b5cb4652 1222
9dc15871
EZ
1223This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1224 emacs*Cursor: black
1225(which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1226that isn't a color.)
b5cb4652 1227
9dc15871 1228The fix is to correct your X resources.
a933dad1 1229
9dc15871 1230*** Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
a933dad1 1231
9dc15871
EZ
1232If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
1233resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
1234renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
1235font.
a933dad1 1236
9dc15871
EZ
1237One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
1238your font path, like this:
a933dad1 1239
9dc15871 1240 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
a933dad1 1241
9dc15871 1242*** Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
a933dad1 1243
9dc15871 1244An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
a933dad1 1245
9dc15871 1246 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
a933dad1 1247
9dc15871
EZ
1248This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
1249individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
1250want, rewrite the resource.
3156909f 1251
9dc15871
EZ
1252To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
1253-query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
1254the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
a933dad1 1255
9dc15871
EZ
1256*** Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
1257*** `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
e96c5c69 1258
9dc15871
EZ
1259One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
1260your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
1261the environment.
e96c5c69 1262
9dc15871 1263*** Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
a933dad1 1264
9dc15871
EZ
1265The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
1266arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
1267tell Emacs to compensate for this.
a933dad1 1268
9dc15871
EZ
1269I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
1270whether this problem is present on a given system.
a933dad1 1271
9dc15871 1272*** X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
a933dad1 1273
9dc15871
EZ
1274People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
1275not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
1276the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
1277the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
a933dad1 1278
9dc15871
EZ
1279You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
1280However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
1281you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
a933dad1 1282
9dc15871 1283The easy way to do this is to put
a933dad1 1284
9dc15871 1285 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
a933dad1 1286
9dc15871 1287in your site-init.el file.
a933dad1 1288
9dc15871 1289* Runtime problems on character termunals
a933dad1 1290
9dc15871 1291** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
a933dad1 1292
9dc15871
EZ
1293This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
1294used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
1295away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
1296streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
1297user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
1298properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
1299input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
1300easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
a933dad1 1301
9dc15871 1302There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
a933dad1 1303
9dc15871
EZ
1304 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
1305 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
1306 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
a933dad1 1307
9dc15871
EZ
1308First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
1309they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
1310"no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
1311escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
1312and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
1313control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
a933dad1 1314
9dc15871
EZ
1315Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
1316needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
1317by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
1318rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
1319your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
1320it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
1321the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
1322problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
1323to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
a933dad1 1324
9dc15871
EZ
1325For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
1326giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
1327codes. You might as well try it.
a933dad1 1328
9dc15871
EZ
1329If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
1330through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
1331computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
1332much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
1333control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
1334you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
1335replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
1336measures can make Emacs semi-work.
4c635a29 1337
9dc15871
EZ
1338You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
1339handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
1340enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
1341now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
1342enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
1343control handling.)
a933dad1 1344
9dc15871
EZ
1345If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
1346is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
1347other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
1348and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
1349other control characters are already used by emacs.
a933dad1 1350
9dc15871
EZ
1351IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
1352Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
1353order to continue.
a933dad1 1354
9dc15871
EZ
1355If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
1356certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
1357`enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
1358automatically. Here is an example:
a933dad1 1359
9dc15871 1360(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1361
9dc15871
EZ
1362If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
1363and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
1364manually.
a933dad1 1365
9dc15871
EZ
1366I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
1367assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
1368control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
1369merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
1370widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
1371use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
1372will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
1373of inferior systems.
a933dad1 1374
9dc15871 1375** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
a933dad1 1376
9dc15871
EZ
1377For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
1378control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
1379terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
1380that wants to use flow control.
a933dad1 1381
9dc15871
EZ
1382You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
1383If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
1384flow control, as described in the preceding section.
a933dad1 1385
9dc15871
EZ
1386If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
1387into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
1388shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
a933dad1 1389
9dc15871 1390** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
a933dad1 1391
9dc15871
EZ
1392This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
1393terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
1394the combination of features specified for that terminal.
a933dad1 1395
9dc15871
EZ
1396The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1397Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1398(open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
1399terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
1400what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
1401and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
1402There are several possibilities:
a933dad1 1403
9dc15871 14041) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
a933dad1 1405
9dc15871
EZ
1406In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1407need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
a933dad1 1408
9dc15871
EZ
14092) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
1410 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
1411 by termcap.
a933dad1 1412
9dc15871
EZ
1413This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
1414Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
1415and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
1416classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
1417Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
1418tested on many kinds of terminals.
a933dad1 1419
9dc15871 14203) The termcap entry is wrong.
a933dad1 1421
9dc15871
EZ
1422See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
1423that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
1424for certain terminals.
a933dad1 1425
9dc15871
EZ
14264) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
1427 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
a933dad1 1428
9dc15871
EZ
1429This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
1430in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
a933dad1 1431
9dc15871 1432** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
a933dad1 1433
9dc15871
EZ
1434Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
1435control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
1436On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
1437control on the local system.
a933dad1 1438
9dc15871
EZ
1439One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
1440(the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
1441stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
1442"stty start u stop u" will do this.
a933dad1 1443
9dc15871
EZ
1444Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
1445around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
1446issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
a933dad1 1447
9dc15871
EZ
1448If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
1449M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
1450if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
1451following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
a933dad1 1452
9dc15871 1453(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1454
9dc15871
EZ
1455See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
1456info.
a933dad1 1457
9dc15871 1458** Output from Control-V is slow.
a933dad1 1459
9dc15871
EZ
1460On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
1461Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
1462to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
1463before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
1464the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
1465it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
a933dad1 1466
9dc15871
EZ
1467If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
1468that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
1469specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
1470concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
1471send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
1472fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
1473time as the operations really take.
a933dad1 1474
9dc15871
EZ
1475Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
1476at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
1477terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
1478operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
1479flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
1480an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
1481Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
1482cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
1483not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
1484is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
a933dad1 1485
9dc15871
EZ
1486Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
1487multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
1488termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
1489fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
1490each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
1491to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
1492`cm' string.
a933dad1 1493
9dc15871
EZ
1494You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
1495has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
1496take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
a933dad1 1497
9dc15871
EZ
1498A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
1499of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
a933dad1 1500
9dc15871 1501** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
a933dad1 1502
9dc15871
EZ
1503Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
1504after a day or two.
a933dad1 1505
9dc15871
EZ
1506The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
1507the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
1508character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
1509of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
1510overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
1511to it.
a933dad1 1512
9dc15871
EZ
1513For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
1514and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
1515other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
1516but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
1517that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
1518important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
a933dad1 1519
9dc15871
EZ
1520If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
1521you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
1522 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
1523You can probably access help-command via f1.
a933dad1 1524
9dc15871 1525** Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
a933dad1 1526
9dc15871
EZ
1527Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
1528emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
1529entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
1530"Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
1531supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
1532Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
1533uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
1534"colors".
a933dad1 1535
9dc15871
EZ
1536In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
1537``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
1538back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
1539use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
1540doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
1541sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
1542it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
1543capability).
a933dad1 1544
9dc15871
EZ
1545Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
1546attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
1547incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
1548this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
a933dad1 1549
9dc15871
EZ
1550Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
1551of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
1552entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
1553`xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
1554emulator.
a933dad1 1555
bf247b6e 1556Beginning with version 22.1, Emacs supports the --color command-line
9dc15871
EZ
1557option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular
1558modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up
1559for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors.
a933dad1 1560
9dc15871
EZ
1561Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
1562Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
1563Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
1564recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
1565global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
1566`global-font-lock-mode'.
a933dad1 1567
9dc15871 1568* Runtime problems specific to individual Unix variants
f1e54ce1 1569
9dc15871 1570** GNU/Linux
f1e54ce1 1571
9dc15871
EZ
1572*** GNU/Linux: On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
15735.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
a933dad1 1574
9dc15871
EZ
1575This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1576One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1577known to work.
a933dad1 1578
9dc15871
EZ
1579*** GNU/Linux: After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs,
1580the Meta key stops working.
a01325b8 1581
9dc15871
EZ
1582This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1583Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1584modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1585keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1586modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1587was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1588Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
a01325b8 1589
9dc15871
EZ
1590The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1591modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1592and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1593which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1594the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1595modifier:
a933dad1 1596
9dc15871 1597 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
a933dad1 1598
9dc15871
EZ
1599A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1600is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
a01325b8 1601
9dc15871 1602 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
a933dad1 1603
9dc15871
EZ
1604This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1605keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1606keys can serve as Meta.
a933dad1 1607
9dc15871
EZ
1608The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1609keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
a933dad1 1610
9dc15871 1611*** GNU/Linux: low startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
a933dad1 1612
9dc15871
EZ
1613People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1614startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
a933dad1 1615
9dc15871
EZ
1616This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
1617Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
1618improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
1619networked and non-networked machines.
a933dad1 1620
9dc15871 1621Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
a933dad1 1622
9dc15871 1623**** Networked Case.
a933dad1 1624
9dc15871
EZ
1625First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1626exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1627(replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
a933dad1 1628
9dc15871 1629 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME
a933dad1 1630
9dc15871
EZ
1631Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1632lines:
1dd8b979 1633
9dc15871
EZ
1634 order hosts, bind
1635 multi on
10a763e5 1636
9dc15871
EZ
1637Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1638indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1639database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1640dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1dd8b979 1641
9dc15871 1642**** Non-Networked Case.
a933dad1 1643
9dc15871
EZ
1644The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1645However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1646simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1647`touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1648file is not necessary with this approach.
a933dad1 1649
9dc15871 1650*** GNU/Linux: Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
a933dad1 1651
9dc15871
EZ
1652This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
1653ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
1654These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
1655the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
1656(show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
1657blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
1658cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
1659always blinks.
3d00585e 1660
9dc15871
EZ
1661A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
1662enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
1663the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
1664cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
1665the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
1666cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
3d00585e 1667
9dc15871
EZ
1668To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
1669`linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
1670the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
1671produce a modified terminfo entry.
3d00585e 1672
9dc15871
EZ
1673Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor,
1674change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command.
a933dad1 1675
9dc15871 1676*** GNU/Linux: Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1
DL
1677
1678There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1679caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1680problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1681is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1682
1683Using the old library version is a workaround.
1684
9dc15871 1685** Mac OS X
a933dad1 1686
9dc15871 1687*** Mac OS X (Carbon): Environment Variables from dotfiles are ignored.
a933dad1 1688
9dc15871
EZ
1689When starting Emacs from the Dock or the Finder on Mac OS X, the
1690environment variables that are set up in dotfiles, such as .cshrc or
1691.profile, are ignored. This is because the Finder and Dock are not
1692started from a shell, but instead from the Window Manager itself.
a933dad1 1693
9dc15871
EZ
1694The workaround for this is to create a .MacOSX/environment.plist file to
1695setup these environment variables. These environment variables will
1696apply to all processes regardless of where they are started.
1697For me information, see http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1067.html.
a933dad1 1698
9dc15871 1699*** Mac OS X (Carbon): Process output truncated when using ptys.
a933dad1 1700
9dc15871
EZ
1701There appears to be a problem with the implementation of pty's on the
1702Mac OS X that causes process output to be truncated. To avoid this,
1703leave process-connection-type set to its default value of nil.
a933dad1 1704
9dc15871 1705** FreeBSD
a933dad1 1706
9dc15871
EZ
1707*** FreeBSD 2.1.5: useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1708directories that have the +t bit.
a933dad1 1709
9dc15871
EZ
1710This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1711Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1712with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1713link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
a933dad1 1714
9dc15871
EZ
1715If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1716file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
a933dad1 1717
9dc15871 1718*** FreeBSD: Getting a Meta key on the console.
a933dad1 1719
9dc15871
EZ
1720By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
1721FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
1722current keymap to a file with the command
a933dad1 1723
9dc15871 1724 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1725
9dc15871
EZ
1726Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
1727definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
1728key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
1729to look like this
a933dad1 1730
9dc15871 1731 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
a933dad1 1732
9dc15871 1733to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
a933dad1 1734
9dc15871 1735 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1736
9dc15871 1737** HP-UX
a933dad1 1738
9dc15871 1739*** HP/UX : Shell mode gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
a933dad1 1740
9dc15871 1741christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
a933dad1 1742
9dc15871
EZ
1743The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1744execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
1745tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
1746but tty is giving it back 3.
a933dad1 1747
9dc15871
EZ
1748The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
1749word:
a933dad1 1750
9dc15871 1751if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1752
9dc15871 1753should be changed to:
a933dad1 1754
9dc15871 1755if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1756
9dc15871
EZ
1757Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1758and into .login.
a933dad1 1759
9dc15871 1760*** HP/UX: `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'.
a933dad1 1761
9dc15871
EZ
1762On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1763file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1764does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1765value is just ten seconds.
a933dad1 1766
9dc15871 1767If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
a933dad1 1768
9dc15871
EZ
1769*** HP/UX: The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1770other non-English HP keyboards too).
a933dad1 1771
9dc15871
EZ
1772This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1773shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1774configures the X server.
a933dad1 1775
9dc15871
EZ
1776 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1777 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1778 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1779 EOF
a933dad1 1780
9dc15871
EZ
1781 xmodmap - << EOF
1782 clear mod1
1783 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1784 add mod1 = Meta_L
1785 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1786 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1787 EOF
a933dad1 1788
9dc15871
EZ
1789*** HP/UX: "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes in
1790Emacs built with Motif.
a933dad1 1791
9dc15871
EZ
1792This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1793such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
a933dad1 1794
9dc15871 1795*** HP/UX: Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key.
a933dad1 1796
9dc15871
EZ
1797To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1798rights, containing this text:
a933dad1 1799
9dc15871
EZ
1800--------------------------------
1801xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1802keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1803keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1804EOF
a933dad1 1805
9dc15871
EZ
1806xmodmap - << EOF
1807clear mod1
1808keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1809add mod1 = Meta_L
1810keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1811add mod2 = Mode_switch
1812EOF
1813--------------------------------
a933dad1 1814
9dc15871 1815*** HP/UX 11.0: Emacs makes HP/UX 11.0 crash.
a933dad1 1816
9dc15871 1817This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
a933dad1 1818
9dc15871 1819** AIX
a933dad1 1820
9dc15871 1821*** AIX: Trouble using ptys.
a933dad1 1822
9dc15871
EZ
1823People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
1824Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
a933dad1 1825
9dc15871 1826*** AIXterm: Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal.
a933dad1 1827
9dc15871 1828The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
a933dad1 1829
9dc15871
EZ
1830 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
1831 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
a933dad1 1832
9dc15871 1833This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
a933dad1 1834
9dc15871
EZ
1835*** AIX: If linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
1836are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
1837so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
1838Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
a933dad1 1839
9dc15871 1840*** AIX 4.3.x or 4.4: Compiling fails.
a933dad1 1841
9dc15871
EZ
1842This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
1843the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
1844redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
1845is to use the default compiler `cc'.
a933dad1 1846
9dc15871
EZ
1847*** AIX 4: Some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
1848with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
a933dad1 1849
9dc15871
EZ
1850On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
1851`unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
1852Definitions" to make them defined.
a933dad1 1853
9dc15871 1854** Solaris
a933dad1 1855
9dc15871
EZ
1856We list bugs in current versions here. Solaris 2.x and 4.x are covered in the
1857section on legacy systems.
a933dad1 1858
9dc15871 1859*** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
a933dad1 1860
9dc15871
EZ
1861This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
1862C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
a933dad1 1863
9dc15871 1864*** Problem with remote X server on Suns.
a933dad1 1865
9dc15871
EZ
1866On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
1867may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
1868is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
1869As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
a933dad1 1870
0a4dd4e4 1871*** Solaris 2,6: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
a933dad1 1872
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1873We suspect that this is a bug in the X libraries provided by
1874Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
1875makes the problem stop:
a933dad1 1876
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1877105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
1878105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
1879106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
1880105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
a933dad1 1881
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1882Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
1883suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
a933dad1 1884
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1885106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
1886106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
1887105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
a933dad1 1888
0a4dd4e4 1889*** Solaris 7 or 8: Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X)
a933dad1 1890
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1891This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris.
1892Rebuild it on Solaris 8.
a933dad1 1893
9dc15871
EZ
1894*** When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
1895commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
a933dad1 1896
9dc15871 1897You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
a933dad1 1898
9dc15871 1899 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
a933dad1 1900
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1901*** On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
1902the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
a933dad1 1903
0a4dd4e4 1904You can fix this by editing the file:
a933dad1 1905
0a4dd4e4 1906 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
a933dad1 1907
0a4dd4e4 1908Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
a933dad1 1909
0a4dd4e4 1910 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 1911
0a4dd4e4 1912that should read:
a933dad1 1913
0a4dd4e4 1914 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 1915
0a4dd4e4 1916Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
a933dad1 1917
0a4dd4e4 1918** Irix
a933dad1 1919
9dc15871 1920*** Irix 6.5: Emacs crashes on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
a933dad1 1921
9dc15871 1922This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
a933dad1 1923
0a4dd4e4 1924*** Irix: Trouble using ptys, or running out of ptys.
a933dad1 1925
9dc15871
EZ
1926The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
1927be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
1928to allocate ptys reliably.
a933dad1 1929
9dc15871 1930* Runtime problems specific to MS-Windows
a933dad1 1931
9dc15871 1932** Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for MS-Windows.
a933dad1 1933
9dc15871
EZ
1934A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
1935Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
1936problem.
177c0ea7 1937
9dc15871 1938** Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 21.2.
a933dad1 1939
9dc15871
EZ
1940Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
1941is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menus is not
1942displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
1943synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
1944waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
1945pop-up menu interaction.
a933dad1 1946
9dc15871
EZ
1947Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text
1948for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows.
a933dad1 1949
9dc15871
EZ
1950There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
1951mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
1952frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
1953after moving back into it.
a933dad1 1954
9dc15871
EZ
1955Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
1956not as severely as in 21.1.
a933dad1 1957
9dc15871
EZ
1958Emacs can sometimes abort when non-ASCII text, possibly with null
1959characters, is copied and pasted into a buffer.
a933dad1 1960
9dc15871
EZ
1961An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
1962Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
a933dad1 1963
9dc15871
EZ
1964Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs (as of v21.2). Some
1965of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
1966in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
1967characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make this
1968work, set the keyboard coding system to the appropriate value after
1969you activate the Windows input method. For example, if you activate
1970the Hebrew input method, type "C-x RET k iso-8859-8 RET". (Emacs
1971ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up the
1972appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do that
1973yet.)
a933dad1 1974
9dc15871
EZ
1975The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated
1976month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions
1977of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system
1978library function.
a933dad1 1979
0a4dd4e4 1980** Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows.
a933dad1 1981
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1982This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
1983you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
1984and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
1985more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
1986or disable it in the keyboard control panel.
a933dad1 1987
0a4dd4e4 1988** Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
a933dad1 1989
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1990Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
1991MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
1992port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
1993keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
1994of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
a933dad1 1995
0a4dd4e4 1996** Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 1997
0a4dd4e4
EZ
1998If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
1999due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
2000and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
2001port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
2002are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
2003confuses ange-ftp.
a933dad1 2004
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2005The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
2006(version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
2007Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
2008directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
2009variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
2010client's executable. For example:
a933dad1 2011
9dc15871 2012 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
a933dad1 2013
9dc15871
EZ
2014If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
2015this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
a933dad1 2016
9dc15871 2017 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
a933dad1 2018
9dc15871 2019** lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers.
a933dad1 2020
9dc15871
EZ
2021This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is
2022likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific.
a933dad1 2023
9dc15871
EZ
2024Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not
2025print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical
2026printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic
2027built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it
2028has):
a933dad1 2029
9dc15871
EZ
2030(setq printer-name "") ;; notepad takes the default
2031(setq lpr-command "notepad") ;; notepad
2032(setq lpr-switches nil) ;; not needed
2033(setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ;; run notepad as batch printer
a933dad1 2034
9dc15871 2035** Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2036
9dc15871
EZ
2037The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
2038work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
2039was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
2040work when an antivirus package is installed.
a933dad1 2041
9dc15871
EZ
2042The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
2043mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
2044or disable it entirely.
a933dad1 2045
9dc15871 2046** Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event.
a933dad1 2047
9dc15871
EZ
2048This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows
2049programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many
2050mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something
2051different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a
2052middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to
2053"scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a
2054generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2055
9dc15871 2056** Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window.
a933dad1 2057
9dc15871
EZ
2058This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of
2059generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar
2060movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple
2061scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2062
9dc15871
EZ
2063** Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
2064mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
2065exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
2066seen.
a933dad1 2067
9dc15871
EZ
2068** On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
2069CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
a933dad1 2070
9dc15871 2071This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
a933dad1 2072
9dc15871
EZ
2073Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
2074events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
2075distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
2076combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
2077AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
2078to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
a933dad1 2079
9dc15871 2080** Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs' display is incorrect.
a933dad1 2081
9dc15871
EZ
2082The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
2083screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
2084display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
2085to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
a933dad1 2086
9dc15871
EZ
2087This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
2088as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
2089problem lies in the X-server settings.
a933dad1 2090
9dc15871
EZ
2091There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
2092running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
2093un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
2094selection".
a933dad1 2095
9dc15871
EZ
2096Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
2097please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
2098If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
2099here.
a933dad1 2100
9dc15871 2101* Build-time problems
a933dad1 2102
9dc15871 2103** Configuration
a933dad1 2104
9dc15871 2105*** The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
a933dad1 2106
9dc15871
EZ
2107There are reports that this happens on some systems because the linker
2108by default only looks for shared libraries, but jpeg distribution by
2109default only installs a nonshared version of the library, `libjpeg.a'.
a933dad1 2110
9dc15871
EZ
2111If this is the problem, you can configure the jpeg library with the
2112`--enable-shared' option and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a
2113shared version of libjpeg, which you need to install. Finally, rerun
2114the Emacs configure script, which should now find the jpeg library.
2115Alternatively, modify the generated src/Makefile to link the .a file
2116explicitly, and edit src/config.h to define HAVE_JPEG.
a933dad1 2117
9dc15871 2118** Compilation
a933dad1 2119
9dc15871 2120*** Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
a933dad1 2121
9dc15871
EZ
2122This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
2123(RedHat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
2124(SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
2125configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
2126files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
2127left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
2128itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
2129Emacs executable to fail with the above message.
a933dad1 2130
9dc15871
EZ
2131In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
2132machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
2133(it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
2134This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
a933dad1 2135
9dc15871
EZ
2136If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
2137(Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
2138you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
2139force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
2140problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
2141blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
2142`mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
2143options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
2144`/etc/auto.home'.
a933dad1 2145
9dc15871
EZ
2146Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
2147a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
2148waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
2149to work around the problem.
a933dad1 2150
9dc15871
EZ
2151Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
2152onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
2153you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
2154`/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
a933dad1 2155
9dc15871 2156 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
a933dad1 2157
9dc15871 2158The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
a933dad1 2159
9dc15871 2160*** Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
a933dad1 2161
9dc15871
EZ
2162This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
2163of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
2164version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
2165dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
2166around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
2167incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
2168". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
2169directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
2170variables).
a933dad1 2171
9dc15871
EZ
2172The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
2173`-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
2174when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
2175unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
2176run the script like this:
a933dad1 2177
9dc15871 2178 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
a933dad1 2179
9dc15871
EZ
2180(replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
2181the script).
a933dad1 2182
9dc15871
EZ
2183Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
2184Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
a933dad1 2185
9dc15871
EZ
2186*** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2187*** Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
a933dad1 2188
9dc15871
EZ
2189This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2190had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.To solve the
2191problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2192configure script.
a933dad1 2193
9dc15871 2194*** Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
a933dad1 2195
9dc15871
EZ
2196This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2197the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2198Emacs's configure script.
a933dad1 2199
9dc15871 2200*** Building the MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
a933dad1 2201
9dc15871
EZ
2202Emacs may not build using recent Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
2203version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
2204necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
2205__MSVCRT__, like so:
a933dad1 2206
9dc15871 2207 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
a933dad1 2208
9dc15871 2209*** Building the MS-Windows port fails with a CreateProcess failure.
a933dad1 2210
9dc15871
EZ
2211Some versions of mingw32 make on some versions of Windows do not seem
2212to detect the shell correctly. Try "make SHELL=cmd.exe", or if that
2213fails, try running make from Cygwin bash instead.
a933dad1 2214
9dc15871 2215*** Building the MS-Windows port with Leim fails in the `leim' directory.
a933dad1 2216
9dc15871 2217The error message might be something like this:
a933dad1 2218
9dc15871
EZ
2219 Converting d:/emacs-21.3/leim/CXTERM-DIC/4Corner.tit to quail-package...
2220 Invalid ENCODE: value in TIT dictionary
2221 NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"../src/obj-spd/i386/emacs.exe"' : return code
2222 '0xffffffff'
2223 Stop.
a933dad1 2224
9dc15871
EZ
2225This can happen if the Leim distribution is unpacked with a program
2226which converts the `*.tit' files to DOS-style CR-LF text format. The
2227`*.tit' files in the leim/CXTERM-DIC directory require Unix-style line
2228endings to compile properly, because Emacs reads them without any code
2229or EOL conversions.
a933dad1 2230
9dc15871
EZ
2231The solution is to make sure the program used to unpack Leim does not
2232change the files' line endings behind your back. The GNU FTP site has
2233in the `/gnu/emacs/windows' directory a program called `djtarnt.exe'
2234which can be used to unpack `.tar.gz' and `.zip' archives without
2235mangling them.
a933dad1 2236
9dc15871 2237*** Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
a933dad1 2238
9dc15871
EZ
2239This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
2240defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
2241patch to assert.h should solve this:
a933dad1 2242
9dc15871
EZ
2243*** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
2244--- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
2245***************
2246*** 41,47 ****
2247 /*
2248 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2249 */
2250! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
a933dad1 2251
9dc15871 2252 #else /* debugging enabled */
a933dad1 2253
9dc15871
EZ
2254--- 41,47 ----
2255 /*
2256 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2257 */
2258! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
a933dad1 2259
9dc15871 2260 #else /* debugging enabled */
a933dad1 2261
a933dad1 2262
9dc15871 2263** Linking
a933dad1 2264
9dc15871
EZ
2265*** Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
2266undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
a933dad1 2267
9dc15871
EZ
2268This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
2269with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
2270GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
2271from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
2272compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
2273link stage.
a933dad1 2274
9dc15871 2275A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
a933dad1 2276
9dc15871 2277 make CC=gcc
a933dad1 2278
9dc15871
EZ
2279Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
2280with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs.
a933dad1 2281
9dc15871 2282*** AIX 1.3 ptf 0013: Link failure.
a933dad1 2283
9dc15871
EZ
2284There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2285the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2286workaround/fix is:
a933dad1 2287
9dc15871
EZ
2288 cd /lib
2289 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2290 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
a933dad1 2291
9dc15871
EZ
2292*** AIX 4.1.2: Linker error messages such as
2293 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
2294 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
a933dad1 2295
9dc15871
EZ
2296This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
2297these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
2298you build Emacs:
a933dad1 2299
9dc15871
EZ
2300 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
2301 chmod 664 libIM.a
2302 ranlib libIM.a
a933dad1 2303
9dc15871
EZ
2304Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
2305Makefile).
a933dad1 2306
9dc15871 2307*** Sun with acc: Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
a933dad1 2308
9dc15871 2309To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
a933dad1 2310
9dc15871 2311 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
a933dad1 2312
9dc15871 2313and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
a933dad1 2314
9dc15871
EZ
2315The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2316cannot easily arrange to supply them.
a933dad1 2317
9dc15871 2318*** Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
a933dad1 2319
9dc15871 2320Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
a933dad1 2321
9dc15871 2322*** `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
a933dad1 2323
9dc15871
EZ
2324This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
2325version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
2326definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
2327incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
2328does not work with this version of ncurses.
a933dad1 2329
9dc15871 2330The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
a933dad1 2331
9dc15871 2332** Dumping
a933dad1 2333
9dc15871 2334*** Linux: Segfault during `make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel.
a933dad1 2335
9dc15871 2336With certain recent Linux kernels (like the one of Redhat Fedora Core
1f02a4ba 23371 and 2), the new "Exec-shield" functionality is enabled by default, which
9dc15871 2338creates a different memory layout that breaks the emacs dumper.
a933dad1 2339
1f02a4ba
JD
2340Configure can overcome the problem of exec-shield if the architecture is
2341x86 and the program setarch is present. On other architectures no
2342workaround is known.
2343
9dc15871 2344You can check the Exec-shield state like this:
a933dad1 2345
9dc15871 2346 cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2347
1f02a4ba 2348It returns non-zero when Exec-shield is enabled, 0 otherwise. Please
9dc15871 2349read your system documentation for more details on Exec-shield and
1f02a4ba
JD
2350associated commands. Exec-shield can be turned off with this command:
2351
2352 echo "0" > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2353
9dc15871
EZ
2354When Exec-shield is enabled, building Emacs will segfault during the
2355execution of this command:
a933dad1 2356
1f02a4ba 2357 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2358
9dc15871 2359To work around this problem, it is necessary to temporarily disable
1f02a4ba
JD
2360Exec-shield while building Emacs, or, on x86, by using the `setarch'
2361command when running temacs like this:
2362
2363 setarch i386 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2364
a933dad1 2365
9dc15871 2366*** Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump.
a933dad1
DL
2367
2368This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
2369Makefile in the src subdirectory, or by build.com on VMS.
2370
2371It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2372space available on the machine.
2373
9dc15871 2374On 68000s, it has also happened because of bugs in the
a933dad1
DL
2375subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2376for large blocks (many pages).
2377
9dc15871
EZ
2378*** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered.
2379*** or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127".
2380*** or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2381*** or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs.
a933dad1
DL
2382
2383This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2384fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2385binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2386
2387In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2388It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2389a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2390itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2391when unpacking the shell archive.
2392
2393I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2394what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2395file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2396
2397If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2398nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2399
2400 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2401 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2402 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2403 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2404 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2405 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2406 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2407 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2408 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2409 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2410 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2411 and remake temacs.
2412 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2413
9dc15871 2414*** temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted".
a933dad1
DL
2415
2416This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2417files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2418space than was allocated.
2419
2420This could be caused by
2421 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2422 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2423 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2424 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2425 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2426 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2427 deleting that file.
2428 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2429 (not from the directory you expected).
2430 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2431 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2432 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2433 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2434 the space required.
2435
2436If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2437of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2438
2439But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2440of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2441problem.
2442
9dc15871 2443*** Linux: Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
a933dad1 2444
9dc15871
EZ
2445The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
2446C backtrace printed by GDB:
a933dad1 2447
9dc15871
EZ
2448 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2449 (gdb) where
2450 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2451 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
2452 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
2453 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
a933dad1 2454
9dc15871
EZ
2455This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
2456of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
2457but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
2458other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
2459distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
2460GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
2461following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
2462distribution:
a933dad1 2463
9dc15871
EZ
2464 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux except for Yellowdog,
2465 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
2466 know what's really going on here. */
2467 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
2468 0x10000000. */
2469 #if defined __linux__
2470 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
2471 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
2472 #endif
2473 #endif
2474 #endif /* 0 */
a933dad1 2475
9dc15871
EZ
2476Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
2477the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
2478should now succeed.
a933dad1 2479
9dc15871 2480** Installation
a933dad1 2481
9dc15871 2482*** Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
a933dad1 2483
9dc15871
EZ
2484You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
2485supplies the `install-info' command.
a933dad1 2486
9dc15871 2487** First execution
a933dad1 2488
9dc15871 2489*** Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
a933dad1 2490
9dc15871
EZ
2491This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
2492via NFS, for some combinations of NFS client and NFS server.
2493Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
2494binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
a933dad1 2495
9dc15871 2496 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
a933dad1 2497
9dc15871
EZ
2498We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
2499build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
a933dad1 2500
9dc15871 2501*** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
a933dad1
DL
2502
2503Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2504
25051) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2506as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2507it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2508value in the man page for a.out (5).
2509
25102) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2511initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2512of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2513not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2514may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2515
9dc15871 2516* Emacs 19 problems
a933dad1 2517
9dc15871 2518** Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'.
a933dad1 2519
9dc15871
EZ
2520This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2521Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2522Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2523where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
a933dad1 2524
9dc15871 2525So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
a933dad1 2526
9dc15871 2527* Runtime problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 2528
9dc15871
EZ
2529This section covers bugs reported on very old hardware or software.
2530If you are using hardware and an operating system shipped after 2000,
2531it is unlikely you will see any of these.
a933dad1 2532
9dc15871 2533** Ancient operating systems
a933dad1 2534
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2535AIX 4.2 was end-of-lifed on Dec 31st, 1999.
2536
2537*** AIX: You get this compiler error message:
2538
2539 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2540 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2541
2542This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2543libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2544X11Dev... with smit.
2545
2546(This report must be ancient. Bootable tapes are long dead.)
2547
2548*** AIX 3.2.4: Releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2549
2550Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2551ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2552lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2553treated as control characters.
2554
2555You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2556releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2557
2558*** AIX 3.2.5: You get this message when running Emacs:
2559
2560 Could not load program emacs
2561 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2562 Error was: Exec format error
2563
2564or this one:
2565
2566 Could not load program .emacs
2567 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2568 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2569 Error was: Exec format error
2570
2571These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2572compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2573
2574*** AIX 4.2: Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup.
2575
2576If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
2577without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
2578
9dc15871 2579*** ISC Unix
a933dad1 2580
9dc15871 2581**** ISC: display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
a933dad1 2582
9dc15871
EZ
2583Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2584versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2585cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2586This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2587processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
a933dad1 2588
9dc15871
EZ
2589Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2590the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
a933dad1 2591
9dc15871 2592The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
a933dad1 2593
9dc15871 2594*** SunOS
a933dad1 2595
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2596SunOS 4.1.4 stopped shipping on Sep 30 1998.
2597
2598**** SunOS: You get linker errors
2599 ld: Undefined symbol
2600 _get_wmShellWidgetClass
2601 _get_applicationShellWidgetClass
2602
9dc15871 2603**** Sun 4.0.x: M-x shell persistently reports "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1".
a933dad1 2604
9dc15871
EZ
2605This happened on Suns as a result of what is said to be a bug in Sunos
2606version 4.0.x. The only fix was to reboot the machine.
a933dad1 2607
9dc15871 2608**** SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3: Mail is lost when sent to local aliases.
a933dad1 2609
a933dad1
DL
2610Many emacs mail user agents (VM and rmail, for instance) use the
2611sendmail.el library. This library can arrange for mail to be
2612delivered by passing messages to the /usr/lib/sendmail (usually)
2613program . In doing so, it passes the '-t' flag to sendmail, which
2614means that the name of the recipient of the message is not on the
2615command line and, therefore, that sendmail must parse the message to
2616obtain the destination address.
a933dad1 2617
a933dad1
DL
2618There is a bug in the SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3 versions of sendmail.
2619In short, when given the -t flag, the SunOS sendmail won't recognize
2620non-local (i.e. NIS) aliases. It has been reported that the Solaris
26212.x versions of sendmail do not have this bug. For those using SunOS
26224.1, the best fix is to install sendmail V8 or IDA sendmail (which
2623have other advantages over the regular sendmail as well). At the time
2624of this writing, these official versions are available:
a933dad1 2625
a933dad1
DL
2626 Sendmail V8 on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/sendmail:
2627 sendmail.8.6.9.base.tar.Z (the base system source & documentation)
2628 sendmail.8.6.9.cf.tar.Z (configuration files)
2629 sendmail.8.6.9.misc.tar.Z (miscellaneous support programs)
2630 sendmail.8.6.9.xdoc.tar.Z (extended documentation, with postscript)
a933dad1 2631
a933dad1
DL
2632 IDA sendmail on vixen.cso.uiuc.edu in /pub:
2633 sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5.tar.gz
a933dad1 2634
9dc15871 2635**** Sunos 4: You get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
a933dad1 2636
9dc15871
EZ
2637This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
2638for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
2639/usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
a933dad1 2640
9dc15871 2641**** SunOS 4.1.3: Emacs unpredictably crashes in _yp_dobind_soft.
a933dad1 2642
9dc15871
EZ
2643This happens if you configure Emacs specifying just `sparc-sun-sunos4'
2644on a system that is version 4.1.3. You must specify the precise
2645version number (or let configure figure out the configuration, which
2646it can do perfectly well for SunOS).
a933dad1 2647
9dc15871 2648**** Sunos 4.1.3: Emacs gets hung shortly after startup.
a933dad1 2649
9dc15871
EZ
2650We think this is due to a bug in Sunos. The word is that
2651one of these Sunos patches fixes the bug:
a933dad1 2652
9dc15871
EZ
2653100075-11 100224-06 100347-03 100482-05 100557-02 100623-03 100804-03 101080-01
2654100103-12 100249-09 100496-02 100564-07 100630-02 100891-10 101134-01
2655100170-09 100296-04 100377-09 100507-04 100567-04 100650-02 101070-01 101145-01
2656100173-10 100305-15 100383-06 100513-04 100570-05 100689-01 101071-03 101200-02
2657100178-09 100338-05 100421-03 100536-02 100584-05 100784-01 101072-01 101207-01
a933dad1 2658
9dc15871
EZ
2659We don't know which of these patches really matter. If you find out
2660which ones, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
a933dad1 2661
9dc15871
EZ
2662**** SunOS 4: Emacs processes keep going after you kill the X server
2663(or log out, if you logged in using X).
a933dad1 2664
9dc15871 2665Someone reported that recompiling with GCC 2.7.0 fixed this problem.
a933dad1 2666
9dc15871
EZ
2667The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
2668or link libXmu statically.
a933dad1 2669
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2670**** Sunos 5.3: Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies.
2671
2672A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2673exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2674applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2675communicating through pipes.
2676
9dc15871 2677*** Apollo Domain
a933dad1 2678
9dc15871 2679**** Shell mode ignores interrupts on Apollo Domain.
a933dad1 2680
9dc15871 2681You may find that M-x shell prints the following message:
a933dad1 2682
9dc15871 2683 Warning: no access to tty; thus no job control in this shell...
a933dad1 2684
9dc15871
EZ
2685This can happen if there are not enough ptys on your system.
2686Here is how to make more of them.
a933dad1 2687
9dc15871
EZ
2688 % cd /dev
2689 % ls pty*
2690 # shows how many pty's you have. I had 8, named pty0 to pty7)
2691 % /etc/crpty 8
2692 # creates eight new pty's
a933dad1 2693
9dc15871 2694*** Irix
a933dad1 2695
9dc15871 2696*** Irix 6.2: No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
a933dad1 2697
9dc15871
EZ
2698This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
2699as of 8 Dec 1998.
a933dad1 2700
9dc15871 2701The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
a933dad1 2702
9dc15871
EZ
2703*** Irix 6.3: substituting environment variables in file names
2704in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
a933dad1 2705
9dc15871 2706 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
a933dad1 2707
9dc15871
EZ
2708This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
2709003082 August 11, 1998.
a933dad1 2710
9dc15871 2711*** OPENSTEP
a933dad1 2712
9dc15871 2713**** OPENSTEP 4.2: Compiling syntax.c with gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
a933dad1 2714
9dc15871
EZ
2715The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
2716following message:
a933dad1 2717
9dc15871 2718 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
a933dad1 2719
9dc15871
EZ
2720To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
2721INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
2722functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
a933dad1 2723
9dc15871
EZ
2724 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
2725 {
2726 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
2727 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
a933dad1 2728
9dc15871
EZ
2729Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
2730with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
a933dad1 2731
9dc15871 2732*** Solaris 2.x
a933dad1 2733
9dc15871 2734**** Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
a933dad1 2735
9dc15871
EZ
2736Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
2737editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
2738as GCC.
a933dad1 2739
9dc15871 2740**** On Solaris, Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called.
a933dad1 2741
9dc15871
EZ
2742If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
2743of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
2744called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
a933dad1 2745
9dc15871 2746**** On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
a933dad1 2747
9dc15871
EZ
2748This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
2749version of Solaris that you are using.
a933dad1 2750
9dc15871 2751**** Solaris 2.3 and 2.4: Unpredictable segmentation faults.
a933dad1 2752
9dc15871
EZ
2753A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
2754the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
a933dad1 2755
9dc15871 2756We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
a933dad1 2757
9dc15871 2758**** Solaris 2.4: Emacs dumps core on startup.
a933dad1 2759
9dc15871
EZ
2760Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
2761102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
2762Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
2763by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
2764However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
a933dad1 2765
9dc15871
EZ
2766Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
2767you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
2768We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
2769for certain.
a933dad1 2770
9dc15871
EZ
2771 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
2772 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
2773 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
a933dad1 2774
9dc15871
EZ
2775(One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
2776with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
a933dad1 2777
9dc15871
EZ
2778If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
2779bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
a933dad1 2780
9dc15871
EZ
2781Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
2782Solaris 2.5.
a933dad1 2783
9dc15871
EZ
2784**** Solaris 2.4: Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
2785forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
a933dad1 2786
9dc15871
EZ
2787casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
2788after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
a933dad1 2789
9dc15871
EZ
2790 #if ThreadedX
2791 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
2792 #endif
a933dad1 2793
9dc15871 2794to:
a933dad1 2795
9dc15871
EZ
2796 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
2797 #if ThreadedX
2798 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
2799 #endif
2800 #endif
2801
2802Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
2803(as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
2804OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
2805Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
2806definition for your type of machine and system.
a933dad1 2807
9dc15871
EZ
2808Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
2809the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
2810Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
a933dad1 2811
9dc15871
EZ
2812For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
2813101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
2814to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
2815patch.
a933dad1 2816
9dc15871
EZ
2817However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
2818he changed
2819 #define ThreadedX YES
2820to
2821 #define ThreadedX NO
2822in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
2823`-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
2824typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
a933dad1 2825
9dc15871 2826**** Solaris 2.x: GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported".
a933dad1 2827
9dc15871
EZ
2828This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
2829are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
2830does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
2831later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
2832described in the Solaris FAQ
2833<http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
2834to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
a933dad1 2835
9dc15871
EZ
2836**** Solaris 2.7: Building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
2837C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
2838compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
2839release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
2840another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
2841and the default CFLAGS.
a933dad1 2842
9dc15871 2843**** Solaris 2.x: Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
a933dad1 2844
9dc15871
EZ
2845The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
2846Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
2847(Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
2848You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
2849You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
2850look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
2851are currently recommended for your host.
a933dad1 2852
9dc15871
EZ
2853On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
2854105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
2855105284-18 might fix it again.
a933dad1 2856
0a4dd4e4 2857**** Solaris 2.6 and 7: the Compose key does not work.
a933dad1 2858
9dc15871
EZ
2859This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
2860the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
2861support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
2862If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
a933dad1 2863
9dc15871
EZ
2864One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
2865For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
2866variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
2867lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
2868should do.
a933dad1 2869
9dc15871
EZ
2870pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
2871if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
2872libraries.
a933dad1 2873
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2874*** HP/UX versions before 11.0
2875
bf247b6e 2876HP/UX 9 was end-of-lifed in December 1998.
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2877HP/UX 10 was end-of-lifed in May 1999.
2878
2879**** HP/UX 9: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV after you delete a frame.
2880
2881We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
2882the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
2883does not happen.
2884
2885*** HP/UX 10: Large file support is disabled.
2886
2887See the comments in src/s/hpux10.h.
2888
2889*** HP/UX: Emacs is slow using X11R5.
2890
2891This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
2892doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
2893because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
2894libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
2895those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
2896install them and rebuild Emacs.
2897
9dc15871 2898*** Ultrix and Digital Unix
a933dad1 2899
9dc15871 2900**** Ultrix 4.2: `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
a933dad1 2901
9dc15871
EZ
2902This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
2903commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
2904Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
2905hand.
a933dad1 2906
9dc15871 2907**** Digital Unix 4.0: Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs.
a933dad1 2908
9dc15871
EZ
2909So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
2910is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
2911properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
2912`tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
2913in Emacs.
a933dad1 2914
9dc15871 2915**** Ultrix: `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
a933dad1 2916
9dc15871
EZ
2917On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
2918in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
2919expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
2920in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
a933dad1 2921
9dc15871
EZ
2922The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
2923anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
a933dad1 2924
9dc15871
EZ
2925I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
2926going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
2927Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
2928in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
a933dad1 2929
9dc15871 2930*** SVr4
a933dad1 2931
9dc15871 2932**** SVr4: On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
a933dad1 2933
9dc15871
EZ
2934Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
2935the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
2936sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
a933dad1 2937
9dc15871 2938**** SVr4: After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
a933dad1 2939
9dc15871
EZ
2940Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
2941mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
2942the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
a933dad1 2943
9dc15871
EZ
2944Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
2945you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
2946operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
2947configure script) that reads:
2948#define SYSTEM_MALLOC
2949This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
2950the kernel bug.
a933dad1 2951
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2952*** Irix 5 and earlier
2953
bf247b6e 2954Exactly when Irix-5 end-of-lifed is obscure. But since Irix 6.0
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2955shipped in 1994, it has been some years.
2956
2957**** Irix 5.2: unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
2958
2959The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
2960Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
2961compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
2962workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
2963syms.h.
2964
2965**** Irix 5.3: "out of virtual swap space".
2966
2967This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
2968many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
2969swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
2970can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
2971command `swap -l'.
2972
2973You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
2974line like this:
2975
2976/usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
2977
2978where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
2979by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
2980that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
2981new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
2982information.
2983
2984The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
2985swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
2986on the network that can log on to the host.
2987
2988If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
2989the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
2990some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
2991icons.
2992
2993You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
2994FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
2995("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
2996ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
2997
2998**** Irix 5.3: Emacs crashes in utmpname.
2999
3000This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
3001It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
3002
3003**** Irix 6.0: Make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi.
3004
3005A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
3006in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
3007find that string, and take out the spaces.
3008
3009Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
3010
3011*** SCO Unix and UnixWare
3012
3013**** SCO 3.2v4: Unusable default font.
3014
3015The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
3016that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
3017fonts, so it does not work.
3018
3019This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
3020the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
3021emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
3022that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
3023resources affect Emacs also:
3024
3025 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
3026 *Background: scoBackground
3027 *Foreground: scoForeground
3028
3029The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
3030Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
3031
3032 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
3033 Emacs*Background: white
3034 Emacs*Foreground: black
3035
3036(These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
3037suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
3038starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
3039environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
3040as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
3041/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
3042but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
3043Open Desktop display.
3044
3045These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
3046machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
3047
3048**** SCO 4.2.0: Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
3049
3050On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
3051with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
3052version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
3053C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
3054GCC.
3055
3056**** UnixWare 2.1: Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs.
3057
3058Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
3059virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
3060the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
3061error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
3062exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
3063memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
3064
3065You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
3066But you have to be root to do it.
3067
3068According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
3069
3070 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
3071 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
3072 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
3073 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
3074 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
3075
3076(He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
3077These changes take effect when you reboot.
3078
9dc15871 3079*** Linux 1.x
a933dad1 3080
9dc15871 3081**** Linux 1.0-1.04: Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
a933dad1 3082
9dc15871
EZ
3083This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
3084to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
3085Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
a933dad1 3086
9dc15871
EZ
3087**** Linux 1.3: Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly
3088truncated on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1 3089
9dc15871
EZ
3090This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
30911.3.75.
a933dad1 3092
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3093** Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME
3094
3095*** MS-Windows NT/95: Problems running Perl under Emacs
3096
3097`perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
3098The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
3099
3100The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
3101"CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
3102with the user.
3103
3104On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
3105pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
3106communicate with the subprocess.
3107
3108On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
3109relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
3110redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
3111stdin.
3112
3113A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
3114
3115For Perl 4:
3116
3117 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
3118 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
3119 ***************
3120 *** 68,74 ****
3121 $rcfile=".perldb";
3122 }
3123 else {
3124 ! $console = "con";
3125 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3126 }
3127
3128 --- 68,74 ----
3129 $rcfile=".perldb";
3130 }
3131 else {
3132 ! $console = "";
3133 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3134 }
3135
3136
3137 For Perl 5:
3138 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
3139 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
3140 ***************
3141 *** 22,28 ****
3142 $rcfile=".perldb";
3143 }
3144 elsif (-e "con") {
3145 ! $console = "con";
3146 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3147 }
3148 else {
3149 --- 22,28 ----
3150 $rcfile=".perldb";
3151 }
3152 elsif (-e "con") {
3153 ! $console = "";
3154 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
3155 }
3156 else {
3157
3158*** MS-Windows 95: Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
3159
3160This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
3161You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
3162
3163*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: subprocesses do not terminate properly.
3164
3165This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
3166when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
3167cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
3168http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/.
3169
3170*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
3171
3172When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
3173Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
3174particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
3175program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
3176PATH.
3177
9dc15871 3178** MS-DOS
a933dad1 3179
9dc15871 3180*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT, "config msdos" fails.
a933dad1 3181
9dc15871
EZ
3182If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
3183Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
3184program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
3185config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
3186the front of your PATH environment variable.
a933dad1 3187
9dc15871
EZ
3188*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
3189like make-docfile.
a933dad1 3190
9dc15871
EZ
3191This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
3192variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
3193compilation are not the same. See the MSDOG section of INSTALL for
3194the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
a933dad1 3195
9dc15871 3196*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
a933dad1 3197
9dc15871 3198 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
a933dad1 3199
9dc15871
EZ
3200This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
3201on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
3202value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
3203works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
3204support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
3205undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
3206[emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
3207`TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
3208your system works as before.
a933dad1 3209
9dc15871 3210*** MS-DOS: Emacs crashes at startup.
a933dad1 3211
9dc15871
EZ
3212Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
3213and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
3214know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
3215memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
3216However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
a933dad1 3217
9dc15871
EZ
3218You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
3219arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
3220information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
3221is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
a933dad1 3222
9dc15871
EZ
3223Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
3224configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
3225removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
3226and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
3227the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
a933dad1 3228
9dc15871
EZ
3229*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
3230in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
3231drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
a933dad1 3232
9dc15871
EZ
3233This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
3234device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
3235work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
a933dad1 3236
9dc15871 3237*** MS-DOS+DJGPP: Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs.
a933dad1 3238
9dc15871 3239There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
a933dad1 3240
9dc15871
EZ
3241 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
3242 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
3243 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
a933dad1 3244
9dc15871
EZ
3245To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
3246subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
3247them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
3248incorrect library functions.
a933dad1 3249
9dc15871
EZ
3250*** MS-DOS: Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
3251run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
a933dad1 3252
9dc15871
EZ
3253Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
3254immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
3255the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
3256and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
a933dad1 3257
9dc15871
EZ
3258Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
3259the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
3260Lisp.
a933dad1 3261
9dc15871
EZ
3262This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
3263support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
3264characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
3265You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
3266filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
3267compiled with DJGPP v2). The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
3268explains this issue in more detail.
a933dad1 3269
9dc15871
EZ
3270Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
3271MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
3272by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
3273unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
3274them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
3275must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
3276properly truncated.
a933dad1 3277
9dc15871 3278** Archaic window managers and toolkits
a933dad1 3279
9dc15871 3280*** OpenLook: Under OpenLook, the Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
a933dad1 3281
9dc15871
EZ
3282Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
3283command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
3284Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
3285manager to use some other command. You can disable the
3286shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
a933dad1 3287
9dc15871 3288 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
a933dad1 3289
9dc15871 3290**** twm: A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
a933dad1 3291
9dc15871
EZ
3292twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
3293You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
a933dad1 3294
9dc15871 3295 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
a933dad1 3296
9dc15871 3297** Bugs related to old DEC hardware
a933dad1 3298
9dc15871 3299*** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
a933dad1 3300
9dc15871 3301This shell command should fix it:
a933dad1 3302
9dc15871 3303 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
a933dad1 3304
9dc15871
EZ
3305*** Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
3306as a concentrator.
a933dad1 3307
9dc15871
EZ
3308This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
33097 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
a933dad1 3310
9dc15871 3311* Build problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 3312
9dc15871 3313** BSD/386 1.0: --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong.
a933dad1 3314
9dc15871
EZ
3315This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
3316The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
3317such as bash.
a933dad1 3318
9dc15871
EZ
3319** Digital Unix 4.0: Emacs fails to build, giving error message
3320 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
a933dad1 3321
9dc15871
EZ
3322This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
3323Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
a933dad1 3324
9dc15871 3325** Digital Unix 4.0: Failure in unexec while dumping emacs.
a933dad1 3326
9dc15871 3327This problem manifests itself as an error message
a933dad1 3328
9dc15871 3329 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
a933dad1 3330
9dc15871
EZ
3331The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
3332were built for an older system version,
a933dad1 3333
9dc15871 3334 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
a933dad1 3335
9dc15871 3336made the problem go away.
a933dad1 3337
9dc15871 3338** Sunos 4.1.1: there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
a933dad1 3339
9dc15871 3340If you get errors such as
a933dad1 3341
9dc15871
EZ
3342 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3343 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3344 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
a933dad1 3345
9dc15871
EZ
3346This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
3347to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
3348script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
3349make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
3350ones available when you build Emacs.
a933dad1 3351
9dc15871 3352** SunOS 4.1.1: You get this error message from GNU ld:
a933dad1 3353
9dc15871 3354 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
a933dad1 3355
9dc15871 3356The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
a933dad1 3357
9dc15871 3358The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
a933dad1 3359
9dc15871 3360** Sunos 4.1: Undefined symbols when linking using --with-x-toolkit.
a933dad1 3361
9dc15871
EZ
3362If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
3363_iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
3364-lXaw in the command that links temacs.
a933dad1 3365
9dc15871
EZ
3366This problem seems to arise only when the international language
3367extensions to X11R5 are installed.
a933dad1 3368
9dc15871 3369** SunOS: Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
a933dad1 3370
9dc15871
EZ
3371If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
3372`ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
3373that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
3374with a floating point option other than the default.
a933dad1 3375
9dc15871
EZ
3376It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
3377crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
3378However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
3379floating point option: -fsoft.
a933dad1 3380
9dc15871 3381** SunOS: Undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym and/or _dlclose.
a933dad1 3382
9dc15871
EZ
3383If you see undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym, or _dlclose when linking
3384with -lX11, compile and link against the file mit/util/misc/dlsym.c in
3385the MIT X11R5 distribution. Alternatively, link temacs using shared
3386libraries with s/sunos4shr.h. (This doesn't work if you use the X
3387toolkit.)
a933dad1 3388
9dc15871
EZ
3389If you get the additional error that the linker could not find
3390lib_version.o, try extracting it from X11/usr/lib/X11/libvim.a in
3391X11R4, then use it in the link.
a933dad1 3392
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3393** SunOS4, DGUX 5.4.2: --with-x-toolkit version crashes when used with shared libraries.
3394
3395On some systems, including Sunos 4 and DGUX 5.4.2 and perhaps others,
3396unexec doesn't work properly with the shared library for the X
3397toolkit. You might be able to work around this by using a nonshared
3398libXt.a library. The real fix is to upgrade the various versions of
3399unexec and/or ralloc. We think this has been fixed on Sunos 4
3400and Solaris in version 19.29.
3401
3402** HPUX 10.20: Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine.
3403
3404This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
3405
9dc15871 3406** VMS: Compilation errors on VMS.
a933dad1 3407
9dc15871
EZ
3408You will get warnings when compiling on VMS because there are
3409variable names longer than 32 (or whatever it is) characters.
3410This is not an error. Ignore it.
a933dad1 3411
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3412VAX C does not support #if defined(foo). Uses of this construct
3413were removed, but some may have crept back in. They must be rewritten.
a933dad1 3414
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3415There is a bug in the C compiler which fails to sign extend characters
3416in conditional expressions. The bug is:
3417 char c = -1, d = 1;
3418 int i;
a933dad1 3419
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3420 i = d ? c : d;
3421The result is i == 255; the fix is to typecast the char in the
3422conditional expression as an (int). Known occurrences of such
3423constructs in Emacs have been fixed.
a933dad1 3424
9dc15871 3425** Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
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3426
3427You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3428
3429 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3430 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3431
3432These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3433Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3434may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3435on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3436in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3437can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3438that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3439
3440As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3441you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3442can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3443should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3444array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3445 Lisp_Object *args;
3446 ...
3447 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3448putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3449 Lisp_Object *args;
3450 Lisp_Object tem;
3451 ...
3452 tem = args[i];
3453 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3454causes the problem to go away.
3455The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3456so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3457
9dc15871 3458** 68000 C compiler problems
a933dad1
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3459
3460Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3461These are some that have been observed.
3462
9dc15871 3463*** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
a933dad1
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3464This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3465if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3466
9dc15871 3467*** "cannot reclaim" error.
a933dad1
DL
3468
3469This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3470line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3471simpler expressions.
3472
9dc15871 3473*** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
a933dad1
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3474
3475If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3476Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3477
3478struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3479
3480lose (arg)
3481 struct foo arg;
3482{
3483 test ((int *) arg.y);
3484}
3485
3486If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3487In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3488((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3489
3490This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3491of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE. That is the recommended setting now.
3492
9dc15871 3493*** C compilers lose on returning unions.
a933dad1
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3494
3495I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3496Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3497defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3498
3499This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3500of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE.
3501
53854552 3502\f
9dc15871 3503Copyright 1987,88,89,93,94,95,96,97,98,1999,2001,2002,2004
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3504 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3505
3506Copying and redistribution of this file with or without modification
3507are permitted without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
3508
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3509Local variables:
3510mode: outline
3511paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
3512end:
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