(Window Systems): Document the value of `initial-window-system' under --daemon.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / PROBLEMS
CommitLineData
5e14abf8
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1Known Problems with GNU Emacs
2
5b87ad55 3Copyright (C) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
bb65542c 4 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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5 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6See the end of the file for license conditions.
7
8
a933dad1 9This file describes various problems that have been encountered
0a4dd4e4 10in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs. Try doing Ctl-C Ctl-t
9dc15871 11and browsing through the outline headers.
a933dad1 12
8589dc17 13* Mule-UCS doesn't work in Emacs 23.
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14
15It's completely redundant now, as far as we know.
16
9dc15871 17* Emacs startup failures
32364f49 18
9dc15871 19** Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
32364f49 20
9dc15871 21A typical error message might be something like
32364f49 22
9dc15871 23 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
6b61353c 24
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25This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
26Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
27are:
6b61353c 28
9dc15871 29 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
6b61353c 30
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31 - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or
32 /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or
33 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
6b61353c 34
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35One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
36fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
37the problematic line(s) and correct them.
6b61353c 38
9dc15871 39** Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
6b61353c 40
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41This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
42installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
43specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
44corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
45the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
46Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
47files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
48original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
49not to work.
6b61353c 50
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51The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
52when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
53is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
54same directory where system header files are kept.
6b61353c 55
9dc15871 56** Emacs does not start, complaining that it cannot open termcap database file.
6b61353c 57
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58If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern
59systems do), this could happen if the proper version of
60ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it
61cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for
62libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is
63obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries.
6b61353c 64
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65The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in
66the developer's form (header files, static libraries and
67symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian)
68it constitutes a separate package.
6b61353c 69
9dc15871 70** Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
5b4ffca2 71
9dc15871 72The typical error message might be like this:
5b4ffca2 73
9dc15871 74 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
c763d515 75
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76This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
77tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
78files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
79Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
80when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
81required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
82it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
f1c231c4 83
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84Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
85file could fail to load if it is compressed.
fc2938d1 86
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87The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
88file.
6b61353c 89
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90Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
91lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
92print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
6b61353c 93
9dc15871 94 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
6b61353c 95
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96If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
97and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
98load-path.
f0f62f71 99
9dc15871 100** Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
f0f62f71 101
9dc15871 102An example of such an error is:
f0f62f71 103
9dc15871 104 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
fc1bfc2a 105
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106This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your load-path.
107The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
108present in load-path:
fc1bfc2a 109
9dc15871 110 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
fc1bfc2a 111
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112If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
113and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
114load-path.
60f553d2 115
9dc15871 116** With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
3f82efb4 117
9dc15871 118Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
3f82efb4 119
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120 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
121 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
122 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
123 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
124 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
125 /******************************************************************
3f82efb4 126
3256a475 127 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
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128 @@ -166,8 +166,8 @@
129 _XimMakeImName(lcd)
3256a475 130 XLCd lcd;
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131 {
132 - char* begin;
133 - char* end;
134 + char* begin = NULL;
135 + char* end = NULL;
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136 char* ret;
137 int i = 0;
138 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
9dc15871 139 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
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140 }
141 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
142 if (ret != NULL) {
143 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
9dc15871 144 + if (begin != NULL) {
3256a475 145 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
9dc15871 146 + } else {
3256a475 147 + ret[0] = '\0';
9dc15871 148 + }
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149 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
150 }
151 return ret;
3f82efb4 152
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153** Emacs crashes on startup after a glibc upgrade.
154
155This is caused by a binary incompatible change to the malloc
156implementation in glibc 2.5.90-22. As a result, Emacs binaries built
157using prior versions of glibc crash when run under 2.5.90-22.
158
0a7aab83 159This problem was first seen in pre-release versions of Fedora 7, and
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160may be fixed in the final Fedora 7 release. To stop the crash from
161happening, first try upgrading to the newest version of glibc; if this
162does not work, rebuild Emacs with the same version of glibc that you
163will run it under. For details, see
164
165https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239344
166
9dc15871 167* Crash bugs
cc305a60 168
9dc15871 169** Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
cc305a60 170
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171This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
172use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
173an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
174happens to exist on your X server).
fc2938d1 175
9dc15871 176** Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
fc2938d1 177
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178This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
179prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
180to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
177c0ea7 181
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182Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
183(src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
fc2938d1 184
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185** Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
186a segmentation fault and core dump.
c93bdf05 187
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188This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
189added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
c93bdf05 190
9dc15871 191 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
c93bdf05 192
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193If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
194untar it :-).
c93bdf05 195
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196** Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
197libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
198Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur
199if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an
200older version.
4593687f 201
9dc15871 202** Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
9272ccfc 203
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204This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
205terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
206If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
207version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
208and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
9272ccfc 209
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210All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
211problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
212terminfo when built.
9272ccfc 213
9dc15871 214** Emacs crashes when using the Exceed 6.0 X server.
7aa70236 215
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216If you are using Exceed 6.1, upgrade to a later version. This was
217reported to prevent the crashes.
7aa70236 218
9dc15871 219** Emacs crashes with SIGSEGV in XtInitializeWidgetClass.
7c22dc9d 220
9dc15871 221It crashes on X, but runs fine when called with option "-nw".
7c22dc9d 222
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223This has been observed when Emacs is linked with GNU ld but without passing
224the -z nocombreloc flag. Emacs normally knows to pass the -z nocombreloc
225flag when needed, so if you come across a situation where the flag is
226necessary but missing, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug.
7c22dc9d 227
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228On platforms such as Solaris, you can also work around this problem by
229configuring your compiler to use the native linker instead of GNU ld.
7c22dc9d 230
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231** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes when closing a display (x-close-connection).
232
233This happens because of bugs in Gtk+. Gtk+ 2.10 seems to be OK. See bug
234http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715.
235
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236** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ may loop forever if a display crashes.
237
238This is related to the bug above. A scenario for this is when emacs is run
239as a server, and an X frame is created. If the X server for the frame
240crashes or exits unexpectedly and an attempt is made to create a new
241frame on another X display, then a Gtk+ error happens in the emacs
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242server that results in an endless loop. This is not fixed in any known
243Gtk+ version (2.14.4 being current).
c4c122cb 244
1020d879 245** Emacs compiled with Gtk+ crashes on startup on Cygwin.
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246
247A typical error message is
dc13f3f5 248 ***MEMORY-ERROR***: emacs[5172]: GSlice: failed to allocate 504 bytes
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249 (alignment: 512): Function not implemented
250
251Emacs supplies its own malloc, but glib (part of Gtk+) calls memalign and on
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252Cygwin, that becomes the Cygwin supplied memalign. As malloc is not the
253Cygwin malloc, the Cygwin memalign always returns ENOSYS. A fix for this
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254problem would be welcome.
255
9dc15871 256* General runtime problems
7c22dc9d 257
9dc15871 258** Lisp problems
677e7496 259
9dc15871 260*** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
677e7496 261
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262You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
263Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
264will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
265and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
677e7496 266
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267Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
268than the corresponding .el file.
677e7496 269
9dc15871 270*** Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars.
677e7496 271
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272These control the actions of Emacs.
273~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
274EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
275"load" will search.
677e7496 276
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277If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
278of them, then try again.
9ed04369 279
9dc15871 280*** Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error.
9ed04369 281
9dc15871 282The error message might be something like this:
b87207a0 283
9dc15871 284 "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth"
b87207a0 285
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286This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a
287built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch
288for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3
289corrects that.
177c0ea7 290
9dc15871 291*** Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
177c0ea7 292
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293Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
294problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
295documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
177c0ea7 296
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297*** The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
298Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
299`add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
300'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
177c0ea7 301
9dc15871 302** Keyboard problems
b87207a0 303
9dc15871 304*** "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
61638355 305
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306If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
307will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
308in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
309did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
310character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
311must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
61638355 312
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313You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
314them to two different keys.
a47a639f 315
9dc15871 316*** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
a47a639f 317
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318You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
319though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
320or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
a47a639f 321
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322*** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
323to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
a47a639f 324
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325This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
326with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
327another escape character in kermit. One user did
61638355 328
9dc15871 329 set escape-character 17
61638355 330
9dc15871 331in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
61638355 332
9dc15871 333** Mailers and other helper programs
61638355 334
9dc15871 335*** movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
61638355 336
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337Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
338NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
339entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
340listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
341the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
342old POP protocol.
61638355 343
9dc15871 344*** RMAIL gets error getting new mail.
61638355 345
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346RMAIL gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
347called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
348the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
61638355 349
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350There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
351the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
352`movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
353this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
354the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
355IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
356SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
61638355 357
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358If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
359prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
360you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
361`mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
362make install.
61638355 363
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364 chgrp mail movemail
365 chmod 2755 movemail
61638355 366
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367Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
368installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
369installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
370/usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
371mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
372directory copy is ineffective.
61638355 373
9dc15871 374*** rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
61638355 375
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376This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
377The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
61638355 378
9dc15871 379** Problems with hostname resolution
61638355 380
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381*** Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
382the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
383*** Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
20dc2215 384*** Gnus can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
61638355 385
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386This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
387libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
388shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
389similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
556a9fad 390
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391The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
392the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
61638355 393
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394The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
395installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
49172314 396
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397If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
398then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
399do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
400or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
401that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
402be careful not to lose the others.
ed0d1d91 403
9dc15871 404Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
6e1a66dc 405
9dc15871 406#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
6e1a66dc 407
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408Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
409the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
410again to say this:
3c418e54 411
9dc15871 412#define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
3c418e54 413
9dc15871 414*** Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
3c418e54 415
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416For example, (system-name) returns some variation on
417"localhost.localdomain", rather the name you were expecting.
418
9dc15871 419You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
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420(i.e. a name with at least one ".") either in /etc/hosts,
421/etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system calls for specifying
422this.
f9130829 423
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424If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
425mail-host-address to the value you want.
f9130829 426
9dc15871 427** NFS and RFS
f9130829 428
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429*** Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
430appear on disk.
f9130829 431
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432This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
433remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
434implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
435detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
436calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
437where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
f9130829 438
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439*** Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
440It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
441but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
442causes it.
f9130829 443
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444 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
445 call in the RFS server.
f9130829 446
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447 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
448 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
449 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
450 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
ed85f61d 451
9dc15871 452 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
b300fd77 453
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454 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
455 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
456 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
457 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
458 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
459 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
460 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
b300fd77 461
9dc15871 462 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
ed85f61d 463
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464 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
465 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
466 retrieving revision 1.2
467 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
468 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
469 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
470 ***************
471 *** 163,169 ****
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472 /*
473 * No return sent for close or fsync!
474 */
9dc15871 475 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
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476 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
477 else
478 {
9dc15871 479 --- 166,172 ----
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480 /*
481 * No return sent for close or fsync!
482 */
9dc15871 483 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
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484 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
485 else
486 {
ed85f61d 487
9dc15871 488** PSGML
fa2301bf 489
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490*** Old versions of the PSGML package use the obsolete variables
491`before-change-function' and `after-change-function', which are no
492longer used by Emacs. Please use PSGML 1.2.3 or later.
ed85f61d 493
9dc15871 494*** PSGML conflicts with sgml-mode.
d0cf6c7d 495
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496PSGML package uses the same names of some variables (like keymap)
497as built-in sgml-mode.el because it was created as a replacement
498of that package. The conflict will be shown if you load
499sgml-mode.el before psgml.el. E.g. this could happen if you edit
500HTML page and then start to work with SGML or XML file. html-mode
501(from sgml-mode.el) is used for HTML file and loading of psgml.el
502(for sgml-mode or xml-mode) will cause an error.
d0cf6c7d 503
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504*** Versions of the PSGML package earlier than 1.0.3 (stable) or 1.1.2
505(alpha) fail to parse DTD files correctly in Emacs 20.3 and later.
506Here is a patch for psgml-parse.el from PSGML 1.0.1 and, probably,
507earlier versions.
d0cf6c7d 508
9dc15871
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509--- psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:18:18 1.1
510+++ psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:20:00
511@@ -2383,7 +2383,7 @@ (defun sgml-push-to-entity (entity &opti
512 (setq sgml-buffer-parse-state nil))
513 (cond
514 ((stringp entity) ; a file name
515- (save-excursion (insert-file-contents entity))
516+ (insert-file-contents entity)
517 (setq default-directory (file-name-directory entity)))
518 ((consp (sgml-entity-text entity)) ; external id?
519 (let* ((extid (sgml-entity-text entity))
d0cf6c7d 520
90a02640 521** AUCTeX
c289e7f0 522
90a02640
DK
523You should not be using a version older than 11.52 if you can avoid
524it.
339b95d5 525
90a02640 526*** Emacs 21 freezes when visiting a TeX file with AUCTeX installed.
339b95d5 527
90a02640 528Emacs 21 needs version 10 or later of AUCTeX; upgrading should solve
9dc15871 529these problems.
339b95d5 530
90a02640 531*** No colors in AUCTeX with Emacs 21.
339b95d5 532
9dc15871
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533Upgrade to AUC TeX version 10 or later, and make sure it is
534byte-compiled with Emacs 21.
b87207a0 535
73639601
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536** PCL-CVS
537
538*** Lines are not updated or new lines are added in the buffer upon commit.
539
540When committing files located higher in the hierarchy than the examined
541directory, some versions of the CVS program return an ambiguous message
542from which PCL-CVS cannot extract the full location of the committed
543files. As a result, the corresponding lines in the PCL-CVS buffer are
544not updated with the new revision of these files, and new lines are
545added to the top-level directory.
546
547This can happen with CVS versions 1.12.8 and 1.12.9. Upgrade to CVS
5481.12.10 or newer to fix this problem.
549
9dc15871 550** Miscellaneous problems
f936978f 551
f5578c7f
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552*** Emacs uses 100% of CPU time
553
554This is a known problem with some versions of the Semantic package.
3f37e604
GM
555The solution is to upgrade Semantic to version 2.0pre4 (distributed
556with CEDET 1.0pre4) or later.
f5578c7f 557
9dc15871 558*** Self-documentation messages are garbled.
6fb6f3ac 559
9dc15871
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560This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
561with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
562corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
b87207a0 563
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564*** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
565terminal type.
b87207a0 566
9dc15871
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567The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
568environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
569provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
570emulates.
b87207a0 571
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572Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
573in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
574it only if it is undefined.
b87207a0 575
9dc15871 576 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
e085efdb 577
9dc15871
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578Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
579happen in a non-login shell.
fa99e2a4 580
9dc15871 581*** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
c8d9b4ee 582
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583This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
584smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
585on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
586problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
fe445893 587
9dc15871 588 if ($?EMACS) then
4b1aaa8b 589 if ("$EMACS" =~ /*) then
9dc15871
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590 unset edit
591 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
592 endif
593 endif
c8d9b4ee 594
9dc15871 595*** Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow.
d9810886 596
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597This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the
598full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the
599/etc/hosts file, something like this:
a408ce18 600
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601127.0.0.1 localhost
602129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04
a408ce18 603
9dc15871 604The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems.
a38f41c4 605
9dc15871 606*** Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails.
a38f41c4 607
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608If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
609representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
610ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux, kernel
611version 2.4.3, with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other
612systems as well. To avoid this problem, switch to using the standard
613ftp client. On a Debian system, type
a38f41c4 614
9dc15871 615 update-alternatives --config ftp
a38f41c4 616
9dc15871 617and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
a38f41c4 618
9dc15871 619*** JPEG images aren't displayed.
b87207a0 620
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621This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
622Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem. Configure checks for the
623correct version, but this problem could occur if a binary built
624against a shared libjpeg is run on a system with an older version.
b87207a0 625
9dc15871 626*** Dired is very slow.
4e0bd469
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627
628This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long
629time. Possible reasons for this include:
630
631 - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df'
632 response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds);
633
634 - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix;
635
636 - slow operation of some versions of `df'.
637
638To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable
639`directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from
640invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or
641(c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase.
642
9dc15871 643*** Versions of the W3 package released before Emacs 21.1 don't run
fc2938d1 644under Emacs 21. This fixed in W3 version 4.0pre.47.
a953a8d3 645
9dc15871 646*** The LDAP support rely on ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 2.
8f4df059
PJ
647
648It can fail to work with ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 1.
649Version 1 of OpenLDAP is now deprecated. If you are still using it,
650please upgrade to version 2. As a temporary workaround, remove
651argument "-x" from the variable `ldap-ldapsearch-args'.
652
9dc15871 653*** ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps.
cc2f2825
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654
655This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it
656defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it
657runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory.
658
659The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version.
660
9dc15871 661*** On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
f4f4ee4d
GM
662from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
663shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
664These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
665library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
666
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667Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build
668process invokes Emacs several times.
669
f4f4ee4d
GM
670On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
671environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
672can be found.
673
674Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
675Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
676specified run-time search path in the executable.
677
8643647c 678On some systems, Emacs can crash due to problems with dynamic
c31138a1
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679linking. Specifically, on SGI Irix 6.5, crashes were reported with
680backtraces like this:
681
682 (dbx) where
683 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]
684 1 general_find_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
685 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":2140, 0xfb65a98]
686 2 resolve_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x0, 0xfbdd438, 0x0, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
687 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":1947, 0xfb657e4]
688 3 lazy_text_resolve(0xd18, 0x1a3, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
689 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":997, 0xfb64d44]
690 4 _rld_text_resolve(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
691 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld_bridge.s":175, 0xfb6032c]
692
8643647c
RS
693(`rld' is the dynamic linker.) We don't know yet why this
694happens, but setting the environment variable LD_BIND_NOW to 1 (which
c31138a1
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695forces the dynamic linker to bind all shared objects early on) seems
696to work around the problem.
697
f4f4ee4d
GM
698Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details.
699
9dc15871
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700*** You request inverse video, and the first Emacs frame is in inverse
701video, but later frames are not in inverse video.
b1739b51 702
9dc15871
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703This can happen if you have an old version of the custom library in
704your search path for Lisp packages. Use M-x list-load-path-shadows to
705check whether this is true. If it is, delete the old custom library.
b1739b51 706
9dc15871 707*** When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error.
b1739b51 708
9dc15871
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709This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII
710characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII
711characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with
712support for 8-bit characters.
b1739b51 713
9dc15871
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714To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type
715this at your shell's prompt:
b1739b51 716
9dc15871 717 ispell -vv
b1739b51 718
9dc15871
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719and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says
720"!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it
721does not.
e9a52cfe 722
9dc15871
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723To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file
724in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT.
725Then rebuild the speller.
e9a52cfe 726
9dc15871
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727Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the
728version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade.
e9a52cfe 729
9dc15871
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730Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word
731in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by
732Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because
733it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are
734spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other.
e9a52cfe 735
9dc15871
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736If your spell-checking program is Aspell, it has been reported that if
737you have a personal configuration file (normally ~/.aspell.conf), it
738can cause this error. Remove that file, execute `ispell-kill-ispell'
739in Emacs, and then try spell-checking again.
e9a52cfe 740
9dc15871 741* Runtime problems related to font handling
e9a52cfe 742
b1446261
CY
743** Characters are displayed as empty boxes or with wrong font under X.
744
745*** This can occur when two different versions of FontConfig are used.
746For example, XFree86 4.3.0 has one version and Gnome usually comes
747with a newer version. Emacs compiled with Gtk+ will then use the
748newer version. In most cases the problem can be temporarily fixed by
749stopping the application that has the error (it can be Emacs or any
750other application), removing ~/.fonts.cache-1, and then start the
751application again. If removing ~/.fonts.cache-1 and restarting
752doesn't help, the application with problem must be recompiled with the
753same version of FontConfig as the rest of the system uses. For KDE,
754it is sufficient to recompile Qt.
755
756*** Some fonts have a missing glyph and no default character. This is
757known to occur for character number 160 (no-break space) in some
758fonts, such as Lucida but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte
759and Latin-1 version of this character to display a space.
760
761*** Some of the fonts called for in your fontset may not exist on your
762X server.
e9a52cfe 763
9dc15871
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764Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
765supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
b1446261
CY
766many different fonts, collected into a fontset. You can remedy the
767problem by installing additional fonts.
f25eb4f7 768
9dc15871 769The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
9222ba5e
EZ
770display all the characters Emacs supports. The etl-unicode collection
771of fonts (available from <URL:ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/fonts/> and
772<URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/mirror/X.Org/contrib/fonts/>) includes
773fonts that can display many Unicode characters; they can also be used
774by ps-print and ps-mule to print Unicode characters.
f25eb4f7 775
9dc15871 776** Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
f25eb4f7 777
9222ba5e 778You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution
b1446261
CY
779or the etl-unicode collection (see above).
780
781** Under X, an unexpected monospace font is used as the default font.
782
783When compiled with XFT, Emacs tries to use a default font named
784"monospace". This is a "virtual font", which the operating system
785(Fontconfig) redirects to a suitable font such as DejaVu Sans Mono.
786On some systems, there exists a font that is actually named Monospace,
787which takes over the virtual font. This is considered an operating
788system bug; see
f25eb4f7 789
b1446261 790http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-10/msg00696.html
edd7d3be 791
b1446261
CY
792If you encounter this problem, set the default font to a specific font
793in your .Xresources or initialization file. For instance, you can put
794the following in your .Xresources:
795
796Emacs.font: DejaVu Sans Mono 12
797
798** Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it should.
799
800This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller than
801the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that lines do not
802overlap.
edd7d3be 803
9dc15871 804** Loading fonts is very slow.
edd7d3be 805
9dc15871
EZ
806You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
807Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
808directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
809"fonts.scale".
42303132 810
9dc15871
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811If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
812font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
42303132 813
9dc15871
EZ
814With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
815directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
816Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
42303132 817
9dc15871 818** Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces.
42303132 819
9dc15871
EZ
820By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
821`{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
822any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
823vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
824parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
825in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
826pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
827introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
828through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
829to the end of a very large buffer.
42303132 830
bf247b6e 831Beginning with version 22.1, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero
9dc15871
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832is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment,
833to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with
834indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash.
42303132 835
9dc15871
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836If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
837makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
838fontification by setting the variable
839`font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
840be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
f3d6f4ee 841
9dc15871
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842Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
843in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
f3d6f4ee 844
9dc15871
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845** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
846character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
f3d6f4ee 847
9dc15871
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848One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
849away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
850XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
f3d6f4ee 851
9dc15871 852** Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font.
9f83d8b3 853
9dc15871
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854This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
8552.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
856event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
857Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
f29d1e75 858
9dc15871 859A workaround for this is to add something like
f29d1e75 860
9dc15871 861emacs.waitForWM: false
c24be289 862
9dc15871
EZ
863to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
864frame's parameter list, like this:
c24be289 865
9dc15871 866 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
b35319bf 867
9dc15871 868(this should go into your `.emacs' file).
b35319bf 869
9dc15871 870** Underlines appear at the wrong position.
b35319bf 871
9dc15871
EZ
872This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
873Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
6fc3871e
GM
874neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package prior to version 3.0.17.
875To circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties
876to nil in your `.emacs'.
b35319bf 877
9dc15871
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878To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
879type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
880property.
787994b7 881
9dc15871 882** When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
0a2eeca1 883
9dc15871
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884When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
885(either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
886then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
887correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
888gives the appearance of "double spacing".
0a2eeca1 889
9dc15871
EZ
890To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
891feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
0a2eeca1 892
405b495f
GM
893** Subscript/superscript text in TeX is hard to read.
894
895If `tex-fontify-script' is non-nil, tex-mode displays
896subscript/superscript text in the faces subscript/superscript, which
897are smaller than the normal font and lowered/raised. With some fonts,
898nested superscripts (say) can be hard to read. Switching to a
899different font, or changing your antialiasing setting (on an LCD
900screen), can both make the problem disappear. Alternatively, customize
901the following variables: tex-font-script-display (how much to
902lower/raise); tex-suscript-height-ratio (how much smaller than
903normal); tex-suscript-height-minimum (minimum height).
904
9dc15871 905* Internationalization problems
0a2eeca1 906
de25ebb8
RS
907** M-{ does not work on a Spanish PC keyboard.
908
909Many Spanish keyboards seem to ignore that combination. Emacs can't
910do anything about it.
911
9dc15871 912** Characters from the mule-unicode charsets aren't displayed under X.
0a2eeca1 913
9dc15871
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914XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have
915minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font
916name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire
917according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display
918characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be
919able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u
920C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the
921font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont,
922include in the fontset spec:
0a2eeca1 923
9dc15871
EZ
924mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
925mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
926mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1
0a2eeca1 927
9dc15871 928** The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters.
0a2eeca1 929
ce9b56fe
KH
930Emacs directly supports the Unicode BMP whose code points are in the
931ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff, and indirectly supports the parts of
932CJK characters belonging to these legacy charsets:
933
934 GB2312, Big5, JISX0208, JISX0212, JISX0213-1, JISX0213-2, KSC5601
935
936The latter support is done in Utf-Translate-Cjk mode (turned on by
937default). Which Unicode CJK characters are decoded into which Emacs
938charset is decided by the current language environment. For instance,
939in Chinese-GB, most of them are decoded into chinese-gb2312.
119d3665 940
9dc15871
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941If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the
942characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8
943(composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back
944correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences.
945If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are
946substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose
947information.
119d3665 948
9dc15871 949** Mule-UCS loads very slowly.
a933dad1 950
9dc15871
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951Changes to Emacs internals interact badly with Mule-UCS's `un-define'
952library, which is the usual interface to Mule-UCS. Apply the
953following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 and rebuild it. That will help,
954though loading will still be slower than in Emacs 20. (Some
955distributions, such as Debian, may already have applied such a patch.)
0de9f9a8 956
9dc15871
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957--- lisp/un-define.el 6 Mar 2001 22:41:38 -0000 1.30
958+++ lisp/un-define.el 19 Apr 2002 18:34:26 -0000
959@@ -610,13 +624,21 @@ by calling post-read-conversion and pre-
0de9f9a8 960
9dc15871
EZ
961 (mapcar
962 (lambda (x)
963- (mapcar
964- (lambda (y)
965- (mucs-define-coding-system
966- (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
967- (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
968- (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x))))
969- (cdr x)))
970+ (if (fboundp 'register-char-codings)
971+ ;; Mule 5, where we don't need the eol-type specified and
972+ ;; register-char-codings may be very slow for these coding
973+ ;; system definitions.
974+ (let ((y (cadr x)))
3256a475
RC
975+ (mucs-define-coding-system
976+ (car x) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
977+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y)))
9dc15871
EZ
978+ (mapcar
979+ (lambda (y)
3256a475
RC
980+ (mucs-define-coding-system
981+ (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
982+ (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
983+ (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x)))))
9dc15871
EZ
984+ (cdr x)))
985 `((utf-8
986 (utf-8-unix
987 ?u "UTF-8 coding system"
0de9f9a8 988
9dc15871
EZ
989Note that Emacs has native support for Unicode, roughly equivalent to
990Mule-UCS's, so you may not need it.
a933dad1 991
d87ceee0
KH
992** Mule-UCS compilation problem.
993
994Emacs of old versions and XEmacs byte-compile the form `(progn progn
995...)' the same way as `(progn ...)', but Emacs of version 21.3 and the
996later process that form just as interpreter does, that is, as `progn'
997variable reference. Apply the following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 to
998make it compiled by the latest Emacs.
999
1000--- mucs-ccl.el 2 Sep 2005 00:42:23 -0000 1.1.1.1
1001+++ mucs-ccl.el 2 Sep 2005 01:31:51 -0000 1.3
1002@@ -639,10 +639,14 @@
1003 (mucs-notify-embedment 'mucs-ccl-required name)
1004 (setq ccl-pgm-list (cdr ccl-pgm-list)))
1005 ; (message "MCCLREGFIN:%S" result)
1006- `(progn
1007- (setq mucs-ccl-facility-alist
3256a475 1008- (quote ,mucs-ccl-facility-alist))
d87ceee0
KH
1009- ,@result)))
1010+ ;; The only way the function is used in this package is included
1011+ ;; in `mucs-package-definition-end-hook' value, where it must
1012+ ;; return (possibly empty) *list* of forms. Do this. Do not rely
ade79051 1013+ ;; on byte compiler to remove extra `progn's in `(progn ...)'
d87ceee0
KH
1014+ ;; form.
1015+ `((setq mucs-ccl-facility-alist
3256a475 1016+ (quote ,mucs-ccl-facility-alist))
d87ceee0 1017+ ,@result)))
ade79051 1018
d87ceee0
KH
1019 ;;; Add hook for embedding translation informations to a package.
1020 (add-hook 'mucs-package-definition-end-hook
1021
9dc15871 1022** Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
a933dad1 1023
d6b7de9b
EZ
1024Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
1025other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
1026that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
1027size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
1028when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
1029fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
a933dad1 1030
d6b7de9b 1031To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
a933dad1 1032
d6b7de9b 1033 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
a933dad1 1034
d6b7de9b
EZ
1035If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
1036problem.
a933dad1 1037
d6b7de9b
EZ
1038The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
1039`fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
1040`xset fp rehash'.
177c0ea7 1041
9dc15871 1042** The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
a933dad1 1043
9dc15871
EZ
1044This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
1045slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more
1046flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK
1047support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't
1048generally read correctly by Emacs 21.
a933dad1 1049
9dc15871 1050** After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
a933dad1 1051
9dc15871
EZ
1052The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
1053 (standard-display-european t)
1054That should be changed to
1055 (standard-display-european 1 t)
de121241 1056
9dc15871 1057* X runtime problems
de121241 1058
9dc15871 1059** X keyboard problems
de121241 1060
9dc15871 1061*** You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
a933dad1 1062
9dc15871
EZ
1063This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
1064Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
1065character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
1066to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
a933dad1 1067
9dc15871 1068For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
177c0ea7 1069
9dc15871 1070 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
a933dad1 1071
9dc15871
EZ
1072If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
1073Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
1074xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
a933dad1 1075
9dc15871 1076*** Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
a933dad1 1077
9dc15871 1078Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
a933dad1 1079
9f4f9273 1080*** C-SPC fails to work on Fedora GNU/Linux (or with fcitx input method).
09352e8f
RS
1081
1082Fedora Core 4 steals the C-SPC key by default for the `iiimx' program
1083which is the input method for some languages. It blocks Emacs users
1084from using the C-SPC key for `set-mark-command'.
1085
1086One solutions is to remove the `<Ctrl>space' from the `Iiimx' file
1087which can be found in the `/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults' directory.
1088However, that requires root access.
1089
1090Another is to specify `Emacs*useXIM: false' in your X resources.
1091
1092Another is to build Emacs with the `--without-xim' configure option.
1093
2fb18d13
KH
1094The same problem happens on any other system if you are using fcitx
1095(Chinese input method) which by default use C-SPC for toggling. If
1096you want to use fcitx with Emacs, you have two choices. Toggle fcitx
1097by another key (e.g. C-\) by modifying ~/.fcitx/config, or be
1098accustomed to use C-@ for `set-mark-command'.
1099
9dc15871 1100*** M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
a933dad1 1101
9dc15871
EZ
1102See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1103for character composition.
a933dad1 1104
9dc15871 1105*** The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
a933dad1 1106
9dc15871
EZ
1107This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
1108combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
1109definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
1110might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
1111purposes.
a933dad1 1112
9dc15871
EZ
1113We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
1114you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
a933dad1 1115
9dc15871 1116*** Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
a933dad1
DL
1117
1118These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
1119particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
1120configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
1121configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
1122change this.
1123
9dc15871 1124*** Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
a933dad1 1125
9dc15871
EZ
1126This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
1127a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
1128--without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
a933dad1 1129
9dc15871
EZ
1130*** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
1131directly with an X server.
a933dad1 1132
9dc15871
EZ
1133If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
1134does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
1135whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
1136followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
1137it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
1138have made the key binding correctly.
a933dad1 1139
9dc15871
EZ
1140If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
1141be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
1142server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
1143default.
a933dad1 1144
9dc15871 1145If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
a933dad1 1146
9dc15871
EZ
1147 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1148 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
a933dad1 1149
9dc15871
EZ
1150If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1151commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1152are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1153modifier bit not otherwise used.
a933dad1 1154
9dc15871
EZ
1155If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1156keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1157some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1158commands show above to make them modifier keys.
a933dad1 1159
9dc15871
EZ
1160Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1161into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
a933dad1 1162
9dc15871 1163** Window-manager and toolkit-related problems
a933dad1 1164
0e71e4a8
CY
1165*** Gnome: Emacs receives input directly from the keyboard, bypassing XIM.
1166
1167This seems to happen when gnome-settings-daemon version 2.12 or later
1168is running. If gnome-settings-daemon is not running, Emacs receives
1169input through XIM without any problem. Furthermore, this seems only
1170to happen in *.UTF-8 locales; zh_CN.GB2312 and zh_CN.GBK locales, for
1171example, work fine. A bug report has been filed in the Gnome
1172bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357032
1173
9dc15871 1174*** Gnome: Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
a933dad1 1175
9dc15871
EZ
1176A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
1177into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
1178incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
1179other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
1180been filed.
a933dad1 1181
9dc15871
EZ
1182*** KDE: When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
1183or messed up.
a933dad1 1184
9dc15871
EZ
1185For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
1186empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
1187background.
a933dad1 1188
9dc15871
EZ
1189This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
1190definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
1191solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
1192option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option
1193is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style".
a933dad1 1194
9dc15871
EZ
1195Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
1196applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
1197(should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
1198so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
1199Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
1200present or commented out:
a933dad1 1201
9dc15871
EZ
1202 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
1203 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
1204 Emacs*Foreground
1205 Emacs*Background
a933dad1 1206
a3475659
JD
1207It is also reported that a bug in the gtk-engines-qt engine can cause this if
1208Emacs is compiled with Gtk+.
1209The bug is fixed in version 0.7 or newer of gtk-engines-qt.
1210
9dc15871 1211*** KDE: Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
a933dad1 1212
9dc15871
EZ
1213This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1214requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
8576f724 1215of klipper don't implement the ICCCM protocol for large selections,
9dc15871 1216which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
b11e8823 1217while, Emacs may print a message:
a933dad1 1218
9dc15871 1219 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
a933dad1 1220
b11e8823
JD
1221A workaround is to not use `klipper'. An upgrade to the `klipper' that
1222comes with KDE 3.3 or later also solves the problem.
a933dad1 1223
9dc15871 1224*** CDE: Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
a933dad1 1225
9dc15871
EZ
1226This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1227seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1228To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1229and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
d238f982 1230
9dc15871
EZ
1231*** Xaw3d : When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
1232click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
1233is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
1234problem disappears.
d238f982 1235
9dc15871
EZ
1236*** Xaw: There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
1237XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
1238one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
1239For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
1240"C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
1241used with neXtaw at run time.
d7185f9d 1242
9dc15871
EZ
1243The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
1244want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
1245built Emacs with.
d7185f9d 1246
9dc15871 1247*** Open Motif: Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif.
a933dad1 1248
9dc15871
EZ
1249When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the
1250graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter"
1251and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the
1252file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again.
a933dad1 1253
9dc15871
EZ
1254The solution is to use LessTif instead. LessTif is a free replacement
1255for Motif. See the file INSTALL for information on how to do this.
a933dad1 1256
9dc15871
EZ
1257Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts,
1258but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in
1259the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog.
a933dad1 1260
9dc15871 1261*** LessTif: Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
a933dad1 1262
9dc15871
EZ
1263The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
1264emulation for which it is set up.
a933dad1 1265
9dc15871 1266Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
880ea925 1267LessTif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
9dc15871
EZ
1268On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
1269--enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
1270successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
1271lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
1272menu placement.
a933dad1 1273
9dc15871
EZ
1274On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
1275locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
1276what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
1277developers.
a933dad1 1278
9dc15871 1279*** Motif: The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
a933dad1 1280
9dc15871 1281This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
a933dad1 1282
9dc15871 1283 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
a933dad1 1284
9dc15871
EZ
1285That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1286do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1287explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1288the resource prevents the problem.
a933dad1 1289
9dc15871 1290** General X problems
17a37d87 1291
9dc15871 1292*** Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
17a37d87 1293
9dc15871
EZ
1294We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1295scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1296happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1297on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
17a37d87 1298
9dc15871 1299Here's how to do this:
17a37d87 1300
9dc15871 1301 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
a933dad1 1302
9dc15871
EZ
1303If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1304try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1305to normal, do
a933dad1 1306
9dc15871 1307 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
a933dad1 1308
9dc15871 1309*** Error messages about undefined colors on X.
a933dad1 1310
9dc15871 1311The messages might say something like this:
a933dad1 1312
9dc15871 1313 Unable to load color "grey95"
a933dad1 1314
9dc15871 1315(typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
a933dad1 1316
9dc15871 1317 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
a933dad1 1318
9dc15871
EZ
1319These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
1320many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
1321resources to load all the colors it needs.
a933dad1 1322
9dc15871 1323A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
a933dad1 1324
9257b627
EZ
1325"undefined color" messages can also occur if the RgbPath entry in the
1326X configuration file is incorrect, or the rgb.txt file is not where
1327X expects to find it.
1328
9dc15871 1329*** Improving performance with slow X connections.
a933dad1 1330
9dc15871
EZ
1331There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can
1332be carried out at the same time:
a933dad1 1333
9dc15871
EZ
13341) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
1335 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using
1336 the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect
1337 the use of Emacs' own input methods, which are part of the Leim
1338 package.
3d00585e 1339
9dc15871 13402) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
634e516b
EZ
1341 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar. Adding the
1342 following forms to your .emacs file will accomplish that, but only
1343 after the the initial frame is displayed:
1344
1345 (scroll-bar-mode -1)
1346 (menu-bar-mode -1)
1347 (tool-bar-mode -1)
1348
1349 For still quicker startup, put these X resources in your .Xdefaults
1350 file:
1351
1352 Emacs.verticalScrollBars: off
1353 Emacs.menuBar: off
1354 Emacs.toolBar: off
3d00585e 1355
9dc15871
EZ
13563) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this
1357 forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...).
3d00585e 1358
9dc15871
EZ
13594) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface
1360 to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which
1361 improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness
1362 of the X protocol. lbxproxy acheives the performance gain by grouping
1363 several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together,
880ea925 1364 instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a separate
9dc15871
EZ
1365 packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are:
1366 -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents
1367 Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems.
1368 For more about lbxproxy, see:
1369 http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html
3d00585e 1370
34431988
KS
13715) If copying and killing is slow, try to disable the interaction with the
1372 native system's clipboard by adding these lines to your .emacs file:
1373 (setq interprogram-cut-function nil)
1374 (setq interprogram-paste-function nil)
1375
9dc15871 1376*** Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
3d00585e 1377
9dc15871
EZ
1378This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1379a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1380likely to cause it.
a933dad1 1381
9dc15871 1382We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
7838ea1b 1383
9dc15871 1384*** Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
a933dad1 1385
9dc15871
EZ
1386There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
1387that replacing the mouse made it stop.
a933dad1 1388
9dc15871 1389*** You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
a933dad1 1390
9dc15871
EZ
1391On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
1392works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
1393bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
1394the Files menu).
a933dad1 1395
9dc15871
EZ
1396This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
1397due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
1398knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
1399workaround can be found.
a933dad1 1400
9dc15871
EZ
1401*** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1402parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
b5cb4652 1403
9dc15871
EZ
1404This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1405 emacs*Cursor: black
1406(which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1407that isn't a color.)
b5cb4652 1408
9dc15871 1409The fix is to correct your X resources.
a933dad1 1410
9dc15871 1411*** Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
a933dad1 1412
9dc15871
EZ
1413If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
1414resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
1415renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
1416font.
a933dad1 1417
9dc15871
EZ
1418One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
1419your font path, like this:
a933dad1 1420
3256a475 1421 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
a933dad1 1422
9dc15871 1423*** Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
a933dad1 1424
9dc15871 1425An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
a933dad1 1426
9dc15871 1427 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
a933dad1 1428
9dc15871
EZ
1429This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
1430individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
1431want, rewrite the resource.
3156909f 1432
9dc15871
EZ
1433To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
1434-query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
1435the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
a933dad1 1436
9dc15871
EZ
1437*** Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
1438*** `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
e96c5c69 1439
9dc15871
EZ
1440One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
1441your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
1442the environment.
e96c5c69 1443
9dc15871 1444*** Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
a933dad1 1445
9dc15871
EZ
1446The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
1447arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
1448tell Emacs to compensate for this.
a933dad1 1449
9dc15871
EZ
1450I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
1451whether this problem is present on a given system.
a933dad1 1452
9dc15871 1453*** X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
a933dad1 1454
9dc15871
EZ
1455People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
1456not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
1457the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
1458the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
a933dad1 1459
9dc15871
EZ
1460You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
1461However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
1462you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
a933dad1 1463
9dc15871 1464The easy way to do this is to put
a933dad1 1465
9dc15871 1466 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
a933dad1 1467
9dc15871 1468in your site-init.el file.
a933dad1 1469
3256a475
RC
1470*** Prevent double pastes in X
1471
1472The problem: a region, such as a command, is pasted twice when you copy
1473it with your mouse from GNU Emacs to an xterm or an RXVT shell in X.
1474The solution: try the following in your X configuration file,
1475/etc/X11/xorg.conf This should enable both PS/2 and USB mice for
1476single copies. You do not need any other drivers or options.
1477
1478 Section "InputDevice"
1479 Identifier "Generic Mouse"
1480 Driver "mousedev"
1481 Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
1482 EndSection
1483
880ea925 1484* Runtime problems on character terminals
a933dad1 1485
9dc15871 1486** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
a933dad1 1487
9dc15871
EZ
1488This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
1489used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
1490away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
1491streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
1492user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
1493properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
1494input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
1495easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
a933dad1 1496
9dc15871 1497There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
a933dad1 1498
9dc15871
EZ
1499 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
1500 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
1501 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
a933dad1 1502
9dc15871
EZ
1503First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
1504they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
1505"no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
1506escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
1507and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
1508control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
a933dad1 1509
9dc15871
EZ
1510Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
1511needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
1512by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
1513rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
1514your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
1515it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
1516the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
1517problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
1518to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
a933dad1 1519
9dc15871
EZ
1520For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
1521giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
1522codes. You might as well try it.
a933dad1 1523
9dc15871
EZ
1524If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
1525through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
1526computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
1527much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
1528control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
1529you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
1530replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
1531measures can make Emacs semi-work.
4c635a29 1532
9dc15871
EZ
1533You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
1534handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
1535enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
1536now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
1537enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
1538control handling.)
a933dad1 1539
9dc15871
EZ
1540If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
1541is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
1542other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
1543and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
1544other control characters are already used by emacs.
a933dad1 1545
9dc15871
EZ
1546IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
1547Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
1548order to continue.
a933dad1 1549
9dc15871
EZ
1550If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
1551certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
1552`enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
1553automatically. Here is an example:
a933dad1 1554
9dc15871 1555(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1556
9dc15871
EZ
1557If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
1558and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
1559manually.
a933dad1 1560
9dc15871
EZ
1561I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
1562assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
1563control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
1564merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
1565widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
1566use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
1567will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
1568of inferior systems.
a933dad1 1569
9dc15871 1570** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
a933dad1 1571
9dc15871
EZ
1572For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
1573control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
1574terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
1575that wants to use flow control.
a933dad1 1576
9dc15871
EZ
1577You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
1578If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
1579flow control, as described in the preceding section.
a933dad1 1580
9dc15871
EZ
1581If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
1582into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
1583shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
a933dad1 1584
9dc15871 1585** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
a933dad1 1586
9dc15871
EZ
1587This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
1588terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
1589the combination of features specified for that terminal.
a933dad1 1590
9dc15871
EZ
1591The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1592Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1593(open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
1594terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
1595what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
1596and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
1597There are several possibilities:
a933dad1 1598
9dc15871 15991) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
a933dad1 1600
9dc15871
EZ
1601In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1602need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
a933dad1 1603
9dc15871
EZ
16042) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
1605 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
1606 by termcap.
a933dad1 1607
9dc15871
EZ
1608This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
1609Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
1610and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
1611classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
1612Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
1613tested on many kinds of terminals.
a933dad1 1614
9dc15871 16153) The termcap entry is wrong.
a933dad1 1616
9dc15871
EZ
1617See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
1618that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
1619for certain terminals.
a933dad1 1620
9dc15871
EZ
16214) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
1622 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
a933dad1 1623
9dc15871
EZ
1624This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
1625in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
a933dad1 1626
9dc15871 1627** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
a933dad1 1628
9dc15871
EZ
1629Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
1630control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
1631On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
1632control on the local system.
a933dad1 1633
9dc15871
EZ
1634One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
1635(the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
1636stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
1637"stty start u stop u" will do this.
a933dad1 1638
9dc15871
EZ
1639Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
1640around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
1641issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
a933dad1 1642
9dc15871
EZ
1643If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
1644M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
1645if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
1646following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
a933dad1 1647
9dc15871 1648(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
a933dad1 1649
9dc15871
EZ
1650See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
1651info.
a933dad1 1652
9dc15871 1653** Output from Control-V is slow.
a933dad1 1654
9dc15871
EZ
1655On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
1656Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
1657to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
1658before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
1659the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
1660it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
a933dad1 1661
9dc15871
EZ
1662If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
1663that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
1664specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
1665concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
1666send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
1667fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
1668time as the operations really take.
a933dad1 1669
9dc15871
EZ
1670Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
1671at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
1672terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
1673operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
1674flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
1675an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
1676Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
1677cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
1678not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
1679is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
a933dad1 1680
9dc15871
EZ
1681Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
1682multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
1683termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
1684fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
1685each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
1686to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
1687`cm' string.
a933dad1 1688
9dc15871
EZ
1689You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
1690has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
1691take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
a933dad1 1692
9dc15871
EZ
1693A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
1694of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
a933dad1 1695
9dc15871 1696** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
a933dad1 1697
9dc15871
EZ
1698Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
1699after a day or two.
a933dad1 1700
9dc15871
EZ
1701The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
1702the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
1703character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
1704of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
1705overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
1706to it.
a933dad1 1707
9dc15871
EZ
1708For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
1709and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
1710other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
1711but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
1712that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
1713important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
a933dad1 1714
9dc15871
EZ
1715If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
1716you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
1717 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
1718You can probably access help-command via f1.
a933dad1 1719
9dc15871 1720** Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
a933dad1 1721
9dc15871
EZ
1722Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
1723emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
1724entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
1725"Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
1726supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
1727Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
1728uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
1729"colors".
a933dad1 1730
9dc15871
EZ
1731In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
1732``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
1733back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
1734use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
1735doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
1736sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
1737it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
1738capability).
a933dad1 1739
9dc15871
EZ
1740Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
1741attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
1742incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
1743this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
a933dad1 1744
9dc15871
EZ
1745Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
1746of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
1747entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
1748`xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
1749emulator.
a933dad1 1750
bf247b6e 1751Beginning with version 22.1, Emacs supports the --color command-line
9dc15871
EZ
1752option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular
1753modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up
1754for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors.
a933dad1 1755
9dc15871
EZ
1756Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
1757Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
1758Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
1759recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
1760global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
1761`global-font-lock-mode'.
a933dad1 1762
9dc15871 1763* Runtime problems specific to individual Unix variants
f1e54ce1 1764
9dc15871 1765** GNU/Linux
f1e54ce1 1766
f77e4514
KS
1767*** GNU/Linux: Process output is corrupted.
1768
1769There is a bug in Linux kernel 2.6.10 PTYs that can cause emacs to
1770read corrupted process output.
1771
1772*** GNU/Linux: Remote access to CVS with SSH causes file corruption.
1773
1774If you access a remote CVS repository via SSH, files may be corrupted
1775due to bad interaction between CVS, SSH, and libc.
1776
1777To fix the problem, save the following script into a file, make it
1778executable, and set CVS_RSH environment variable to the file name of
1779the script:
1780
1781#!/bin/bash
1782exec 2> >(exec cat >&2 2>/dev/null)
1783exec ssh "$@"
1784
9dc15871
EZ
1785*** GNU/Linux: On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
17865.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
a933dad1 1787
9dc15871
EZ
1788This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1789One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1790known to work.
a933dad1 1791
9dc15871
EZ
1792*** GNU/Linux: After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs,
1793the Meta key stops working.
a01325b8 1794
9dc15871
EZ
1795This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1796Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1797modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1798keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1799modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1800was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1801Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
a01325b8 1802
9dc15871
EZ
1803The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1804modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1805and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1806which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1807the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1808modifier:
a933dad1 1809
9dc15871 1810 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
a933dad1 1811
9dc15871
EZ
1812A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1813is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
a01325b8 1814
9dc15871 1815 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
a933dad1 1816
9dc15871
EZ
1817This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1818keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1819keys can serve as Meta.
a933dad1 1820
9dc15871
EZ
1821The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1822keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
a933dad1 1823
ff3e9dbc 1824*** GNU/Linux: slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
a933dad1 1825
9dc15871
EZ
1826People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1827startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
a933dad1 1828
9dc15871
EZ
1829This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
1830Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
1831improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
1832networked and non-networked machines.
a933dad1 1833
9dc15871 1834Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
a933dad1 1835
9dc15871 1836**** Networked Case.
a933dad1 1837
9dc15871
EZ
1838First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1839exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1840(replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
a933dad1 1841
9dc15871 1842 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME
a933dad1 1843
9dc15871
EZ
1844Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1845lines:
1dd8b979 1846
9dc15871
EZ
1847 order hosts, bind
1848 multi on
10a763e5 1849
9dc15871
EZ
1850Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1851indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1852database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1853dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1dd8b979 1854
9dc15871 1855**** Non-Networked Case.
a933dad1 1856
9dc15871
EZ
1857The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1858However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1859simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1860`touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1861file is not necessary with this approach.
a933dad1 1862
9dc15871 1863*** GNU/Linux: Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
a933dad1 1864
9dc15871
EZ
1865This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
1866ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
1867These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
1868the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
1869(show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
1870blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
1871cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
1872always blinks.
3d00585e 1873
9dc15871
EZ
1874A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
1875enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
1876the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
1877cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
1878the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
1879cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
3d00585e 1880
9dc15871
EZ
1881To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
1882`linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
1883the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
1884produce a modified terminfo entry.
3d00585e 1885
9dc15871
EZ
1886Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor,
1887change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command.
a933dad1 1888
9dc15871 1889*** GNU/Linux: Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1
DL
1890
1891There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1892caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1893problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1894is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1895
1896Using the old library version is a workaround.
1897
9dc15871 1898** FreeBSD
a933dad1 1899
9dc15871
EZ
1900*** FreeBSD 2.1.5: useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1901directories that have the +t bit.
a933dad1 1902
9dc15871
EZ
1903This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1904Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1905with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1906link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
a933dad1 1907
9dc15871
EZ
1908If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1909file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
a933dad1 1910
9dc15871 1911*** FreeBSD: Getting a Meta key on the console.
a933dad1 1912
9dc15871
EZ
1913By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
1914FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
1915current keymap to a file with the command
a933dad1 1916
9dc15871 1917 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1918
9dc15871
EZ
1919Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
1920definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
1921key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
1922to look like this
a933dad1 1923
9dc15871 1924 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
a933dad1 1925
9dc15871 1926to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
a933dad1 1927
9dc15871 1928 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
a933dad1 1929
9dc15871 1930** HP-UX
a933dad1 1931
9dc15871 1932*** HP/UX : Shell mode gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
a933dad1 1933
9dc15871 1934christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
a933dad1 1935
9dc15871
EZ
1936The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1937execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
1938tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
1939but tty is giving it back 3.
a933dad1 1940
9dc15871
EZ
1941The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
1942word:
a933dad1 1943
9dc15871 1944if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1945
9dc15871 1946should be changed to:
a933dad1 1947
9dc15871 1948if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
a933dad1 1949
9dc15871
EZ
1950Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1951and into .login.
a933dad1 1952
9dc15871 1953*** HP/UX: `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'.
a933dad1 1954
9dc15871
EZ
1955On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1956file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1957does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1958value is just ten seconds.
a933dad1 1959
9dc15871 1960If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
a933dad1 1961
9dc15871
EZ
1962*** HP/UX: The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1963other non-English HP keyboards too).
a933dad1 1964
9dc15871
EZ
1965This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1966shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1967configures the X server.
a933dad1 1968
9dc15871
EZ
1969 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1970 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1971 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1972 EOF
a933dad1 1973
9dc15871
EZ
1974 xmodmap - << EOF
1975 clear mod1
1976 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1977 add mod1 = Meta_L
1978 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1979 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1980 EOF
a933dad1 1981
9dc15871
EZ
1982*** HP/UX: "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes in
1983Emacs built with Motif.
a933dad1 1984
9dc15871
EZ
1985This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1986such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
a933dad1 1987
9dc15871 1988*** HP/UX: Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key.
a933dad1 1989
9dc15871
EZ
1990To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1991rights, containing this text:
a933dad1 1992
9dc15871
EZ
1993--------------------------------
1994xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1995keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1996keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1997EOF
a933dad1 1998
9dc15871
EZ
1999xmodmap - << EOF
2000clear mod1
2001keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
2002add mod1 = Meta_L
2003keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
2004add mod2 = Mode_switch
2005EOF
2006--------------------------------
a933dad1 2007
9dc15871 2008*** HP/UX 11.0: Emacs makes HP/UX 11.0 crash.
a933dad1 2009
9dc15871 2010This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
a933dad1 2011
9dc15871 2012** AIX
a933dad1 2013
9dc15871 2014*** AIX: Trouble using ptys.
a933dad1 2015
9dc15871
EZ
2016People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
2017Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
a933dad1 2018
9dc15871 2019*** AIXterm: Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal.
a933dad1 2020
9dc15871 2021The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
a933dad1 2022
9dc15871
EZ
2023 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
2024 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
a933dad1 2025
9dc15871 2026This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
a933dad1 2027
9dc15871
EZ
2028*** AIX: If linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
2029are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
2030so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
2031Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
a933dad1 2032
9dc15871 2033*** AIX 4.3.x or 4.4: Compiling fails.
a933dad1 2034
9dc15871
EZ
2035This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
2036the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
2037redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
2038is to use the default compiler `cc'.
a933dad1 2039
9dc15871
EZ
2040*** AIX 4: Some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
2041with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
a933dad1 2042
9dc15871
EZ
2043On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
2044`unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
2045Definitions" to make them defined.
a933dad1 2046
9dc15871 2047** Solaris
a933dad1 2048
9dc15871
EZ
2049We list bugs in current versions here. Solaris 2.x and 4.x are covered in the
2050section on legacy systems.
a933dad1 2051
9dc15871 2052*** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
a933dad1 2053
9dc15871
EZ
2054This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2055C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
a933dad1 2056
9dc15871 2057*** Problem with remote X server on Suns.
a933dad1 2058
9dc15871
EZ
2059On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2060may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2061is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2062As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
a933dad1 2063
0a4dd4e4 2064*** Solaris 2,6: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
a933dad1 2065
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2066We suspect that this is a bug in the X libraries provided by
2067Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
2068makes the problem stop:
a933dad1 2069
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2070105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
2071105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
2072106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
2073105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
a933dad1 2074
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2075Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
2076suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
a933dad1 2077
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2078106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
2079106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
2080105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
a933dad1 2081
0a4dd4e4 2082*** Solaris 7 or 8: Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X)
a933dad1 2083
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2084This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris.
2085Rebuild it on Solaris 8.
a933dad1 2086
9dc15871
EZ
2087*** When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
2088commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
a933dad1 2089
9dc15871 2090You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
a933dad1 2091
9dc15871 2092 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
a933dad1 2093
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2094*** On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
2095the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
a933dad1 2096
0a4dd4e4 2097You can fix this by editing the file:
a933dad1 2098
3256a475 2099 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
a933dad1 2100
0a4dd4e4 2101Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
a933dad1 2102
3256a475 2103 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2104
0a4dd4e4 2105that should read:
a933dad1 2106
3256a475 2107 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
a933dad1 2108
0a4dd4e4 2109Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
a933dad1 2110
1b6406b3
CY
2111*** On Solaris, Emacs fails to set menu-bar-update-hook on startup, with error
2112"Error in menu-bar-update-hook: (error Point before start of properties)".
2113This seems to be a GCC optimization bug that occurs for GCC 4.1.2 (-g
2114and -g -O2) and GCC 4.2.3 (-g -O and -g -O2). You can fix this by
2115compiling with GCC 4.2.3 or CC 5.7, with no optimizations.
2116
0a4dd4e4 2117** Irix
a933dad1 2118
9dc15871 2119*** Irix 6.5: Emacs crashes on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
a933dad1 2120
9dc15871 2121This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
a933dad1 2122
0a4dd4e4 2123*** Irix: Trouble using ptys, or running out of ptys.
a933dad1 2124
9dc15871
EZ
2125The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
2126be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
2127to allocate ptys reliably.
a933dad1 2128
9dc15871 2129* Runtime problems specific to MS-Windows
a933dad1 2130
ade79051
KS
2131** Windows 95 and networking.
2132
2133To support server sockets, Emacs 22.1 loads ws2_32.dll. If this file
2134is missing, all Emacs networking features are disabled.
2135
2136Old versions of Windows 95 may not have the required DLL. To use
2137Emacs' networking features on Windows 95, you must install the
2138"Windows Socket 2" update available from MicroSoft's support Web.
2139
9dc15871 2140** Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2141
9dc15871
EZ
2142A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
2143Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
2144problem.
177c0ea7 2145
b6ec0fa0
JR
2146** Emacs crashes when opening a file with a UNC path and rails-mode is loaded.
2147
2148Loading rails-mode seems to interfere with UNC path handling. This has been
2149reported as a bug against both Emacs and rails-mode, so look for an updated
2150rails-mode that avoids this crash, or avoid using UNC paths if using
2151rails-mode.
2152
2153** Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 22.3
de66e883 2154
117402b8
JR
2155M-x term does not work on MS-Windows. TTY emulation on Windows is
2156undocumented, and programs such as stty which are used on posix platforms
2157to control tty emulation do not exist for native windows terminals.
2158
de66e883
JR
2159Using create-fontset-from-ascii-font or the --font startup parameter
2160with a Chinese, Japanese or Korean font leads to display problems.
2161Use a Latin-only font as your default font. If you want control over
2162which font is used to display Chinese, Japanese or Korean character,
2163use create-fontset-from-fontset-spec to define a fontset.
a933dad1 2164
9dc15871
EZ
2165Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
2166is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menus is not
2167displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
2168synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
2169waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
2170pop-up menu interaction.
a933dad1 2171
9dc15871
EZ
2172Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text
2173for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows.
a933dad1 2174
af71f3ce
EZ
2175When "ClearType" method is selected as the "method to smooth edges of
2176screen fonts" (in Display Properties, Appearance tab, under
2177"Effects"), there are various problems related to display of
f396bf16
JR
2178characters: Bold fonts can be hard to read, small portions of some
2179characters could appear chopped, etc. This happens because, under
2180ClearType, characters are drawn outside their advertised bounding box.
2181Emacs 21 disabled the use of ClearType, whereas Emacs 22 allows it and
2182has some code to enlarge the width of the bounding box. Apparently,
2183this display feature needs more changes to get it 100% right. A
2184workaround is to disable ClearType.
af71f3ce 2185
9dc15871
EZ
2186There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
2187mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
2188frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
2189after moving back into it.
a933dad1 2190
9dc15871
EZ
2191Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
2192not as severely as in 21.1.
a933dad1 2193
9dc15871
EZ
2194An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
2195Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
a933dad1 2196
4ed1bce5 2197Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs. However, some
9dc15871
EZ
2198of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
2199in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
4ed1bce5
EZ
2200characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make these
2201input methods work with Emacs, set the keyboard coding system to the
2202appropriate value after you activate the Windows input method. For
2203example, if you activate the Hebrew input method, type this:
2204
2205 C-x RET k hebrew-iso-8bit RET
2206
2207(Emacs ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up
2208the appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do
2209that yet.) In addition, to use these Windows input methods, you
2210should set your "Language for non-Unicode programs" (on Windows XP,
2211this is on the Advanced tab of Regional Settings) to the language of
2212the input method.
a933dad1 2213
868c31fe
EZ
2214To bind keys that produce non-ASCII characters with modifiers, you
2215must specify raw byte codes. For instance, if you want to bind
2216META-a-grave to a command, you need to specify this in your `~/.emacs':
2217
2218 (global-set-key [?\M-\340] ...)
2219
2220The above example is for the Latin-1 environment where the byte code
2221of the encoded a-grave is 340 octal. For other environments, use the
2222encoding appropriate to that environment.
a933dad1 2223
9dc15871
EZ
2224The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated
2225month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions
2226of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system
2227library function.
a933dad1 2228
cdc9f5c2
JR
2229The function set-time-zone-rule gives incorrect results for many
2230non-US timezones. This is due to over-simplistic handling of
2231daylight savings switchovers by the Windows libraries.
9f1bc31f 2232
365b9257
EZ
2233Files larger than 4GB cause overflow in the size (represented as a
223432-bit integer) reported by `file-attributes'. This affects Dired as
2235well, since the Windows port uses a Lisp emulation of `ls' that relies
2236on `file-attributes'.
2237
56dc0646
EZ
2238Sound playing is not supported with the `:data DATA' key-value pair.
2239You _must_ use the `:file FILE' method.
2240
0a4dd4e4 2241** Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows.
a933dad1 2242
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2243This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
2244you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
2245and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
2246more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
d169ccbd
EZ
2247or disable it in the "Regional and Language Options" applet of the
2248Control Panel. (The exact sequence of mouse clicks in the "Regional
2249and Language Options" applet needed to find the key combination that
2250changes the keyboard layout depends on your Windows version; for XP,
2251in the Languages tab, click "Details" and then "Key Settings".)
a933dad1 2252
651f8172
EZ
2253** Cygwin build of Emacs hangs after rebasing Cygwin DLLs
2254
2255Usually, on Cygwin, one needs to rebase the DLLs if an application
2256aborts with a message like this:
2257
2258 C:\cygwin\bin\python.exe: *** unable to remap C:\cygwin\bin\cygssl.dll to
2259 same address as parent(0xDF0000) != 0xE00000
2260
2261However, since Cygwin DLL 1.5.17 was released, after such rebasing,
2262Emacs hangs.
2263
2264This was reported to happen for Emacs 21.2 and also for the pretest of
2265Emacs 22.1 on Cygwin.
2266
2267To work around this, build Emacs like this:
2268
2269 LDFLAGS='-Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base' ./configure
2270 make LD='$(CC)'
2271 make LD='$(CC)' install
2272
2273This produces an Emacs binary that is independent of rebasing.
2274
2275Note that you _must_ use LD='$(CC)' in the last two commands above, to
2276prevent GCC from passing the "--image-base 0x20000000" option to the
2277linker, which is what it does by default. That option produces an
2278Emacs binary with the base address 0x20000000, which will cause Emacs
2279to hang after Cygwin DLLs are rebased.
2280
0a4dd4e4 2281** Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
a933dad1 2282
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2283Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
2284MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
2285port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
2286keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
2287of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
a933dad1 2288
0a4dd4e4 2289** Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2290
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2291If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
2292due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
2293and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
2294port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
2295are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
2296confuses ange-ftp.
a933dad1 2297
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2298The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
2299(version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
2300Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
2301directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
2302variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
2303client's executable. For example:
a933dad1 2304
9dc15871 2305 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
a933dad1 2306
9dc15871
EZ
2307If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
2308this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
a933dad1 2309
9dc15871 2310 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
a933dad1 2311
9dc15871 2312** lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers.
a933dad1 2313
9dc15871
EZ
2314This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is
2315likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific.
a933dad1 2316
9dc15871
EZ
2317Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not
2318print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical
2319printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic
2320built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it
2321has):
a933dad1 2322
9dc15871
EZ
2323(setq printer-name "") ;; notepad takes the default
2324(setq lpr-command "notepad") ;; notepad
2325(setq lpr-switches nil) ;; not needed
2326(setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ;; run notepad as batch printer
a933dad1 2327
9dc15871 2328** Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
a933dad1 2329
9dc15871
EZ
2330The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
2331work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
2332was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
2333work when an antivirus package is installed.
a933dad1 2334
9dc15871
EZ
2335The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
2336mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
2337or disable it entirely.
a933dad1 2338
9dc15871 2339** Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event.
a933dad1 2340
9dc15871
EZ
2341This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows
2342programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many
2343mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something
2344different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a
2345middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to
2346"scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a
2347generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2348
9dc15871 2349** Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window.
a933dad1 2350
9dc15871
EZ
2351This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of
2352generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar
2353movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple
2354scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help.
a933dad1 2355
9dc15871
EZ
2356** Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
2357mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
2358exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
2359seen.
a933dad1 2360
9dc15871
EZ
2361** On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
2362CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
a933dad1 2363
9dc15871 2364This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
a933dad1 2365
9dc15871
EZ
2366Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
2367events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
2368distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
2369combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
2370AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
2371to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
a933dad1 2372
9dc15871 2373** Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs' display is incorrect.
a933dad1 2374
9dc15871
EZ
2375The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
2376screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
2377display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
2378to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
a933dad1 2379
9dc15871
EZ
2380This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
2381as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
2382problem lies in the X-server settings.
a933dad1 2383
9dc15871
EZ
2384There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
2385running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
2386un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
2387selection".
a933dad1 2388
9dc15871
EZ
2389Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
2390please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
2391If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
2392here.
a933dad1 2393
9dc15871 2394* Build-time problems
a933dad1 2395
9dc15871 2396** Configuration
a933dad1 2397
9dc15871 2398*** The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
a933dad1 2399
9dc15871
EZ
2400There are reports that this happens on some systems because the linker
2401by default only looks for shared libraries, but jpeg distribution by
2402default only installs a nonshared version of the library, `libjpeg.a'.
a933dad1 2403
9dc15871
EZ
2404If this is the problem, you can configure the jpeg library with the
2405`--enable-shared' option and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a
2406shared version of libjpeg, which you need to install. Finally, rerun
2407the Emacs configure script, which should now find the jpeg library.
2408Alternatively, modify the generated src/Makefile to link the .a file
2409explicitly, and edit src/config.h to define HAVE_JPEG.
a933dad1 2410
f4b84ef4
GM
2411*** `configure' warns ``accepted by the compiler, rejected by the preprocessor''.
2412
2413This indicates a mismatch between the C compiler and preprocessor that
2414configure is using. For example, on Solaris 10 trying to use
2415CC=/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc (the Sun Studio compiler) together with
2416CPP=/usr/ccs/lib/cpp can result in errors of this form (you may also
2417see the error ``"/usr/include/sys/isa_defs.h", line 500: undefined control'').
2418
2419The solution is to tell configure to use the correct C preprocessor
2420for your C compiler (CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E" in the above
2421example).
2422
2423*** `configure' fails with ``"junk.c", line 660: invalid input token: 8.elc''
2424
2425The final stage of the Emacs configure process uses the C preprocessor
2426to generate the Makefiles. Errors of this form can occur if the C
2427preprocessor inserts extra whitespace into its output. The solution
2428is to find the switches that stop your preprocessor from inserting extra
2429whitespace, add them to CPPFLAGS, and re-run configure. For example,
2430this error can occur on Solaris 10 when using the Sun Studio compiler
2431``Sun C 5.8'' with its preprocessor CPP="/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -E".
2432The relevant switch in this case is "-Xs" (``compile assuming
2433(pre-ANSI) K & R C style code'').
2434
9dc15871 2435** Compilation
a933dad1 2436
9dc15871 2437*** Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
a933dad1 2438
9dc15871 2439This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
880ea925 2440(Red Hat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
9dc15871
EZ
2441(SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
2442configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
2443files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
2444left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
2445itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
2446Emacs executable to fail with the above message.
a933dad1 2447
9dc15871
EZ
2448In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
2449machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
2450(it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
2451This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
a933dad1 2452
9dc15871
EZ
2453If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
2454(Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
2455you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
2456force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
2457problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
2458blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
2459`mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
2460options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
2461`/etc/auto.home'.
a933dad1 2462
9dc15871
EZ
2463Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
2464a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
2465waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
2466to work around the problem.
a933dad1 2467
9dc15871
EZ
2468Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
2469onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
2470you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
2471`/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
a933dad1 2472
9dc15871 2473 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
a933dad1 2474
9dc15871 2475The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
a933dad1 2476
9dc15871 2477*** Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
a933dad1 2478
9dc15871
EZ
2479This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
2480of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
2481version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
2482dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
2483around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
2484incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
2485". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
2486directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
2487variables).
a933dad1 2488
9dc15871
EZ
2489The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
2490`-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
2491when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
2492unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
2493run the script like this:
a933dad1 2494
9dc15871 2495 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
a933dad1 2496
9dc15871
EZ
2497(replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
2498the script).
a933dad1 2499
9dc15871
EZ
2500Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
2501Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
a933dad1 2502
9dc15871
EZ
2503*** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2504*** Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
a933dad1 2505
9dc15871
EZ
2506This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2507had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.To solve the
2508problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2509configure script.
a933dad1 2510
9dc15871 2511*** Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
a933dad1 2512
9dc15871
EZ
2513This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2514the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2515Emacs's configure script.
a933dad1 2516
745377e8
GM
2517*** Building a 32-bit executable on a 64-bit GNU/Linux architecture.
2518
2519First ensure that the necessary 32-bit system libraries and include
2520files are installed. Then use:
2521
2522 env CC="gcc -m32" ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu \
2523 --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib
2524
2525(using the location of the 32-bit X libraries on your system).
2526
1020d879 2527*** Building the Cygwin port for MS-Windows can fail with some GCC versions
9c9f0081
EZ
2528
2529Building Emacs 22 with Cygwin builds of GCC 3.4.4-1 and 3.4.4-2 is
2530reported to either fail or cause Emacs to segfault at run time. In
2531addition, the Cygwin GCC 3.4.4-2 has problems with generating debug
2532info. Cygwin users are advised not to use these versions of GCC for
485a6c18
EZ
2533compiling Emacs. GCC versions 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.1.1, and 4.1.2
2534reportedly build a working Cygwin binary of Emacs, so we recommend
2535these GCC versions. Note that these versions of GCC, 4.0.3, 4.0.4,
25364.1.1, and 4.1.2, are currently the _only_ versions known to succeed
2537in building Emacs (as of v22.1).
9c9f0081
EZ
2538
2539*** Building the native MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
a933dad1 2540
ad05a5de 2541Emacs may not build using some Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
9dc15871
EZ
2542version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
2543necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
2544__MSVCRT__, like so:
a933dad1 2545
9dc15871 2546 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
a933dad1 2547
9dc15871 2548*** Building the MS-Windows port fails with a CreateProcess failure.
a933dad1 2549
9dc15871
EZ
2550Some versions of mingw32 make on some versions of Windows do not seem
2551to detect the shell correctly. Try "make SHELL=cmd.exe", or if that
2552fails, try running make from Cygwin bash instead.
a933dad1 2553
9dc15871 2554*** Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
a933dad1 2555
9dc15871
EZ
2556This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
2557defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
2558patch to assert.h should solve this:
a933dad1 2559
0cc69e7d
EZ
2560 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
2561 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
2562 ***************
2563 *** 41,47 ****
2564 /*
2565 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2566 */
2567 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
2568
2569 #else /* debugging enabled */
2570
2571 --- 41,47 ----
2572 /*
2573 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
2574 */
2575 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
2576
2577 #else /* debugging enabled */
a933dad1 2578
a933dad1 2579
3e7c244e 2580*** Building the MS-Windows port with Visual Studio 2005 fails.
a933dad1 2581
3e7c244e
JR
2582Microsoft no longer ships the single threaded version of the C library
2583with their compiler, and the multithreaded static library is missing
0cc69e7d 2584some functions that Microsoft have deemed non-threadsafe. The
3e7c244e
JR
2585dynamically linked C library has all the functions, but there is a
2586conflict between the versions of malloc in the DLL and in Emacs, which
2587is not resolvable due to the way Windows does dynamic linking.
a933dad1 2588
3e7c244e
JR
2589We recommend the use of the MingW port of GCC for compiling Emacs, as
2590not only does it not suffer these problems, but it is also Free
2591software like Emacs.
a933dad1 2592
9dc15871 2593** Linking
a933dad1 2594
9dc15871
EZ
2595*** Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
2596undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
a933dad1 2597
9dc15871
EZ
2598This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
2599with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
2600GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
2601from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
2602compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
2603link stage.
a933dad1 2604
9dc15871 2605A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
a933dad1 2606
3256a475 2607 make CC=gcc
a933dad1 2608
9dc15871
EZ
2609Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
2610with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs.
a933dad1 2611
9dc15871 2612*** AIX 1.3 ptf 0013: Link failure.
a933dad1 2613
9dc15871
EZ
2614There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2615the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2616workaround/fix is:
a933dad1 2617
9dc15871
EZ
2618 cd /lib
2619 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2620 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
a933dad1 2621
9dc15871
EZ
2622*** AIX 4.1.2: Linker error messages such as
2623 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
3256a475 2624 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
a933dad1 2625
9dc15871
EZ
2626This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
2627these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
2628you build Emacs:
a933dad1 2629
9dc15871
EZ
2630 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
2631 chmod 664 libIM.a
2632 ranlib libIM.a
a933dad1 2633
9dc15871
EZ
2634Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
2635Makefile).
a933dad1 2636
9dc15871 2637*** Sun with acc: Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
a933dad1 2638
9dc15871 2639To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
a933dad1 2640
9dc15871 2641 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
a933dad1 2642
9dc15871 2643and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
a933dad1 2644
9dc15871
EZ
2645The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2646cannot easily arrange to supply them.
a933dad1 2647
9dc15871 2648*** Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
a933dad1 2649
9dc15871 2650Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
a933dad1 2651
9dc15871 2652*** `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
a933dad1 2653
9dc15871
EZ
2654This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
2655version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
2656definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
2657incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
2658does not work with this version of ncurses.
a933dad1 2659
9dc15871 2660The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
a933dad1 2661
d7ef7cd4
GM
2662** Bootstrapping
2663
2664Bootstrapping (compiling the .el files) is normally only necessary
2665with CVS builds, since they the .elc files are pre-compiled in releases.
2666
2667*** "No rule to make target" with Ubuntu 8.04 make 3.81-3build1
2668
2669Compiling the lisp files fails at random places, complaining:
2670"No rule to make target `/path/to/some/lisp.elc'".
2671The causes of this problem are not understood. Using GNU make 3.81 compiled
2672from source, rather than the Ubuntu version, worked. See Bug#327,821.
2673
9dc15871 2674** Dumping
a933dad1 2675
9dc15871 2676*** Linux: Segfault during `make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel.
a933dad1 2677
880ea925 2678With certain recent Linux kernels (like the one of Red Hat Fedora Core
cf14a51c 26791 and newer), the new "Exec-shield" functionality is enabled by default, which
ed214edf
JD
2680creates a different memory layout that breaks the emacs dumper. Emacs tries
2681to handle this at build time, but if the workaround used fails, these
2682instructions can be useful.
cf14a51c
JD
2683The work-around explained here is not enough on Fedora Core 4 (and possible
2684newer). Read the next item.
a933dad1 2685
1f02a4ba
JD
2686Configure can overcome the problem of exec-shield if the architecture is
2687x86 and the program setarch is present. On other architectures no
2688workaround is known.
2689
9dc15871 2690You can check the Exec-shield state like this:
a933dad1 2691
9dc15871 2692 cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2693
1f02a4ba 2694It returns non-zero when Exec-shield is enabled, 0 otherwise. Please
9dc15871 2695read your system documentation for more details on Exec-shield and
1f02a4ba
JD
2696associated commands. Exec-shield can be turned off with this command:
2697
2698 echo "0" > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield
a933dad1 2699
9dc15871
EZ
2700When Exec-shield is enabled, building Emacs will segfault during the
2701execution of this command:
a933dad1 2702
1f02a4ba 2703 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2704
9dc15871 2705To work around this problem, it is necessary to temporarily disable
1f02a4ba
JD
2706Exec-shield while building Emacs, or, on x86, by using the `setarch'
2707command when running temacs like this:
2708
2709 setarch i386 ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
a933dad1 2710
ade79051 2711
ff0ab406
RS
2712*** Fedora Core 4 GNU/Linux: Segfault during dumping.
2713
2714In addition to exec-shield explained above "Linux: Segfault during
2715`make bootstrap' under certain recent versions of the Linux kernel"
2716item, Linux kernel shipped with Fedora Core 4 randomizes the virtual
cf14a51c
JD
2717address space of a process. As the result dumping may fail even if
2718you turn off exec-shield. In this case, use the -R option to the setarch
ff0ab406
RS
2719command:
2720
25fd144d 2721 setarch i386 -R ./temacs --batch --load loadup [dump|bootstrap]
ff0ab406
RS
2722
2723or
2724
ade79051 2725 setarch i386 -R make bootstrap
a933dad1 2726
9dc15871 2727*** Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump.
a933dad1
DL
2728
2729This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
7c2fb837 2730Makefile in the src subdirectory.
a933dad1
DL
2731
2732It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2733space available on the machine.
2734
9dc15871 2735On 68000s, it has also happened because of bugs in the
a933dad1
DL
2736subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2737for large blocks (many pages).
2738
9dc15871
EZ
2739*** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered.
2740*** or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127".
2741*** or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2742*** or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs.
a933dad1
DL
2743
2744This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2745fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2746binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2747
2748In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2749It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2750a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2751itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2752when unpacking the shell archive.
2753
2754I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2755what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2756file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2757
2758If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2759nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2760
2761 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2762 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2763 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2764 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2765 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2766 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2767 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2768 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2769 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2770 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2771 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2772 and remake temacs.
2773 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2774
9dc15871 2775*** temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted".
a933dad1
DL
2776
2777This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2778files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2779space than was allocated.
2780
2781This could be caused by
2782 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2783 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2784 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2785 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2786 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2787 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2788 deleting that file.
2789 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2790 (not from the directory you expected).
2791 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2792 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2793 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2794 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2795 the space required.
2796
2797If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2798of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2799
2800But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2801of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2802problem.
2803
9dc15871 2804*** Linux: Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
a933dad1 2805
9dc15871
EZ
2806The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
2807C backtrace printed by GDB:
a933dad1 2808
9dc15871
EZ
2809 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2810 (gdb) where
2811 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
2812 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
2813 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
2814 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
a933dad1 2815
9dc15871
EZ
2816This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
2817of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
2818but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
2819other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
2820distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
2821GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
2822following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
2823distribution:
a933dad1 2824
9dc15871 2825 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux except for Yellowdog,
3256a475
RC
2826 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
2827 know what's really going on here. */
9dc15871
EZ
2828 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
2829 0x10000000. */
2830 #if defined __linux__
2831 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
2832 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
2833 #endif
2834 #endif
2835 #endif /* 0 */
a933dad1 2836
9dc15871
EZ
2837Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
2838the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
2839should now succeed.
a933dad1 2840
0bce976c
GM
2841*** OpenBSD 4.0 macppc: Segfault during dumping.
2842
2843The build aborts with signal 11 when the command `./temacs --batch
14395431 2844--load loadup bootstrap' tries to load files.el. A workaround seems
464df798 2845to be to reduce the level of compiler optimization used during the
14395431
GM
2846build (from -O2 to -O1). It is possible this is an OpenBSD
2847GCC problem specific to the macppc architecture, possibly only
2848occurring with older versions of GCC (e.g. 3.3.5).
0bce976c 2849
ce46543c
GM
2850*** openSUSE 10.3: Segfault in bcopy during dumping.
2851
2852This is due to a bug in the bcopy implementation in openSUSE 10.3.
2853It is/will be fixed in an openSUSE update.
2854
9dc15871 2855** Installation
a933dad1 2856
9dc15871 2857*** Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
a933dad1 2858
9dc15871
EZ
2859You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
2860supplies the `install-info' command.
a933dad1 2861
6afdff63
GM
2862*** Installing to a directory with spaces in the name fails.
2863
2864For example, if you call configure with a directory-related option
2865with spaces in the value, eg --enable-locallisppath='/path/with\ spaces'.
2866Using directory paths with spaces is not supported at this time: you
2867must re-configure without using spaces.
2868
6c06422c
CY
2869*** Installing to a directory with non-ASCII characters in the name fails.
2870
2871Installation may fail, or the Emacs executable may not start
2872correctly, if a directory name containing non-ASCII characters is used
2873as a `configure' argument (e.g. `--prefix'). The problem can also
2874occur if a non-ASCII directory is specified in the EMACSLOADPATH
2875envvar.
2876
2f6e7d3f
GM
2877*** On Solaris, use GNU Make when installing an out-of-tree build
2878
2879The Emacs configuration process allows you to configure the
2880build environment so that you can build emacs in a directory
2881outside of the distribution tree. When installing Emacs from an
2882out-of-tree build directory on Solaris, you may need to use GNU
2883make. The make programs bundled with Solaris support the VPATH
2884macro but use it differently from the way the VPATH macro is
2885used by GNU make. The differences will cause the "make install"
2886step to fail, leaving you with an incomplete emacs
2887installation. GNU make is available in /usr/sfw/bin on Solaris
288810 and can be installed as /opt/sfw/bin/gmake from the Solaris 9
2889Software Companion CDROM.
2890
2891The problems due to the VPATH processing differences affect only
2892out of tree builds so, if you are on a Solaris installation
2893without GNU make, you can install Emacs completely by installing
2894from a build environment using the original emacs distribution tree.
2895
9dc15871 2896** First execution
a933dad1 2897
9dc15871 2898*** Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
a933dad1 2899
9dc15871
EZ
2900This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
2901via NFS, for some combinations of NFS client and NFS server.
2902Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
2903binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
a933dad1 2904
9dc15871 2905 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
a933dad1 2906
9dc15871
EZ
2907We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
2908build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
a933dad1 2909
9dc15871 2910*** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
a933dad1
DL
2911
2912Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2913
29141) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2915as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2916it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2917value in the man page for a.out (5).
2918
29192) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2920initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2921of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2922not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2923may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2924
9dc15871 2925* Emacs 19 problems
a933dad1 2926
9dc15871 2927** Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'.
a933dad1 2928
9dc15871
EZ
2929This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2930Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2931Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2932where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
a933dad1 2933
9dc15871 2934So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
a933dad1 2935
9dc15871 2936* Runtime problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 2937
9dc15871
EZ
2938This section covers bugs reported on very old hardware or software.
2939If you are using hardware and an operating system shipped after 2000,
2940it is unlikely you will see any of these.
a933dad1 2941
9dc15871 2942** Ancient operating systems
a933dad1 2943
0a4dd4e4
EZ
2944AIX 4.2 was end-of-lifed on Dec 31st, 1999.
2945
2946*** AIX: You get this compiler error message:
2947
2948 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2949 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2950
2951This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2952libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2953X11Dev... with smit.
2954
2955(This report must be ancient. Bootable tapes are long dead.)
2956
2957*** AIX 3.2.4: Releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2958
2959Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2960ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2961lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2962treated as control characters.
2963
2964You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2965releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2966
2967*** AIX 3.2.5: You get this message when running Emacs:
2968
2969 Could not load program emacs
2970 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2971 Error was: Exec format error
2972
2973or this one:
2974
2975 Could not load program .emacs
2976 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2977 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2978 Error was: Exec format error
2979
2980These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2981compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2982
2983*** AIX 4.2: Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup.
2984
2985If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
2986without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
2987
9dc15871 2988*** ISC Unix
a933dad1 2989
9dc15871 2990**** ISC: display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
a933dad1 2991
9dc15871
EZ
2992Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2993versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2994cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2995This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2996processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
a933dad1 2997
9dc15871
EZ
2998Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2999the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
a933dad1 3000
9dc15871 3001The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
a933dad1 3002
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3003**** Sunos 5.3: Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies.
3004
3005A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
3006exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
3007applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
3008communicating through pipes.
3009
9dc15871 3010*** Irix
a933dad1 3011
9dc15871 3012*** Irix 6.2: No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
a933dad1 3013
9dc15871
EZ
3014This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
3015as of 8 Dec 1998.
a933dad1 3016
9dc15871 3017The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
a933dad1 3018
9dc15871
EZ
3019*** Irix 6.3: substituting environment variables in file names
3020in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
a933dad1 3021
9dc15871 3022 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
a933dad1 3023
9dc15871
EZ
3024This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
3025003082 August 11, 1998.
a933dad1 3026
9dc15871 3027*** OPENSTEP
a933dad1 3028
9dc15871 3029**** OPENSTEP 4.2: Compiling syntax.c with gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
a933dad1 3030
9dc15871
EZ
3031The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
3032following message:
a933dad1 3033
9dc15871 3034 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
a933dad1 3035
9dc15871
EZ
3036To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
3037INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
3038functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
a933dad1 3039
9dc15871
EZ
3040 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
3041 {
3042 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
3043 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
a933dad1 3044
9dc15871
EZ
3045Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
3046with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
a933dad1 3047
9dc15871 3048*** Solaris 2.x
a933dad1 3049
9dc15871 3050**** Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
a933dad1 3051
9dc15871
EZ
3052Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
3053editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
3054as GCC.
a933dad1 3055
9dc15871 3056**** On Solaris, Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called.
a933dad1 3057
9dc15871
EZ
3058If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
3059of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
3060called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
a933dad1 3061
9dc15871 3062**** On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
a933dad1 3063
9dc15871
EZ
3064This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
3065version of Solaris that you are using.
a933dad1 3066
9dc15871 3067**** Solaris 2.3 and 2.4: Unpredictable segmentation faults.
a933dad1 3068
9dc15871
EZ
3069A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
3070the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
a933dad1 3071
9dc15871 3072We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
a933dad1 3073
9dc15871 3074**** Solaris 2.4: Emacs dumps core on startup.
a933dad1 3075
9dc15871
EZ
3076Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
3077102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
3078Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
3079by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
3080However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
a933dad1 3081
9dc15871
EZ
3082Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
3083you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
3084We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
3085for certain.
a933dad1 3086
9dc15871
EZ
3087 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
3088 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
3256a475 3089 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
a933dad1 3090
9dc15871
EZ
3091(One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
3092with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
a933dad1 3093
9dc15871
EZ
3094If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
3095bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
a933dad1 3096
9dc15871
EZ
3097Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
3098Solaris 2.5.
a933dad1 3099
9dc15871
EZ
3100**** Solaris 2.4: Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
3101forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
a933dad1 3102
9dc15871
EZ
3103casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
3104after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
a933dad1 3105
9dc15871
EZ
3106 #if ThreadedX
3107 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3108 #endif
a933dad1 3109
9dc15871 3110to:
a933dad1 3111
9dc15871
EZ
3112 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
3113 #if ThreadedX
3114 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
3115 #endif
3116 #endif
3117
3118Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
3119(as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
3120OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
3121Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
3122definition for your type of machine and system.
a933dad1 3123
9dc15871
EZ
3124Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
3125the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
3126Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
a933dad1 3127
9dc15871
EZ
3128For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
3129101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
3130to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
3131patch.
a933dad1 3132
9dc15871
EZ
3133However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
3134he changed
3135 #define ThreadedX YES
3136to
3137 #define ThreadedX NO
3138in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
3139`-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
3140typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
a933dad1 3141
9dc15871 3142**** Solaris 2.x: GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported".
a933dad1 3143
9dc15871
EZ
3144This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
3145are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
3146does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
3147later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
3148described in the Solaris FAQ
3149<http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
3150to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
a933dad1 3151
9dc15871
EZ
3152**** Solaris 2.7: Building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
3153C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
3154compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
3155release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
3156another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
3157and the default CFLAGS.
a933dad1 3158
9dc15871 3159**** Solaris 2.x: Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
a933dad1 3160
9dc15871
EZ
3161The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
3162Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
3163(Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
3164You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
3165You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
3166look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
3167are currently recommended for your host.
a933dad1 3168
9dc15871
EZ
3169On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
3170105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
3171105284-18 might fix it again.
a933dad1 3172
0a4dd4e4 3173**** Solaris 2.6 and 7: the Compose key does not work.
a933dad1 3174
9dc15871
EZ
3175This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
3176the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
3177support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
3178If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
a933dad1 3179
9dc15871
EZ
3180One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
3181For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
3182variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
3183lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
3184should do.
a933dad1 3185
9dc15871
EZ
3186pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
3187if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
3188libraries.
a933dad1 3189
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3190*** HP/UX versions before 11.0
3191
bf247b6e 3192HP/UX 9 was end-of-lifed in December 1998.
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3193HP/UX 10 was end-of-lifed in May 1999.
3194
3195**** HP/UX 9: Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV after you delete a frame.
3196
3197We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
3198the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
3199does not happen.
3200
3201*** HP/UX 10: Large file support is disabled.
3202
3203See the comments in src/s/hpux10.h.
3204
3205*** HP/UX: Emacs is slow using X11R5.
3206
3207This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
3208doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
3209because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
3210libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
3211those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
3212install them and rebuild Emacs.
3213
9dc15871 3214*** Ultrix and Digital Unix
a933dad1 3215
9dc15871 3216**** Ultrix 4.2: `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
a933dad1 3217
9dc15871
EZ
3218This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
3219commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
3220Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
3221hand.
a933dad1 3222
9dc15871 3223**** Digital Unix 4.0: Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs.
a933dad1 3224
9dc15871
EZ
3225So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
3226is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
3227properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
3228`tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
3229in Emacs.
a933dad1 3230
9dc15871 3231**** Ultrix: `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
a933dad1 3232
9dc15871
EZ
3233On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
3234in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
3235expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
3236in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
a933dad1 3237
9dc15871
EZ
3238The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
3239anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
a933dad1 3240
9dc15871
EZ
3241I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
3242going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
3243Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
3244in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
a933dad1 3245
9dc15871 3246*** SVr4
a933dad1 3247
9dc15871 3248**** SVr4: On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
a933dad1 3249
9dc15871
EZ
3250Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
3251the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
3252sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
a933dad1 3253
9dc15871 3254**** SVr4: After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
a933dad1 3255
9dc15871
EZ
3256Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
3257mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
3258the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
a933dad1 3259
9dc15871
EZ
3260Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
3261you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
3262operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
3263configure script) that reads:
3264#define SYSTEM_MALLOC
3265This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
3266the kernel bug.
a933dad1 3267
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3268*** Irix 5 and earlier
3269
bf247b6e 3270Exactly when Irix-5 end-of-lifed is obscure. But since Irix 6.0
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3271shipped in 1994, it has been some years.
3272
3273**** Irix 5.2: unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
3274
3275The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
3276Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
3277compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
3278workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
3279syms.h.
3280
3281**** Irix 5.3: "out of virtual swap space".
3282
3283This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
3284many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
3285swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
3286can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
3287command `swap -l'.
3288
3289You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
3290line like this:
3291
3292/usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
3293
3294where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
3295by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
3296that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
3297new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
3298information.
3299
3300The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
3301swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
3302on the network that can log on to the host.
3303
3304If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
3305the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
3306some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
3307icons.
3308
3309You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
3310FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
3311("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
3312ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
3313
3314**** Irix 5.3: Emacs crashes in utmpname.
3315
3316This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
3317It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
3318
3319**** Irix 6.0: Make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi.
3320
3321A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
3322in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
3323find that string, and take out the spaces.
3324
3325Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
3326
3327*** SCO Unix and UnixWare
3328
3329**** SCO 3.2v4: Unusable default font.
3330
3331The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
3332that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
3333fonts, so it does not work.
3334
3335This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
3336the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
3337emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
3338that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
3339resources affect Emacs also:
3340
3256a475
RC
3341 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
3342 *Background: scoBackground
3343 *Foreground: scoForeground
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3344
3345The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
3346Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
3347
3256a475
RC
3348 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
3349 Emacs*Background: white
3350 Emacs*Foreground: black
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3351
3352(These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
3353suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
3354starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
3355environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
3356as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
3357/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
3358but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
3359Open Desktop display.
3360
3361These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
3362machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
3363
3364**** SCO 4.2.0: Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
3365
3366On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
3367with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
3368version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
3369C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
3370GCC.
3371
3372**** UnixWare 2.1: Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs.
3373
3374Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
3375virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
3376the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
3377error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
3378exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
3379memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
3380
3381You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
3382But you have to be root to do it.
3383
3384According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
3385
3386 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
3387 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
3388 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
3389 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
3390 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
3391
3392(He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
3393These changes take effect when you reboot.
3394
9dc15871 3395*** Linux 1.x
a933dad1 3396
9dc15871 3397**** Linux 1.0-1.04: Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
a933dad1 3398
9dc15871
EZ
3399This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
3400to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
3401Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
a933dad1 3402
9dc15871
EZ
3403**** Linux 1.3: Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly
3404truncated on GNU/Linux systems.
a933dad1 3405
9dc15871
EZ
3406This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
34071.3.75.
a933dad1 3408
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3409** Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME
3410
3411*** MS-Windows NT/95: Problems running Perl under Emacs
3412
3413`perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
3414The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
3415
3416The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
3417"CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
3418with the user.
3419
3420On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
3421pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
3422communicate with the subprocess.
3423
3424On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
3425relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
3426redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
3427stdin.
3428
3429A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
3430
3431For Perl 4:
3432
3433 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
3434 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
3435 ***************
3436 *** 68,74 ****
3256a475 3437 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3438 }
3439 else {
3440 ! $console = "con";
3256a475 3441 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3442 }
3443
3444 --- 68,74 ----
3256a475 3445 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3446 }
3447 else {
3448 ! $console = "";
3256a475 3449 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3450 }
3451
3452
3453 For Perl 5:
3454 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
3455 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
3456 ***************
3457 *** 22,28 ****
3256a475 3458 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3459 }
3460 elsif (-e "con") {
3461 ! $console = "con";
3256a475 3462 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3463 }
3464 else {
3465 --- 22,28 ----
3256a475 3466 $rcfile=".perldb";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3467 }
3468 elsif (-e "con") {
3469 ! $console = "";
3256a475 3470 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3471 }
3472 else {
3473
3474*** MS-Windows 95: Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
3475
3476This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
3477You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
3478
3479*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: subprocesses do not terminate properly.
3480
3481This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
3482when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
3483cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
3484http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/.
3485
3486*** MS-Windows 95/98/ME: crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
3487
3488When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
3489Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
3490particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
3491program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
3492PATH.
3493
9dc15871 3494** MS-DOS
a933dad1 3495
bde76d3e 3496*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT or later, "config msdos" fails.
a933dad1 3497
9dc15871
EZ
3498If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
3499Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
3500program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
3501config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
3502the front of your PATH environment variable.
a933dad1 3503
bde76d3e
EZ
3504*** When Emacs compiled with DJGPP runs on Vista, it runs out of memory.
3505
3506If Emacs running on Vista displays "!MEM FULL!" in the mode line, you
3507are hitting the memory allocation bugs in the Vista DPMI server. See
3508msdos/INSTALL for how to work around these bugs (search for "Vista").
3509
9dc15871
EZ
3510*** When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
3511like make-docfile.
a933dad1 3512
9dc15871
EZ
3513This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
3514variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
bde76d3e
EZ
3515compilation are not the same. See msdos/INSTALL for the explanation
3516of how to avoid this problem.
a933dad1 3517
9dc15871 3518*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
a933dad1 3519
9dc15871 3520 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
a933dad1 3521
9dc15871
EZ
3522This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
3523on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
3524value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
3525works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
3526support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
3527undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
3528[emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
3529`TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
3530your system works as before.
a933dad1 3531
9dc15871 3532*** MS-DOS: Emacs crashes at startup.
a933dad1 3533
9dc15871
EZ
3534Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
3535and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
3536know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
3537memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
3538However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
a933dad1 3539
9dc15871
EZ
3540You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
3541arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
3542information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
3543is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
a933dad1 3544
9dc15871
EZ
3545Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
3546configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
3547removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
3548and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
3549the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
a933dad1 3550
9dc15871
EZ
3551*** Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
3552in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
3553drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
a933dad1 3554
9dc15871
EZ
3555This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
3556device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
3557work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
a933dad1 3558
9dc15871 3559*** MS-DOS+DJGPP: Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs.
a933dad1 3560
9dc15871 3561There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
a933dad1 3562
9dc15871
EZ
3563 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
3564 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
3565 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
a933dad1 3566
9dc15871
EZ
3567To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
3568subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
3569them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
3570incorrect library functions.
a933dad1 3571
9dc15871
EZ
3572*** MS-DOS: Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
3573run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
a933dad1 3574
9dc15871
EZ
3575Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
3576immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
3577the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
3578and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
a933dad1 3579
9dc15871
EZ
3580Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
3581the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
3582Lisp.
a933dad1 3583
9dc15871
EZ
3584This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
3585support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
3586characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
3587You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
3588filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
bde76d3e
EZ
3589compiled with DJGPP v2). The file msdos/INSTALL explains this issue
3590in more detail.
a933dad1 3591
9dc15871
EZ
3592Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
3593MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
3594by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
3595unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
3596them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
3597must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
3598properly truncated.
a933dad1 3599
9dc15871 3600** Archaic window managers and toolkits
a933dad1 3601
9dc15871 3602*** OpenLook: Under OpenLook, the Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
a933dad1 3603
9dc15871
EZ
3604Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
3605command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
3606Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
3607manager to use some other command. You can disable the
3608shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
a933dad1 3609
9dc15871 3610 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
a933dad1 3611
9dc15871 3612**** twm: A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
a933dad1 3613
9dc15871
EZ
3614twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
3615You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
a933dad1 3616
9dc15871 3617 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
a933dad1 3618
9dc15871 3619** Bugs related to old DEC hardware
a933dad1 3620
9dc15871 3621*** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
a933dad1 3622
9dc15871 3623This shell command should fix it:
a933dad1 3624
9dc15871 3625 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
a933dad1 3626
9dc15871
EZ
3627*** Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
3628as a concentrator.
a933dad1 3629
9dc15871
EZ
3630This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
36317 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
a933dad1 3632
9dc15871 3633* Build problems on legacy systems
a933dad1 3634
9dc15871 3635** BSD/386 1.0: --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong.
a933dad1 3636
9dc15871
EZ
3637This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
3638The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
3639such as bash.
a933dad1 3640
9dc15871
EZ
3641** Digital Unix 4.0: Emacs fails to build, giving error message
3642 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
a933dad1 3643
9dc15871
EZ
3644This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
3645Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
a933dad1 3646
9dc15871 3647** Digital Unix 4.0: Failure in unexec while dumping emacs.
a933dad1 3648
9dc15871 3649This problem manifests itself as an error message
a933dad1 3650
9dc15871 3651 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
a933dad1 3652
9dc15871
EZ
3653The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
3654were built for an older system version,
a933dad1 3655
9dc15871 3656 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
a933dad1 3657
9dc15871 3658made the problem go away.
a933dad1 3659
9dc15871 3660** Sunos 4.1.1: there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
a933dad1 3661
9dc15871 3662If you get errors such as
a933dad1 3663
9dc15871
EZ
3664 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3665 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
3666 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
a933dad1 3667
9dc15871
EZ
3668This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
3669to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
3670script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
3671make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
3672ones available when you build Emacs.
a933dad1 3673
9dc15871 3674** SunOS 4.1.1: You get this error message from GNU ld:
a933dad1 3675
9dc15871 3676 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
a933dad1 3677
9dc15871 3678The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
a933dad1 3679
9dc15871 3680The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
a933dad1 3681
9dc15871 3682** Sunos 4.1: Undefined symbols when linking using --with-x-toolkit.
a933dad1 3683
9dc15871
EZ
3684If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
3685_iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
3686-lXaw in the command that links temacs.
a933dad1 3687
9dc15871
EZ
3688This problem seems to arise only when the international language
3689extensions to X11R5 are installed.
a933dad1 3690
9dc15871 3691** SunOS: Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
a933dad1 3692
9dc15871
EZ
3693If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
3694`ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
3695that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
3696with a floating point option other than the default.
a933dad1 3697
9dc15871
EZ
3698It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
3699crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
3700However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
3701floating point option: -fsoft.
a933dad1 3702
0a4dd4e4
EZ
3703** HPUX 10.20: Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine.
3704
3705This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
3706
9dc15871 3707** Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
a933dad1
DL
3708
3709You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3710
3711 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3712 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3713
3714These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3715Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3716may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3717on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3718in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3719can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3720that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3721
3722As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3723you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3724can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3725should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3726array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3727 Lisp_Object *args;
3728 ...
3729 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3730putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3731 Lisp_Object *args;
3732 Lisp_Object tem;
3733 ...
3734 tem = args[i];
3735 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3736causes the problem to go away.
3737The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3738so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3739
9dc15871 3740** 68000 C compiler problems
a933dad1
DL
3741
3742Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3743These are some that have been observed.
3744
9dc15871 3745*** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
a933dad1
DL
3746This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3747if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3748
9dc15871 3749*** "cannot reclaim" error.
a933dad1
DL
3750
3751This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3752line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3753simpler expressions.
3754
9dc15871 3755*** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
a933dad1
DL
3756
3757If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3758Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3759
3760struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3761
3762lose (arg)
3763 struct foo arg;
3764{
3765 test ((int *) arg.y);
3766}
3767
3768If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3769In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3770((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3771
6e5cb96f
DN
3772This problem will only happen if USE_LISP_UNION_TYPE is manually
3773defined in lisp.h.
a933dad1 3774
9dc15871 3775*** C compilers lose on returning unions.
a933dad1
DL
3776
3777I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3778Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3779defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3780
6e5cb96f
DN
3781This problem will only happen if USE_LISP_UNION_TYPE is manually
3782defined in lisp.h.
a933dad1 3783
53854552 3784\f
5b87ad55 3785This file is part of GNU Emacs.
fe6b4873 3786
ab73e885 3787GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
5b87ad55 3788it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
ab73e885
GM
3789the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
3790(at your option) any later version.
fe6b4873 3791
5b87ad55
GM
3792GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3793but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3794MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3795GNU General Public License for more details.
3796
3797You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
ab73e885 3798along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
5b87ad55
GM
3799
3800\f
53854552
EZ
3801Local variables:
3802mode: outline
3256a475 3803paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
53854552 3804end:
6b61353c
KH
3805
3806arch-tag: 49fc0d95-88cb-4715-b21c-f27fb5a4764a