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1 This file describes various problems that have been encountered
2 in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs.
3
4 * Process output truncated on Mac OS X (Carbon) when using pty's.
5
6 There appears to be a problem with the implementation of pty's on the
7 Mac OS X that causes process output to be truncated. To avoid this,
8 leave process-connection-type set to its default value of nil.
9
10 * Emacs crashes on Mac OS X (Carbon) after system software upgrade.
11
12 This problem seems to be now solved by Steven Tamm's patch to
13 unexmacosx.c on Nov 24, 2002.
14
15 Between Mac OS X release 10.2.1 and 10.2.2 there was an incompatible
16 change in the memory allocator that causes a EXC_BAD_ACCESS error near
17 xrealloc(). Relinking the application (by deleting src/temacs and
18 running make) will solve the problem. It appears to be caused by some
19 problems with the unexec code and its interaction with libSystem.B.
20
21 * Characters from the mule-unicode charsets aren't displayed under X.
22
23 XFree86 4 contains many fonts in iso10646-1 encoding which have
24 minimal character repertoires (whereas the encoding part of the font
25 name is meant to be a reasonable indication of the repertoire
26 according to the XLFD spec). Emacs may choose one of these to display
27 characters from the mule-unicode charsets and then typically won't be
28 able to find the glyphs to display many characters. (Check with C-u
29 C-x = .) To avoid this, you may need to use a fontset which sets the
30 font for the mule-unicode sets explicitly. E.g. to use GNU unifont,
31 include in the fontset spec:
32
33 mule-unicode-2500-33ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
34 mule-unicode-e000-ffff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1,\
35 mule-unicode-0100-24ff:-gnu-unifont-*-iso10646-1
36
37 * The UTF-8/16/7 coding systems don't encode CJK (Far Eastern) characters.
38
39 Emacs by default only supports the parts of the Unicode BMP whose code
40 points are in the ranges 0000-33ff and e000-ffff. This excludes: most
41 of CJK, Yi and Hangul, as well as everything outside the BMP.
42
43 If you read UTF-8 data with code points outside these ranges, the
44 characters appear in the buffer as raw bytes of the original UTF-8
45 (composed into a single quasi-character) and they will be written back
46 correctly as UTF-8, assuming you don't break the composed sequences.
47 If you read such characters from UTF-16 or UTF-7 data, they are
48 substituted with the Unicode `replacement character', and you lose
49 information.
50
51 To edit such UTF data, turn on Utf-Translate-Cjk mode, which makes
52 many common CJK characters available for encoding and decoding and can
53 be extended by updating the tables it uses. This also allows you to
54 save as UTF buffers containing characters decoded by the chinese-,
55 japanese- and korean- coding systems, e.g. cut and pasted from
56 elsewhere.
57
58 * Problems with file dialogs in Emacs built with Open Motif.
59
60 When Emacs 21 is built with Open Motif 2.1, it can happen that the
61 graphical file dialog boxes do not work properly. The "OK", "Filter"
62 and "Cancel" buttons do not respond to mouse clicks. Dragging the
63 file dialog window usually causes the buttons to work again.
64
65 The solution is to use LessTif instead. LessTif is a free replacement
66 for Motif. See the file INSTALL for information on how to do this.
67
68 Another workaround is not to use the mouse to trigger file prompts,
69 but to use the keyboard. This way, you will be prompted for a file in
70 the minibuffer instead of a graphical file dialog.
71
72 * Emacs reports a BadAtom error (from X) running on Solaris 7 or 8.
73
74 This happens when Emacs was built on some other version of Solaris.
75 Rebuild it on Solaris 8.
76
77 * Mule-UCS loads very slowly.
78
79 Changes to Emacs internals interact badly with Mule-UCS's `un-define'
80 library, which is the usual interface to Mule-UCS. Apply the
81 following patch to Mule-UCS 0.84 and rebuild it. That will help,
82 though loading will still be slower than in Emacs 20. (Some
83 distributions, such as Debian, may already have applied such a patch.)
84
85 --- lisp/un-define.el 6 Mar 2001 22:41:38 -0000 1.30
86 +++ lisp/un-define.el 19 Apr 2002 18:34:26 -0000
87 @@ -610,13 +624,21 @@ by calling post-read-conversion and pre-
88
89 (mapcar
90 (lambda (x)
91 - (mapcar
92 - (lambda (y)
93 - (mucs-define-coding-system
94 - (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
95 - (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
96 - (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x))))
97 - (cdr x)))
98 + (if (fboundp 'register-char-codings)
99 + ;; Mule 5, where we don't need the eol-type specified and
100 + ;; register-char-codings may be very slow for these coding
101 + ;; system definitions.
102 + (let ((y (cadr x)))
103 + (mucs-define-coding-system
104 + (car x) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
105 + (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y)))
106 + (mapcar
107 + (lambda (y)
108 + (mucs-define-coding-system
109 + (nth 0 y) (nth 1 y) (nth 2 y)
110 + (nth 3 y) (nth 4 y) (nth 5 y) (nth 6 y))
111 + (coding-system-put (car y) 'alias-coding-systems (list (car x)))))
112 + (cdr x)))
113 `((utf-8
114 (utf-8-unix
115 ?u "UTF-8 coding system"
116
117 Note that Emacs has native support for Unicode, roughly equivalent to
118 Mule-UCS's, so you may not need it.
119
120 * Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
121
122 This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
123 of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
124 version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
125 dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
126 around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
127 incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
128 ". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
129 directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
130 variables).
131
132 The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
133 `-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
134 when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
135 unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
136 run the script like this:
137
138 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
139
140 (replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
141 the script).
142
143 Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
144 Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
145
146 * Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
147 undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
148
149 This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
150 with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
151 GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
152 from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
153 compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
154 link stage.
155
156 A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
157
158 make CC=gcc
159
160 Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
161 with GCC, but just restart by trying again to link temacs.
162
163 * Building the MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
164
165 Emacs may not build using recent Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
166 version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
167 necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
168 __MSVCRT__, like so:
169
170 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
171
172 * Building the MS-Windows port with Leim fails in the `leim' directory.
173
174 The error message might be something like this:
175
176 Converting d:/emacs-21.3/leim/CXTERM-DIC/4Corner.tit to quail-package...
177 Invalid ENCODE: value in TIT dictionary
178 NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"../src/obj-spd/i386/emacs.exe"' : return code
179 '0xffffffff'
180 Stop.
181
182 This can happen if the Leim distribution is unpacked with a program
183 which converts the `*.tit' files to DOS-style CR-LF text format. The
184 `*.tit' files in the leim/CXTERM-DIC directory require Unix-style line
185 endings to compile properly, because Emacs reads them without any code
186 or EOL conversions.
187
188 The solution is to make sure the program used to unpack Leim does not
189 change the files' line endings behind your back. The GNU FTP site has
190 in the `/gnu/emacs/windows' directory a program called `djtarnt.exe'
191 which can be used to unpack `.tar.gz' and `.zip' archives without
192 mangling them.
193
194 * Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
195
196 The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
197 C backtrace printed by GDB:
198
199 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
200 (gdb) where
201 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
202 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
203 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
204 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
205
206 This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
207 of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
208 but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
209 other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
210 distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
211 GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
212 following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
213 distribution:
214
215 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux except for Yellowdog,
216 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
217 know what's really going on here. */
218 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
219 0x10000000. */
220 #if defined __linux__
221 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
222 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
223 #endif
224 #endif
225 #endif /* 0 */
226
227 Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
228 the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
229 should now succeed.
230
231 * JPEG images aren't displayed.
232
233 This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
234 Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem. Configure checks for the
235 correct version, but this problem could occur if a binary built
236 against a shared libjpeg is run on a system with an older version.
237
238 * Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
239
240 This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
241 defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
242 patch to assert.h should solve this:
243
244 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
245 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
246 ***************
247 *** 41,47 ****
248 /*
249 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
250 */
251 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
252
253 #else /* debugging enabled */
254
255 --- 41,47 ----
256 /*
257 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
258 */
259 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
260
261 #else /* debugging enabled */
262
263
264
265 * Improving performance with slow X connections
266
267 There are several ways to improve this performance, any subset of which can
268 be carried out at the same time:
269
270 1) If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
271 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by using
272 the X resource useXIM to turn off use of XIM. This does not affect
273 the use of Emacs' own input methods, which are part of the Leim
274 package.
275
276 2) If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
277 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar.
278
279 3) Use ssh to forward the X connection, and enable compression on this
280 forwarded X connection (ssh -XC remotehostname emacs ...).
281
282 4) Use lbxproxy on the remote end of the connection. This is an interface
283 to the low bandwidth X extension in most modern X servers, which
284 improves performance dramatically, at the slight expense of correctness
285 of the X protocol. lbxproxy acheives the performance gain by grouping
286 several X requests in one TCP packet and sending them off together,
287 instead of requiring a round-trip for each X request in a seperate
288 packet. The switches that seem to work best for emacs are:
289 -noatomsfile -nowinattr -cheaterrors -cheatevents
290 Note that the -nograbcmap option is known to cause problems.
291 For more about lbxproxy, see:
292 http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/lbxproxy.1.html
293
294 * Getting a Meta key on the FreeBSD console
295
296 By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
297 FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
298 current keymap to a file with the command
299
300 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
301
302 Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
303 definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
304 key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
305 to look like this
306
307 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
308
309 to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
310
311 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
312
313 * Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
314
315 A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
316 into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
317 incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
318 other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
319 been filed.
320
321 * Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font
322
323 This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
324 2.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
325 event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
326 Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
327
328 A workaround for this is to add something like
329
330 emacs.waitForWM: false
331
332 to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
333 frame's parameter list, like this:
334
335 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
336
337 (this should go into your `.emacs' file).
338
339 * Underlines appear at the wrong position.
340
341 This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
342 Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
343 neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package. To circumvent this
344 problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties to nil in your
345 `.emacs'.
346
347 To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
348 type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
349 property.
350
351 * When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
352 click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
353 is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
354 problem disappears.
355
356 * There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
357 XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
358 one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
359 For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
360 "C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
361 used with neXtaw at run time.
362
363 The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
364 want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
365 built Emacs with.
366
367 * Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
368
369 This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
370 a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
371 --without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
372
373 * Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
374
375 This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
376 terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
377 If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
378 version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
379 and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
380
381 All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
382 problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
383 terminfo when built.
384
385 * Error messages about undefined colors on X.
386
387 The messages might say something like this:
388
389 Unable to load color "grey95"
390
391 (typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
392
393 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
394
395 These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
396 many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
397 resources to load all the colors it needs.
398
399 A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
400
401 * Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
402
403 Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
404 emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
405 entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
406 "Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
407 supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
408 Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
409 uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
410 "colors".
411
412 In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
413 ``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
414 back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
415 use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
416 doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
417 sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
418 it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
419 capability).
420
421 Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
422 attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
423 incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
424 this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
425
426 Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
427 of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
428 entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
429 `xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
430 emulator.
431
432 Beginning with version 21.4, Emacs supports the --color command-line
433 option which may be used to force Emacs to use one of a few popular
434 modes for getting colors on a tty. For example, --color=ansi8 sets up
435 for using the ANSI-standard escape sequences that support 8 colors.
436
437 Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
438 Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
439 Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
440 recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
441 global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
442 `global-font-lock-mode'.
443
444 * Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
445
446 This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
447 ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
448 These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
449 the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
450 (show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
451 blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
452 cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
453 always blinks.
454
455 A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
456 enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
457 the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
458 cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
459 the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
460 cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
461
462 To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
463 `linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
464 the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
465 produce a modified terminfo entry.
466
467 Alternatively, if you want a blinking underscore as your Emacs cursor,
468 change the "cvvis" capability to send the "\E[?25h\E[?0c" command.
469
470 * Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
471
472 The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
473 emulation for which it is set up.
474
475 Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
476 Lesstif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
477 On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
478 --enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
479 successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
480 lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
481 menu placement.
482
483 On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
484 locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
485 what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
486 developers.
487
488 * Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 21.2.
489
490 Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
491 is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menus is not
492 displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
493 synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
494 waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
495 pop-up menu interaction.
496
497 Windows 95 and Windows NT up to version 4.0 do not support help text
498 for menus. Help text is only available in later versions of Windows.
499
500 There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
501 mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
502 frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
503 after moving back into it.
504
505 Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
506 not as severely as in 21.1.
507
508 Emacs can sometimes abort when non-ASCII text, possibly with null
509 characters, is copied and pasted into a buffer.
510
511 An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
512 Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
513
514 Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs (as of v21.2). Some
515 of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
516 in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
517 characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make this
518 work, set the keyboard coding system to the appropriate value after
519 you activate the Windows input method. For example, if you activate
520 the Hebrew input method, type "C-x RET k iso-8859-8 RET". (Emacs
521 ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up the
522 appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do that
523 yet.)
524
525 Windows uses UTF-16 encoding to deal with multilingual text (text not
526 encodable in the `system codepage') in the clipboard. To deal with
527 this, load the library `utf-16' and use `set-selection-coding-system'
528 to set the clipboard coding system to `utf-16-le-with-signature-dos'.
529
530 The %b specifier for format-time-string does not produce abbreviated
531 month names with consistent widths for some locales on some versions
532 of Windows. This is caused by a deficiency in the underlying system
533 library function.
534
535 * The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
536
537 There are reports that this happens on some systems because the linker
538 by default only looks for shared libraries, but jpeg distribution by
539 default only installs a nonshared version of the library, `libjpeg.a'.
540
541 If this is the problem, you can configure the jpeg library with the
542 `--enable-shared' option and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a
543 shared version of libjpeg, which you need to install. Finally, rerun
544 the Emacs configure script, which should now find the jpeg library.
545 Alternatively, modify the generated src/Makefile to link the .a file
546 explicitly, and edit src/config.h to define HAVE_JPEG.
547
548 * Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
549
550 This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
551 (RedHat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
552 (SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
553 configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
554 files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
555 left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
556 itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
557 Emacs executable to fail with the above message.
558
559 In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
560 machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
561 (it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
562 This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
563
564 If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
565 (Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
566 you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
567 force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
568 problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
569 blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
570 `mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
571 options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
572 `/etc/auto.home'.
573
574 Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
575 a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
576 waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
577 to work around the problem.
578
579 Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
580 onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
581 you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
582 `/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
583
584 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
585
586 The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
587
588 * Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
589
590 This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
591 via NFS. Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
592 binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
593
594 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
595
596 We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
597 build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
598
599 * Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
600
601 Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
602 other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
603 that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
604 size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
605 when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
606 fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
607
608 To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
609
610 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
611
612 If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
613 problem.
614
615 The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
616 `fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
617 `xset fp rehash'.
618
619 * Large file support is disabled on HP-UX. See the comments in
620 src/s/hpux10.h.
621
622 * Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
623 libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
624 Configure checks for the correct version, but this problem could occur
625 if a binary built against a shared libungif is run on a system with an
626 older version.
627
628 * Font Lock displays portions of the buffer in incorrect faces.
629
630 By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
631 `{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
632 any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
633 vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
634 parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
635 in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
636 pathological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
637 introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
638 through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
639 to the end of a very large buffer.
640
641 Beginning with version 21.4, a parenthesis or a brace in column zero
642 is highlighted in bold-red face if it is inside a string or a comment,
643 to indicate that it could interfere with Font Lock (and also with
644 indentation) and should be moved or escaped with a backslash.
645
646 If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
647 makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
648 fontification by setting the variable
649 `font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
650 be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
651
652 Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
653 in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
654
655 * When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
656 or messed up.
657
658 For example, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
659 empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
660 background.
661
662 This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
663 definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
664 solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
665 option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style (KDE 2). In KDE 3, this option
666 is in the "Colors" section, rather than "Style".
667
668 Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
669 applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
670 (should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
671 so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
672 Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
673 present or commented out:
674
675 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
676 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
677 Emacs*Foreground
678 Emacs*Background
679
680 * Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
681
682 Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
683 MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
684 port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
685 keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
686 of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
687
688 * Dired is very slow.
689
690 This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long
691 time. Possible reasons for this include:
692
693 - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df'
694 response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds);
695
696 - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix;
697
698 - slow operation of some versions of `df'.
699
700 To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable
701 `directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from
702 invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or
703 (c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase.
704
705 * Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
706
707 If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
708 due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
709 and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
710 port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
711 are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
712 confuses ange-ftp.
713
714 The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
715 (version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
716 Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
717 directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
718 variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
719 client's executable. For example:
720
721 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
722
723 If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
724 this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
725
726 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
727
728 * Versions of the W3 package released before Emacs 21.1 don't run
729 under Emacs 21. This fixed in W3 version 4.0pre.47.
730
731 * On AIX, if linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
732 are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
733 so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
734 Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
735
736 * Compiling on AIX 4.3.x or 4.4 fails.
737
738 This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
739 the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
740 redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
741 is to use the default compiler `cc'.
742
743 * Old versions of the PSGML package use the obsolete variables
744 `before-change-function' and `after-change-function', which are no
745 longer used by Emacs. Please use PSGML 1.2.3 or later.
746
747 * PSGML conflicts with sgml-mode.
748
749 PSGML package uses the same names of some variables (like keymap)
750 as built-in sgml-mode.el because it was created as a replacement
751 of that package. The conflict will be shown if you load
752 sgml-mode.el before psgml.el. E.g. this could happen if you edit
753 HTML page and then start to work with SGML or XML file. html-mode
754 (from sgml-mode.el) is used for HTML file and loading of psgml.el
755 (for sgml-mode or xml-mode) will cause an error.
756
757 * The LDAP support rely on ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 2.
758
759 It can fail to work with ldapsearch program from OpenLDAP version 1.
760 Version 1 of OpenLDAP is now deprecated. If you are still using it,
761 please upgrade to version 2. As a temporary workaround, remove
762 argument "-x" from the variable `ldap-ldapsearch-args'.
763
764 * The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
765
766 This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
767 slots now. The current built-in Unicode support is actually more
768 flexible. (Use option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' if you need CJK
769 support.) Files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode aren't
770 generally read correctly by Emacs 21.
771
772 * Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error.
773
774 The error message might be something like this:
775
776 "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth"
777
778 This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a
779 built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch
780 for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3
781 corrects that.
782
783 * ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps.
784
785 This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it
786 defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it
787 runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory.
788
789 The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version.
790
791 * lpr commands don't work on MS-Windows with some cheap printers.
792
793 This problem may also strike other platforms, but the solution is
794 likely to be a global one, and not Emacs specific.
795
796 Many cheap inkjet, and even some cheap laser printers, do not
797 print plain text anymore, they will only print through graphical
798 printer drivers. A workaround on MS-Windows is to use Windows' basic
799 built in editor to print (this is possibly the only useful purpose it
800 has):
801
802 (setq printer-name "") ;; notepad takes the default
803 (setq lpr-command "notepad") ;; notepad
804 (setq lpr-switches nil) ;; not needed
805 (setq lpr-printer-switch "/P") ;; run notepad as batch printer
806
807 * On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
808 from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
809 shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
810 These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
811 library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
812
813 Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build
814 process invokes Emacs several times.
815
816 On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
817 environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
818 can be found.
819
820 Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
821 Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
822 specified run-time search path in the executable.
823
824 On some systems, Emacs can crash due to problems with dynamic
825 linking. Specifically, on SGI Irix 6.5, crashes were reported with
826 backtraces like this:
827
828 (dbx) where
829 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]
830 1 general_find_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
831 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":2140, 0xfb65a98]
832 2 resolve_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x0, 0xfbdd438, 0x0, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
833 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":1947, 0xfb657e4]
834 3 lazy_text_resolve(0xd18, 0x1a3, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
835 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":997, 0xfb64d44]
836 4 _rld_text_resolve(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
837 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld_bridge.s":175, 0xfb6032c]
838
839 (`rld' is the dynamic linker.) We don't know yet why this
840 happens, but setting the environment variable LD_BIND_NOW to 1 (which
841 forces the dynamic linker to bind all shared objects early on) seems
842 to work around the problem.
843
844 Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details.
845
846 * On Solaris 2.7, building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
847 C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
848 compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
849 release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
850 another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
851 and the default CFLAGS.
852
853 * Compiling syntax.c with the OPENSTEP 4.2 compiler gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
854
855 The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
856 following message:
857
858 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
859
860 To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
861 INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
862 functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
863
864 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
865 {
866 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
867 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
868
869 Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
870 with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
871
872 * Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
873
874 A typical error message might be something like
875
876 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
877
878 This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
879 Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
880 are:
881
882 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
883
884 - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or
885 /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or
886 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
887
888 One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
889 fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
890 the problematic line(s) and correct them.
891
892 * Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
893
894 The typical error message might be like this:
895
896 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
897
898 This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
899 tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
900 files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
901 Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
902 when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
903 required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
904 it's loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
905
906 Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
907 file could fail to load if it is compressed.
908
909 The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
910 file.
911
912 Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
913 lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
914 print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
915
916 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
917
918 If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
919 and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
920 load-path.
921
922 * Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
923
924 An example of such an error is:
925
926 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
927
928 This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your classpath.
929 The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
930 present in load-path:
931
932 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
933
934 If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
935 and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
936 load-path.
937
938 * Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails.
939
940 If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
941 representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
942 ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux, kernel
943 version 2.4.3, with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other
944 systems as well. To avoid this problem, switch to using the standard
945 ftp client. On a Debian system, type
946
947 update-alternatives --config ftp
948
949 and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
950
951 * Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
952
953 The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
954 work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
955 was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
956 work when an antivirus package is installed.
957
958 The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
959 mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
960 or disable it entirely.
961
962 * On MS-Windows 95/98/ME, subprocesses do not terminate properly.
963
964 This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
965 when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
966 cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
967 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/.
968
969 * MS-Windows 95/98/ME crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
970
971 When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
972 Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
973 particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
974 program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
975 PATH.
976
977 * Pressing the mouse button on MS-Windows does not give a mouse-2 event.
978
979 This is usually a problem with the mouse driver. Because most Windows
980 programs do not do anything useful with the middle mouse button, many
981 mouse drivers allow you to define the wheel press to do something
982 different. Some drivers do not even have the option to generate a
983 middle button press. In such cases, setting the wheel press to
984 "scroll" sometimes works if you press the button twice. Trying a
985 generic mouse driver might help.
986
987 * Scrolling the mouse wheel on MS-Windows always scrolls the top window.
988
989 This is another common problem with mouse drivers. Instead of
990 generating scroll events, some mouse drivers try to fake scroll bar
991 movement. But they are not intelligent enough to handle multiple
992 scroll bars within a frame. Trying a generic mouse driver might help.
993
994 * Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
995 mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
996 exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
997 seen.
998
999 * After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs, the Meta key stops working.
1000
1001 This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1002 Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1003 modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1004 keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1005 modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1006 was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1007 Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
1008
1009 The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1010 modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1011 and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1012 which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1013 the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1014 modifier:
1015
1016 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
1017
1018 A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1019 is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
1020
1021 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
1022
1023 This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1024 keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1025 keys can serve as Meta.
1026
1027 The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1028 keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
1029
1030 * On OSF/Dec Unix/Tru64/<whatever it is this year> under X locally or
1031 remotely, M-SPC acts as a `compose' key with strange results. See
1032 keyboard(5).
1033
1034 Changing Alt_L to Meta_L fixes it:
1035 % xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L'
1036 % xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_R = Meta_R Alt_R'
1037
1038 * Error "conflicting types for `initstate'" compiling with GCC on Irix 6.
1039
1040 Install GCC 2.95 or a newer version, and this problem should go away.
1041 It is possible that this problem results from upgrading the operating
1042 system without reinstalling GCC; so you could also try reinstalling
1043 the same version of GCC, and telling us whether that fixes the problem.
1044
1045 * Emacs dumps core on Solaris in function IMCheckWindow.
1046
1047 This was reported to happen when Emacs runs with more than one frame,
1048 and one of them is closed, either with "C-x 5 0" or from the window
1049 manager.
1050
1051 This bug was reported to Sun as
1052
1053 Gtk apps dump core in ximlocal.so.2:IMCheckIMWindow()
1054 Bug Reports: 4463537
1055
1056 Installing Solaris 8 patch 108773-12 for Sparc and 108774-12 for x86
1057 reportedly fixes the bug, which appears to be inside the shared
1058 library xiiimp.so.
1059
1060 Alternatively, you can configure Emacs with `--with-xim=no' to prevent
1061 the core dump, but will loose X input method support, of course. (You
1062 can use Emacs's own input methods instead, if you install Leim.)
1063
1064 * On Solaris 7, Emacs gets a segmentation fault when starting up using X.
1065
1066 This results from Sun patch 107058-01 (SunOS 5.7: Patch for
1067 assembler) if you use GCC version 2.7 or later.
1068 To work around it, either install patch 106950-03 or later,
1069 or uninstall patch 107058-01, or install the GNU Binutils.
1070 Then recompile Emacs, and it should work.
1071
1072 * With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
1073
1074 Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
1075
1076 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
1077 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
1078 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
1079 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
1080 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
1081 /******************************************************************
1082
1083 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
1084 @@ -166,8 +166,8 @@
1085 _XimMakeImName(lcd)
1086 XLCd lcd;
1087 {
1088 - char* begin;
1089 - char* end;
1090 + char* begin = NULL;
1091 + char* end = NULL;
1092 char* ret;
1093 int i = 0;
1094 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
1095 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
1096 }
1097 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
1098 if (ret != NULL) {
1099 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
1100 + if (begin != NULL) {
1101 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
1102 + } else {
1103 + ret[0] = '\0';
1104 + }
1105 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
1106 }
1107 return ret;
1108
1109
1110 * Emacs crashes on Irix 6.5 on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
1111
1112 This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
1113
1114 * Emacs crashes in utmpname on Irix 5.3.
1115
1116 This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
1117 It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
1118
1119 * The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
1120
1121 This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
1122 combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
1123 definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
1124 might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
1125 purposes.
1126
1127 We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
1128 you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
1129
1130 * On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
1131 the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
1132
1133 You can fix this by editing the file:
1134
1135 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
1136
1137 Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
1138
1139 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
1140
1141 that should read:
1142
1143 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
1144
1145 Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
1146
1147 * Emacs on Digital Unix 4.0 fails to build, giving error message
1148 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
1149
1150 This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
1151 Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
1152
1153 * Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
1154
1155 Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
1156 problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
1157 documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
1158
1159 * Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
1160
1161 These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
1162 particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
1163 configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
1164 configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
1165 change this.
1166
1167 * When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
1168
1169 When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
1170 (either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
1171 then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
1172 correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
1173 gives the appearance of "double spacing".
1174
1175 To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
1176 feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
1177
1178 * Failure in unexec while dumping emacs on Digital Unix 4.0
1179
1180 This problem manifests itself as an error message
1181
1182 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
1183
1184 The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
1185 were built for an older system version,
1186
1187 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
1188
1189 made the problem go away.
1190
1191 * No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
1192
1193 This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
1194 as of 8 Dec 1998.
1195
1196 The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
1197
1198 * As of version 20.4, Emacs doesn't work properly if configured for
1199 the Motif toolkit and linked against the free LessTif library. The
1200 next Emacs release is expected to work with LessTif.
1201
1202 * Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
1203
1204 This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1205 a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1206 likely to cause it.
1207
1208 We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
1209
1210 * Emacs makes HPUX 11.0 crash.
1211
1212 This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
1213
1214 * Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine (HPUX 10.20).
1215
1216 This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
1217
1218 * The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
1219 Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
1220 `add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
1221 'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
1222
1223 * Versions of the PSGML package earlier than 1.0.3 (stable) or 1.1.2
1224 (alpha) fail to parse DTD files correctly in Emacs 20.3 and later.
1225 Here is a patch for psgml-parse.el from PSGML 1.0.1 and, probably,
1226 earlier versions.
1227
1228 --- psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:18:18 1.1
1229 +++ psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:20:00
1230 @@ -2383,7 +2383,7 @@ (defun sgml-push-to-entity (entity &opti
1231 (setq sgml-buffer-parse-state nil))
1232 (cond
1233 ((stringp entity) ; a file name
1234 - (save-excursion (insert-file-contents entity))
1235 + (insert-file-contents entity)
1236 (setq default-directory (file-name-directory entity)))
1237 ((consp (sgml-entity-text entity)) ; external id?
1238 (let* ((extid (sgml-entity-text entity))
1239
1240 * Emacs 21 freezes when visiting a TeX file with AUC TeX installed.
1241
1242 Emacs 21 needs version 10 or later of AUC TeX; upgrading should solve
1243 these problems.
1244
1245 * No colors in AUC TeX with Emacs 21.
1246
1247 Upgrade to AUC TeX version 10 or later, and make sure it is
1248 byte-compiled with Emacs 21.
1249
1250 * Running TeX from AUC TeX package with Emacs 20.3 gives a Lisp error
1251 about a read-only tex output buffer.
1252
1253 This problem appeared for AUC TeX version 9.9j and some earlier
1254 versions. Here is a patch for the file tex-buf.el in the AUC TeX
1255 package.
1256
1257 diff -c auctex/tex-buf.el~ auctex/tex-buf.el
1258 *** auctex/tex-buf.el~ Wed Jul 29 18:35:32 1998
1259 --- auctex/tex-buf.el Sat Sep 5 15:20:38 1998
1260 ***************
1261 *** 545,551 ****
1262 (dir (TeX-master-directory)))
1263 (TeX-process-check file) ; Check that no process is running
1264 (setq TeX-command-buffer (current-buffer))
1265 ! (with-output-to-temp-buffer buffer)
1266 (set-buffer buffer)
1267 (if dir (cd dir))
1268 (insert "Running `" name "' on `" file "' with ``" command "''\n")
1269 - --- 545,552 ----
1270 (dir (TeX-master-directory)))
1271 (TeX-process-check file) ; Check that no process is running
1272 (setq TeX-command-buffer (current-buffer))
1273 ! (let (temp-buffer-show-function temp-buffer-show-hook)
1274 ! (with-output-to-temp-buffer buffer))
1275 (set-buffer buffer)
1276 (if dir (cd dir))
1277 (insert "Running `" name "' on `" file "' with ``" command "''\n")
1278
1279 * On Irix 6.3, substituting environment variables in file names
1280 in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
1281
1282 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
1283
1284 This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
1285 003082 August 11, 1998.
1286
1287 * After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
1288
1289 The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
1290 (standard-display-european t)
1291 That should be changed to
1292 (standard-display-european 1 t)
1293
1294 * Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
1295
1296 You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
1297 supplies the `install-info' command.
1298
1299 * Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key, on HPUX.
1300
1301 To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1302 rights, containing this text:
1303
1304 --------------------------------
1305 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1306 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1307 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1308 EOF
1309
1310 xmodmap - << EOF
1311 clear mod1
1312 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1313 add mod1 = Meta_L
1314 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1315 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1316 EOF
1317 --------------------------------
1318
1319 * Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
1320
1321 This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1322 requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
1323 of klipper don't implement the ICCM protocol for large selections,
1324 which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
1325 while, Emacs will print a message:
1326
1327 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
1328
1329 A workaround is to not use `klipper'.
1330
1331 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
1332 in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
1333 drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
1334
1335 This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
1336 device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
1337 work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
1338
1339 * M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
1340
1341 See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1342 for character composition.
1343
1344 * Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow.
1345
1346 This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the
1347 full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the
1348 /etc/hosts file, something like this:
1349
1350 127.0.0.1 localhost
1351 129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04
1352
1353 The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems.
1354
1355 * Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs on Digital Unix 4.0.
1356
1357 So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
1358 is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
1359 properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
1360 `tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
1361 in Emacs.
1362
1363 * When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error.
1364
1365 This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII
1366 characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII
1367 characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with
1368 support for 8-bit characters.
1369
1370 To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type
1371 this at your shell's prompt:
1372
1373 ispell -vv
1374
1375 and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says
1376 "!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it
1377 does not.
1378
1379 To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file
1380 in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT.
1381 Then rebuild the speller.
1382
1383 Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the
1384 version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade.
1385
1386 Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word
1387 in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by
1388 Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because
1389 it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are
1390 spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other.
1391
1392 If your spell-checking program is Aspell, it has been reported that if
1393 you have a personal configuration file (normally ~/.aspell.conf), it
1394 can cause this error. Remove that file, execute `ispell-kill-ispell'
1395 in Emacs, and then try spell-checking again.
1396
1397 * On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
1398 5.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
1399
1400 This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1401 One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1402 known to work.
1403
1404 * On MS-Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
1405 CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
1406
1407 This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
1408
1409 Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
1410 events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
1411 distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
1412 combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
1413 AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
1414 to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
1415
1416 * Emacs crashes when using the Exceed 6.0 X server
1417
1418 If you are using Exceed 6.1, upgrade to a later version. This was
1419 reported to prevent the crashes.
1420
1421 * Under some X-servers running on MS-Windows, Emacs' display is incorrect
1422
1423 The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
1424 screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
1425 display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
1426 to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
1427
1428 This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
1429 as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
1430 problem lies in the X-server settings.
1431
1432 There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
1433 running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
1434 un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
1435 selection".
1436
1437 Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
1438 please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
1439 If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
1440 here.
1441
1442 * On Solaris 2, Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
1443
1444 The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
1445 Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
1446 (Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
1447 You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
1448 You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
1449 look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
1450 are currently recommended for your host.
1451
1452 On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
1453 105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
1454 105284-18 might fix it again.
1455
1456 * On Solaris 2.6 and 7, the Compose key does not work.
1457
1458 This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
1459 the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
1460 support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
1461 If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
1462
1463 One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
1464 For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
1465 variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
1466 lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
1467 should do.
1468
1469 pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
1470 if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
1471 libraries.
1472
1473 * Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
1474
1475 This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1476 seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1477 To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1478 and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
1479
1480 * Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
1481
1482 You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
1483 either in /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system
1484 calls for specifying this.
1485
1486 If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
1487 mail-host-address to the value you want.
1488
1489 * Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs, on UnixWare 2.1
1490
1491 Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
1492 virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
1493 the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
1494 error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
1495 exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
1496 memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
1497
1498 You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
1499 But you have to be root to do it.
1500
1501 According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
1502
1503 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
1504 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
1505 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
1506 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
1507 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
1508
1509 (He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
1510 These changes take effect when you reboot.
1511
1512 * Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
1513
1514 We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1515 scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1516 happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1517 on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
1518
1519 Here's how to do this:
1520
1521 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
1522
1523 If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1524 try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1525 to normal, do
1526
1527 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
1528
1529 * Under X11, some characters appear as hollow boxes.
1530
1531 Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
1532 supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
1533 many different fonts, collected into a fontset.
1534
1535 If some of the fonts called for in your fontset do not exist on your X
1536 server, then the characters that have no font appear as hollow boxes.
1537 You can remedy the problem by installing additional fonts.
1538
1539 The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
1540 display all the characters Emacs supports.
1541
1542 Another cause of this for specific characters is fonts which have a
1543 missing glyph and no default character. This is known ot occur for
1544 character number 160 (no-break space) in some fonts, such as Lucida
1545 but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte and Latin-1 version
1546 of this character to display a space.
1547
1548 * Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
1549
1550 You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution.
1551
1552 * Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it "should".
1553
1554 This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller
1555 than the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that
1556 lines do not overlap.
1557
1558 * You request inverse video, and the first Emacs frame is in inverse
1559 video, but later frames are not in inverse video.
1560
1561 This can happen if you have an old version of the custom library in
1562 your search path for Lisp packages. Use M-x list-load-path-shadows to
1563 check whether this is true. If it is, delete the old custom library.
1564
1565 * In FreeBSD 2.1.5, useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1566 directories that have the +t bit.
1567
1568 This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1569 Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1570 with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1571 link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
1572
1573 If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1574 file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
1575
1576 * When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
1577 commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
1578
1579 You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
1580
1581 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
1582
1583 * Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
1584 appear on disk.
1585
1586 This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
1587 remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
1588 implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
1589 detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
1590 calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
1591 where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
1592
1593 * "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
1594
1595 If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
1596 will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
1597 in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
1598 did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
1599 character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
1600 must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
1601
1602 You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
1603 them to two different keys.
1604
1605 * Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup, on AIX4.2.
1606
1607 If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
1608 without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
1609
1610 * movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
1611
1612 Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
1613 NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
1614 entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
1615 listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
1616 the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
1617 old POP protocol.
1618
1619 * Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
1620
1621 This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
1622 use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
1623 an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
1624 happens to exist on your X server).
1625
1626 * Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
1627
1628 This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
1629 prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
1630 to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
1631
1632 Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
1633 (src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
1634
1635 * Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on HPUX 9 after you delete a frame.
1636
1637 We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
1638 the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
1639 does not happen.
1640
1641 * Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
1642
1643 We suspect that this is a similar bug in the X libraries provided by
1644 Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
1645 makes the problem stop:
1646
1647 105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
1648 105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
1649 106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
1650 105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
1651
1652 Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
1653 suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
1654
1655 106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
1656 106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
1657 105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
1658
1659 * Problems running Perl under Emacs on MS-Windows NT/95.
1660
1661 `perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
1662 The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
1663
1664 The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
1665 "CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
1666 with the user.
1667
1668 On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
1669 pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
1670 communicate with the subprocess.
1671
1672 On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
1673 relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
1674 redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
1675 stdin.
1676
1677 A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
1678
1679 For Perl 4:
1680
1681 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
1682 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
1683 ***************
1684 *** 68,74 ****
1685 $rcfile=".perldb";
1686 }
1687 else {
1688 ! $console = "con";
1689 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1690 }
1691
1692 --- 68,74 ----
1693 $rcfile=".perldb";
1694 }
1695 else {
1696 ! $console = "";
1697 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1698 }
1699
1700
1701 For Perl 5:
1702 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
1703 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
1704 ***************
1705 *** 22,28 ****
1706 $rcfile=".perldb";
1707 }
1708 elsif (-e "con") {
1709 ! $console = "con";
1710 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1711 }
1712 else {
1713 --- 22,28 ----
1714 $rcfile=".perldb";
1715 }
1716 elsif (-e "con") {
1717 ! $console = "";
1718 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1719 }
1720 else {
1721
1722 * Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs:
1723
1724 There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
1725
1726 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
1727 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
1728 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
1729
1730 To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
1731 subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
1732 them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
1733 incorrect library functions.
1734
1735 * When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows NT, "config msdos" fails.
1736
1737 If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
1738 Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
1739 program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
1740 config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
1741 the front of your PATH environment variable.
1742
1743 * When compiling with DJGPP on MS-Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
1744 like make-docfile.
1745
1746 This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
1747 variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
1748 compilation are not the same. See the MSDOG section of INSTALL for
1749 the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
1750
1751 * Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
1752 run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
1753
1754 Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
1755 immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
1756 the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
1757 and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
1758
1759 Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
1760 the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
1761 Lisp.
1762
1763 This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
1764 support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
1765 characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
1766 You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
1767 filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
1768 compiled with DJGPP v2). The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
1769 explains this issue in more detail.
1770
1771 Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
1772 MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
1773 by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
1774 unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
1775 them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
1776 must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
1777 properly truncated.
1778
1779 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
1780
1781 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
1782
1783 This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
1784 on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
1785 value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
1786 works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
1787 support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
1788 undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
1789 [emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
1790 `TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
1791 your system works as before.
1792
1793 * On MS-Windows 95, Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
1794
1795 This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
1796 You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
1797
1798 * Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on MS-Windows.
1799
1800 This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
1801 you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
1802 and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
1803 more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
1804 or disable it in the keyboard control panel.
1805
1806 * `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
1807
1808 This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
1809 version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
1810 definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
1811 incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
1812 does not work with this version of ncurses.
1813
1814 The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
1815
1816 * Emacs does not start, complaining that it cannot open termcap database file.
1817
1818 If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern
1819 systems do), this could happen if the proper version of
1820 ncurses is not visible to the Emacs configure script (i.e. it
1821 cannot be found along the usual path the linker looks for
1822 libraries). It can happen because your version of ncurses is
1823 obsolete, or is available only in form of binaries.
1824
1825 The solution is to install an up-to-date version of ncurses in
1826 the developer's form (header files, static libraries and
1827 symbolic links); in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Debian)
1828 it constitutes a separate package.
1829
1830 * Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
1831
1832 Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
1833 editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
1834 as GCC.
1835
1836 * Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly truncated
1837 on GNU/Linux systems.
1838
1839 This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
1840 1.3.75.
1841
1842 * Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
1843
1844 There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1845 caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1846 problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1847 is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1848
1849 Using the old library version is a workaround.
1850
1851 * On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
1852
1853 This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
1854 version of Solaris that you are using.
1855
1856 * Emacs dumps core on startup, on Solaris.
1857
1858 Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
1859 102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
1860 Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
1861 by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
1862 However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
1863
1864 Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
1865 you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
1866 We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
1867 for certain.
1868
1869 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
1870 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
1871 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
1872
1873 (One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
1874 with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
1875
1876 If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
1877 bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
1878
1879 Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
1880 Solaris 2.5.
1881
1882 * Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called, on Solaris.
1883
1884 If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
1885 of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
1886 called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
1887
1888 * "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes on HPUX, in
1889 Emacs built with Motif.
1890
1891 This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1892 such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
1893
1894 * On Irix 6.0, make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi
1895
1896 A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
1897 in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
1898 find that string, and take out the spaces.
1899
1900 Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
1901
1902 * "out of virtual swap space" on Irix 5.3
1903
1904 This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
1905 many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
1906 swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
1907 can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
1908 command `swap -l'.
1909
1910 You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
1911 line like this:
1912
1913 /usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
1914
1915 where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
1916 by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
1917 that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
1918 new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
1919 information.
1920
1921 The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
1922 swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
1923 on the network that can log on to the host.
1924
1925 If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
1926 the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
1927 some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
1928 icons.
1929
1930 You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
1931 FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
1932 ("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
1933 ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
1934
1935 * With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
1936 character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
1937
1938 One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
1939 away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
1940 XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
1941
1942 * On SunOS 4.1.3, Emacs unpredictably crashes in _yp_dobind_soft.
1943
1944 This happens if you configure Emacs specifying just `sparc-sun-sunos4'
1945 on a system that is version 4.1.3. You must specify the precise
1946 version number (or let configure figure out the configuration, which
1947 it can do perfectly well for SunOS).
1948
1949 * On SunOS 4, Emacs processes keep going after you kill the X server
1950 (or log out, if you logged in using X).
1951
1952 Someone reported that recompiling with GCC 2.7.0 fixed this problem.
1953
1954 * On AIX 4, some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
1955 with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
1956
1957 On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
1958 `unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
1959 Definitions" to make them defined.
1960
1961 * On SunOS, you get linker errors
1962 ld: Undefined symbol
1963 _get_wmShellWidgetClass
1964 _get_applicationShellWidgetClass
1965
1966 The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
1967 or link libXmu statically.
1968
1969 * On AIX 4.1.2, linker error messages such as
1970 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
1971 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
1972
1973 This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
1974 these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
1975 you build Emacs:
1976
1977 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
1978 chmod 664 libIM.a
1979 ranlib libIM.a
1980
1981 Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
1982 Makefile).
1983
1984 * Unpredictable segmentation faults on Solaris 2.3 and 2.4.
1985
1986 A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
1987 the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
1988
1989 We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
1990
1991 * Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for
1992 MS-Windows.
1993
1994 A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
1995 Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
1996 problem.
1997
1998 * Emacs crashes at startup on MSDOS.
1999
2000 Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
2001 and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
2002 know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
2003 memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
2004 However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
2005
2006 You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
2007 arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
2008 information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
2009 is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
2010
2011 Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
2012 configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
2013 removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
2014 and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
2015 the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
2016
2017 * A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
2018
2019 twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
2020 You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
2021
2022 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
2023
2024 * Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
2025
2026 This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2027 the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2028 Emacs's configure script.
2029
2030 * Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
2031
2032 This results from a bug in GNU Sed version 2.03. To solve the
2033 problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2034 configure script.
2035
2036 * On Sunos 4.1.1, there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
2037
2038 If you get errors such as
2039
2040 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
2041 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
2042 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
2043
2044 This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
2045 to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
2046 script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
2047 make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
2048 ones available when you build Emacs.
2049
2050 * The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
2051 other non-English HP keyboards too).
2052
2053 This is because HPUX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
2054 shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
2055 configures the X server.
2056
2057 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
2058 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
2059 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
2060 EOF
2061
2062 xmodmap - << EOF
2063 clear mod1
2064 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
2065 add mod1 = Meta_L
2066 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
2067 add mod2 = Mode_switch
2068 EOF
2069
2070 * The Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
2071
2072 Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
2073 command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
2074 Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
2075 manager to use some other command. You can disable the
2076 shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
2077
2078 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
2079
2080 * Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
2081
2082 There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
2083 that replacing the mouse made it stop.
2084
2085 * Trouble using ptys on IRIX, or running out of ptys.
2086
2087 The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
2088 be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
2089 to allocate ptys reliably.
2090
2091 * On Irix 5.2, unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
2092
2093 The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
2094 Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
2095 compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
2096 workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
2097 syms.h.
2098
2099 * Slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
2100
2101 People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
2102 startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
2103
2104 This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
2105 Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
2106 improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
2107 networked and non-networked machines.
2108
2109 Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
2110
2111 ** Networked Case
2112
2113 First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
2114 exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
2115 (replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
2116
2117 127.0.0.1 HOSTNAME
2118
2119 Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
2120 lines:
2121
2122 order hosts, bind
2123 multi on
2124
2125 Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
2126 indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
2127 database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
2128 dynamically allocate ip addresses).
2129
2130 ** Non-Networked Case
2131
2132 The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
2133 However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
2134 simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
2135 `touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
2136 file is not necessary with this approach.
2137
2138 * On Solaris 2.4, Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
2139 forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
2140
2141 casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
2142 after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
2143
2144 #if ThreadedX
2145 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
2146 #endif
2147
2148 to:
2149
2150 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
2151 #if ThreadedX
2152 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
2153 #endif
2154 #endif
2155
2156 Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
2157 (as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
2158 OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
2159 Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
2160 definition for your type of machine and system.
2161
2162 Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
2163 the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
2164 Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
2165
2166 For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
2167 101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
2168 to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
2169 patch.
2170
2171 However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
2172 he changed
2173 #define ThreadedX YES
2174 to
2175 #define ThreadedX NO
2176 in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
2177 `-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
2178 typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
2179
2180 * With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
2181 to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
2182
2183 This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
2184 with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
2185 another escape character in kermit. One user did
2186
2187 set escape-character 17
2188
2189 in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
2190
2191 * The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
2192
2193 This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
2194
2195 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
2196
2197 That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
2198 do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
2199 explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
2200 the resource prevents the problem.
2201
2202 * Emacs gets hung shortly after startup, on Sunos 4.1.3.
2203
2204 We think this is due to a bug in Sunos. The word is that
2205 one of these Sunos patches fixes the bug:
2206
2207 100075-11 100224-06 100347-03 100482-05 100557-02 100623-03 100804-03 101080-01
2208 100103-12 100249-09 100496-02 100564-07 100630-02 100891-10 101134-01
2209 100170-09 100296-04 100377-09 100507-04 100567-04 100650-02 101070-01 101145-01
2210 100173-10 100305-15 100383-06 100513-04 100570-05 100689-01 101071-03 101200-02
2211 100178-09 100338-05 100421-03 100536-02 100584-05 100784-01 101072-01 101207-01
2212
2213 We don't know which of these patches really matter. If you find out
2214 which ones, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
2215
2216 * Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
2217
2218 This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
2219 installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
2220 specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
2221 corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
2222 the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
2223 Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
2224 files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
2225 original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
2226 not to work.
2227
2228 The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
2229 when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
2230 is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
2231 same directory where system header files are kept.
2232
2233 * On Solaris 2.x, GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported"
2234
2235 This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
2236 are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
2237 does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
2238 later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
2239 described in the Solaris FAQ
2240 <http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
2241 to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
2242
2243 * The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
2244
2245 This shell command should fix it:
2246
2247 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
2248
2249 * Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
2250
2251 On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
2252 with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
2253 version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
2254 C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
2255 GCC.
2256
2257 * On Sunos 4, you get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
2258
2259 This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
2260 for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
2261 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
2262
2263 * You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
2264
2265 On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
2266 works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
2267 bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
2268 the Files menu).
2269
2270 This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
2271 due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
2272 knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
2273 workaround can be found.
2274
2275 * Unusable default font on SCO 3.2v4.
2276
2277 The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
2278 that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
2279 fonts, so it does not work.
2280
2281 This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
2282 the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
2283 emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
2284 that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
2285 resources affect Emacs also:
2286
2287 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
2288 *Background: scoBackground
2289 *Foreground: scoForeground
2290
2291 The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
2292 Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
2293
2294 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
2295 Emacs*Background: white
2296 Emacs*Foreground: black
2297
2298 (These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
2299 suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
2300 starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
2301 environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
2302 as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
2303 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
2304 but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
2305 Open Desktop display.
2306
2307 These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
2308 machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
2309
2310 * rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
2311
2312 This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
2313 The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
2314
2315 * Emacs is slow using X11R5 on HP/UX.
2316
2317 This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
2318 doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
2319 because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
2320 libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
2321 those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
2322 install them and rebuild Emacs.
2323
2324 * Loading fonts is very slow.
2325
2326 You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
2327 Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
2328 directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
2329 "fonts.scale".
2330
2331 If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
2332 font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
2333
2334 With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
2335 directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
2336 Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
2337
2338 * On AIX 3.2.4, releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2339
2340 Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2341 ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2342 lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2343 treated as control characters.
2344
2345 You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2346 releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2347
2348 * display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
2349
2350 Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2351 versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2352 cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2353 This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2354 processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
2355
2356 Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2357 the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
2358
2359 The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
2360
2361 * On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
2362
2363 This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2364 C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
2365
2366 * Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
2367 segmentation fault and core dump.
2368
2369 This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
2370 added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
2371
2372 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
2373
2374 If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
2375 untar it :-).
2376
2377 * Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
2378
2379 To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
2380
2381 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
2382
2383 and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
2384
2385 The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2386 cannot easily arrange to supply them.
2387
2388 * Link failure on IBM AIX 1.3 ptf 0013.
2389
2390 There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2391 the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2392 workaround/fix is:
2393
2394 cd /lib
2395 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2396 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2397
2398 * Undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym and/or _dlclose on a Sun.
2399
2400 If you see undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym, or _dlclose when linking
2401 with -lX11, compile and link against the file mit/util/misc/dlsym.c in
2402 the MIT X11R5 distribution. Alternatively, link temacs using shared
2403 libraries with s/sunos4shr.h. (This doesn't work if you use the X
2404 toolkit.)
2405
2406 If you get the additional error that the linker could not find
2407 lib_version.o, try extracting it from X11/usr/lib/X11/libvim.a in
2408 X11R4, then use it in the link.
2409
2410 * Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'
2411
2412 This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2413 Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2414 Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2415 where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
2416
2417 So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
2418
2419 * In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
2420
2421 This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
2422 smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
2423 on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
2424 problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
2425
2426 if ($?EMACS) then
2427 if ($EMACS == "t") then
2428 unset edit
2429 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
2430 endif
2431 endif
2432
2433 * An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
2434 parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
2435
2436 This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
2437 emacs*Cursor: black
2438 (which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
2439 that isn't a color.)
2440
2441 The fix is to correct your X resources.
2442
2443 * Undefined symbols when linking on Sunos 4.1 using --with-x-toolkit.
2444
2445 If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
2446 _iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
2447 -lXaw in the command that links temacs.
2448
2449 This problem seems to arise only when the international language
2450 extensions to X11R5 are installed.
2451
2452 * Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
2453
2454 This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
2455 to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
2456 Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
2457
2458 * src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2459
2460 This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2461 had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.
2462
2463 * Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
2464
2465 If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
2466 resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
2467 renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
2468 font.
2469
2470 One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
2471 your font path, like this:
2472
2473 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
2474
2475 * Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
2476
2477 An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
2478
2479 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
2480
2481 This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
2482 individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
2483 want, rewrite the resource.
2484
2485 To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
2486 -query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
2487 the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
2488
2489 * --with-x-toolkit version crashes when used with shared libraries.
2490
2491 On some systems, including Sunos 4 and DGUX 5.4.2 and perhaps others,
2492 unexec doesn't work properly with the shared library for the X
2493 toolkit. You might be able to work around this by using a nonshared
2494 libXt.a library. The real fix is to upgrade the various versions of
2495 unexec and/or ralloc. We think this has been fixed on Sunos 4
2496 and Solaris in version 19.29.
2497
2498 * `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
2499
2500 This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
2501 commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
2502 Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
2503 hand.
2504
2505 * --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong on BSD/386.
2506
2507 This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
2508 The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
2509 such as bash.
2510
2511 * Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies, on Sunos 5.3.
2512
2513 A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2514 exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2515 applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2516 communicating through pipes.
2517
2518 * Mail is lost when sent to local aliases.
2519
2520 Many emacs mail user agents (VM and rmail, for instance) use the
2521 sendmail.el library. This library can arrange for mail to be
2522 delivered by passing messages to the /usr/lib/sendmail (usually)
2523 program . In doing so, it passes the '-t' flag to sendmail, which
2524 means that the name of the recipient of the message is not on the
2525 command line and, therefore, that sendmail must parse the message to
2526 obtain the destination address.
2527
2528 There is a bug in the SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3 versions of sendmail.
2529 In short, when given the -t flag, the SunOS sendmail won't recognize
2530 non-local (i.e. NIS) aliases. It has been reported that the Solaris
2531 2.x versions of sendmail do not have this bug. For those using SunOS
2532 4.1, the best fix is to install sendmail V8 or IDA sendmail (which
2533 have other advantages over the regular sendmail as well). At the time
2534 of this writing, these official versions are available:
2535
2536 Sendmail V8 on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/sendmail:
2537 sendmail.8.6.9.base.tar.Z (the base system source & documentation)
2538 sendmail.8.6.9.cf.tar.Z (configuration files)
2539 sendmail.8.6.9.misc.tar.Z (miscellaneous support programs)
2540 sendmail.8.6.9.xdoc.tar.Z (extended documentation, with postscript)
2541
2542 IDA sendmail on vixen.cso.uiuc.edu in /pub:
2543 sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5.tar.gz
2544
2545 * On AIX, you get this message when running Emacs:
2546
2547 Could not load program emacs
2548 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2549 Error was: Exec format error
2550
2551 or this one:
2552
2553 Could not load program .emacs
2554 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2555 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2556 Error was: Exec format error
2557
2558 These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2559 compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2560
2561 * On AIX, you get this compiler error message:
2562
2563 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2564 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2565
2566 This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2567 libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2568 X11Dev... with smit.
2569
2570 * You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
2571
2572 This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
2573 Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
2574 character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
2575 to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
2576
2577 For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
2578
2579 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
2580
2581 If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
2582 Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
2583 xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
2584
2585 * C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
2586
2587 You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
2588 though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
2589 or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
2590
2591 * Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars
2592
2593 These control the actions of Emacs.
2594 ~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
2595 EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
2596 "load" will search.
2597
2598 If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
2599 of them, then try again.
2600
2601 * After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
2602
2603 Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
2604 mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
2605 the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
2606
2607 Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
2608 you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
2609 operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
2610 configure script) that reads:
2611 #define SYSTEM_MALLOC
2612 This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
2613 the kernel bug.
2614
2615 * Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
2616 directly with an X server.
2617
2618 If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
2619 does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
2620 whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
2621 followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
2622 it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
2623 have made the key binding correctly.
2624
2625 If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
2626 be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
2627 server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
2628 default.
2629
2630 If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
2631
2632 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
2633 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
2634
2635 If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
2636 commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
2637 are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
2638 modifier bit not otherwise used.
2639
2640 If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
2641 keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
2642 some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
2643 commands show above to make them modifier keys.
2644
2645 Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
2646 into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
2647
2648 * `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'
2649
2650 On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
2651 file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
2652 does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
2653 value is just ten seconds.
2654
2655 If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
2656
2657 * `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
2658
2659 On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
2660 in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
2661 expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
2662 in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
2663
2664 The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
2665 anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
2666
2667 I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
2668 going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
2669 Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
2670 in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
2671
2672 * On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
2673
2674 Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
2675 the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
2676 sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
2677
2678 * Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
2679
2680 Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
2681
2682 * Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
2683 the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
2684 * Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
2685 * GNUs can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
2686
2687 This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
2688 libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
2689 shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
2690 similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
2691
2692 The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
2693 the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
2694
2695 The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
2696 installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
2697
2698 On SunOS 4.1, simply define HAVE_RES_INIT.
2699
2700 If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
2701 then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
2702 do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
2703 or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
2704 that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
2705 be careful not to lose the others.
2706
2707 Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
2708
2709 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
2710
2711 Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
2712 the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
2713 again to say this:
2714
2715 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
2716
2717 * On a Sun running SunOS 4.1.1, you get this error message from GNU ld:
2718
2719 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
2720
2721 The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
2722
2723 The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
2724
2725 * Self documentation messages are garbled.
2726
2727 This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
2728 with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
2729 corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
2730
2731 * Trouble using ptys on AIX.
2732
2733 People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
2734 Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
2735
2736 * Shell mode on HP/UX gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
2737
2738 christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
2739
2740 The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
2741 execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
2742 tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
2743 but tty is giving it back 3.
2744
2745 The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
2746 word:
2747
2748 if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
2749
2750 should be changed to:
2751
2752 if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
2753
2754 Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
2755 and into .login.
2756
2757 * Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
2758
2759 Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
2760
2761 * Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
2762 * `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
2763
2764 One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
2765 your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
2766 the environment.
2767
2768 * Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
2769
2770 If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
2771 `ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
2772 that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
2773 with a floating point option other than the default.
2774
2775 It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
2776 crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
2777 However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
2778 floating point option: -fsoft.
2779
2780 * Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
2781
2782 The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
2783 arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
2784 tell Emacs to compensate for this.
2785
2786 I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
2787 whether this problem is present on a given system.
2788
2789 * Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
2790 as a concentrator.
2791
2792 This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
2793 7 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
2794
2795 * M-x shell persistently reports "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1".
2796
2797 This happened on Suns as a result of what is said to be a bug in Sunos
2798 version 4.0.x. The only fix was to reboot the machine.
2799
2800 * Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
2801 terminal type.
2802
2803 The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
2804 environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
2805 provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
2806 emulates.
2807
2808 Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
2809 in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
2810 it only if it is undefined.
2811
2812 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
2813
2814 Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
2815 happen in a non-login shell.
2816
2817 * X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
2818
2819 People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
2820 not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
2821 the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
2822 the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
2823
2824 You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
2825 However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
2826 you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
2827
2828 The easy way to do this is to put
2829
2830 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
2831
2832 in your site-init.el file.
2833
2834 * Problem with remote X server on Suns.
2835
2836 On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2837 may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2838 is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2839 As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
2840
2841 * Shell mode ignores interrupts on Apollo Domain
2842
2843 You may find that M-x shell prints the following message:
2844
2845 Warning: no access to tty; thus no job control in this shell...
2846
2847 This can happen if there are not enough ptys on your system.
2848 Here is how to make more of them.
2849
2850 % cd /dev
2851 % ls pty*
2852 # shows how many pty's you have. I had 8, named pty0 to pty7)
2853 % /etc/crpty 8
2854 # creates eight new pty's
2855
2856 * Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump
2857
2858 This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
2859 Makefile in the src subdirectory, or by build.com on VMS.
2860
2861 It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2862 space available on the machine.
2863
2864 On 68000's, it has also happened because of bugs in the
2865 subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2866 for large blocks (many pages).
2867
2868 * test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered
2869 * or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127"
2870 * or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2871 * or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs
2872
2873 This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2874 fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2875 binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2876
2877 In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2878 It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2879 a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2880 itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2881 when unpacking the shell archive.
2882
2883 I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2884 what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2885 file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2886
2887 If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2888 nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2889
2890 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2891 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2892 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2893 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2894 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2895 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2896 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2897 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2898 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2899 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2900 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2901 and remake temacs.
2902 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2903
2904 * temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted"
2905
2906 This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2907 files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2908 space than was allocated.
2909
2910 This could be caused by
2911 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2912 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2913 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2914 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2915 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2916 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2917 deleting that file.
2918 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2919 (not from the directory you expected).
2920 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2921 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2922 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2923 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2924 the space required.
2925
2926 If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2927 of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2928
2929 But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2930 of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2931 problem.
2932
2933 * Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
2934
2935 You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
2936 Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
2937 will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
2938 and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
2939
2940 Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
2941 than the corresponding .el file.
2942
2943 * The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
2944
2945 Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2946
2947 1) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2948 as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2949 it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2950 value in the man page for a.out (5).
2951
2952 2) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2953 initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2954 of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2955 not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2956 may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2957
2958 * Compilation errors on VMS.
2959
2960 You will get warnings when compiling on VMS because there are
2961 variable names longer than 32 (or whatever it is) characters.
2962 This is not an error. Ignore it.
2963
2964 VAX C does not support #if defined(foo). Uses of this construct
2965 were removed, but some may have crept back in. They must be rewritten.
2966
2967 There is a bug in the C compiler which fails to sign extend characters
2968 in conditional expressions. The bug is:
2969 char c = -1, d = 1;
2970 int i;
2971
2972 i = d ? c : d;
2973 The result is i == 255; the fix is to typecast the char in the
2974 conditional expression as an (int). Known occurrences of such
2975 constructs in Emacs have been fixed.
2976
2977 * rmail gets error getting new mail
2978
2979 rmail gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
2980 called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
2981 the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
2982
2983 There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
2984 the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
2985 `movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
2986 this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
2987 the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
2988 IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
2989 SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
2990
2991 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
2992 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
2993 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
2994 `mail'. You can use these commands (as root):
2995
2996 chgrp mail movemail
2997 chmod 2755 movemail
2998
2999 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
3000 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
3001 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
3002 `mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
3003 make install.
3004
3005 chgrp mail movemail
3006 chmod 2755 movemail
3007
3008 Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
3009 installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
3010 installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
3011 /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
3012 mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
3013 directory copy is ineffective.
3014
3015 * Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
3016
3017 This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
3018 used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
3019 away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
3020 streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
3021 user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
3022 properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
3023 input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
3024 easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
3025
3026 There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
3027
3028 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
3029 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
3030 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
3031
3032 First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
3033 they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
3034 "no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
3035 escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
3036 and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
3037 control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
3038
3039 Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
3040 needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
3041 by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
3042 rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
3043 your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
3044 it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
3045 the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
3046 problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
3047 to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
3048
3049 For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
3050 giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
3051 codes. You might as well try it.
3052
3053 If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
3054 through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
3055 computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
3056 much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
3057 control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
3058 you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
3059 replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
3060 measures can make Emacs semi-work.
3061
3062 You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
3063 handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
3064 enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
3065 now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
3066 enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
3067 control handling.)
3068
3069 If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
3070 is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
3071 other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
3072 and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
3073 other control characters are already used by emacs.
3074
3075 IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
3076 Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
3077 order to continue.
3078
3079 If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
3080 certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
3081 `enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
3082 automatically. Here is an example:
3083
3084 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
3085
3086 If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
3087 and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
3088 manually.
3089
3090 I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
3091 assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
3092 control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
3093 merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
3094 widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
3095 use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
3096 will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
3097 of inferior systems.
3098
3099 * Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
3100
3101 For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
3102 control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
3103 terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
3104 that wants to use flow control.
3105
3106 You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
3107 If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
3108 flow control, as described in the preceding section.
3109
3110 If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
3111 into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
3112 shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
3113
3114 * Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
3115
3116 Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
3117 control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
3118 On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
3119 control on the local system.
3120
3121 One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
3122 (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
3123 stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
3124 "stty start u stop u" will do this.
3125
3126 Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
3127 around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
3128 issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
3129
3130 If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
3131 M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
3132 if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
3133 following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
3134
3135 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
3136
3137 See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
3138 info.
3139
3140 * Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
3141
3142 This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
3143 terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
3144 the combination of features specified for that terminal.
3145
3146 The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
3147 Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
3148 (open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
3149 terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
3150 what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
3151 and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
3152 There are several possibilities:
3153
3154 1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
3155
3156 In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
3157 need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
3158
3159 2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
3160 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
3161 by termcap.
3162
3163 This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
3164 Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
3165 and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
3166 classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
3167 Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
3168 tested on many kinds of terminals.
3169
3170 3) The termcap entry is wrong.
3171
3172 See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
3173 that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
3174 for certain terminals.
3175
3176 4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
3177 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
3178
3179 This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
3180 in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
3181
3182 * Output from Control-V is slow.
3183
3184 On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
3185 Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
3186 to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
3187 before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
3188 the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
3189 it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
3190
3191 If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
3192 that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
3193 specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
3194 concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
3195 send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
3196 fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
3197 time as the operations really take.
3198
3199 Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
3200 at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
3201 terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
3202 operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
3203 flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
3204 an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
3205 Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
3206 cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
3207 not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
3208 is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
3209
3210 Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
3211 multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
3212 termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
3213 fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
3214 each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
3215 to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
3216 `cm' string.
3217
3218 You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
3219 has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
3220 take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
3221
3222 A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
3223 of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
3224
3225 * Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal, using an AIXterm.
3226
3227 The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
3228
3229 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
3230 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
3231
3232 This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
3233
3234 * You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
3235
3236 Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
3237 after a day or two.
3238
3239 The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
3240 the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
3241 character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
3242 of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
3243 overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
3244 to it.
3245
3246 For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
3247 and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
3248 other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
3249 but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
3250 that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
3251 important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
3252
3253 If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
3254 you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
3255 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
3256 You can probably access help-command via f1.
3257
3258 * Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
3259 It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
3260 but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
3261 causes it.
3262
3263 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
3264 call in the RFS server.
3265
3266 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
3267 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
3268 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
3269 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
3270
3271 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
3272
3273 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
3274 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
3275 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
3276 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
3277 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
3278 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
3279 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
3280
3281 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
3282
3283 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
3284 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
3285 retrieving revision 1.2
3286 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
3287 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
3288 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
3289 ***************
3290 *** 163,169 ****
3291 /*
3292 * No return sent for close or fsync!
3293 */
3294 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
3295 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
3296 else
3297 {
3298 --- 166,172 ----
3299 /*
3300 * No return sent for close or fsync!
3301 */
3302 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
3303 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
3304 else
3305 {
3306
3307 * Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
3308
3309 You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3310
3311 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3312 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3313
3314 These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3315 Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3316 may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3317 on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3318 in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3319 can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3320 that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3321
3322 As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3323 you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3324 can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3325 should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3326 array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3327 Lisp_Object *args;
3328 ...
3329 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3330 putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3331 Lisp_Object *args;
3332 Lisp_Object tem;
3333 ...
3334 tem = args[i];
3335 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3336 causes the problem to go away.
3337 The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3338 so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3339
3340 * 68000 C compiler problems
3341
3342 Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3343 These are some that have been observed.
3344
3345 ** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
3346 This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3347 if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3348
3349 ** "cannot reclaim" error.
3350
3351 This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3352 line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3353 simpler expressions.
3354
3355 ** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
3356
3357 If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3358 Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3359
3360 struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3361
3362 lose (arg)
3363 struct foo arg;
3364 {
3365 test ((int *) arg.y);
3366 }
3367
3368 If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3369 In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3370 ((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3371
3372 This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3373 of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE. That is the recommended setting now.
3374
3375 * C compilers lose on returning unions
3376
3377 I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3378 Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3379 defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3380
3381 This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3382 of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE.
3383
3384 \f
3385 Copyright 1987,88,89,93,94,95,96,97,98,1999,2001,2002
3386 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3387
3388 Copying and redistribution of this file with or without modification
3389 are permitted without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
3390
3391 Local variables:
3392 mode: outline
3393 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
3394 end:
3395
3396 arch-tag: 49fc0d95-88cb-4715-b21c-f27fb5a4764a