1 This file describes various problems that have been encountered
2 in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs.
4 * Underlines appear at the wrong position.
6 This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
7 An example is the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1. To
8 circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties to
11 * Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
13 This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
14 of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
15 version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
16 dates. The preprocessor in those versions expands ".." into ". .",
17 which breaks relative file names that reference the parent directory.
19 The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
20 `-traditional' option. (The `configure' script does that
23 Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
24 Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefile's.
26 * Building the MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
28 Emacs may not build using recent Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
29 version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
30 necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
33 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
35 * Building the MS-Windows port with Leim fails in the `leim' directory.
37 The error message might be something like this:
39 Converting d:/emacs-21.1/leim/CXTERM-DIC/4Corner.tit to quail-package...
40 Invalid ENCODE: value in TIT dictionary
41 NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"../src/obj-spd/i386/emacs.exe"' : return code
45 This can happen if the Leim distribution is unpacked with a program
46 which converts the `*.tit' files to DOS-style CR-LF text format. The
47 `*.tit' files in the leim/CXTERM-DIC directory require Unix-style line
48 endings to compile properly, because Emacs reads them without any code
51 The solution is to make sure the program used to unpack Leim does not
52 change the files' line endings behind your back. The GNU FTP site has
53 in the `/gnu/emacs/windows' directory a program called `djtarnt.exe'
54 which can be used to unpack `.tar.gz' and `.zip' archives without
57 * JPEG images aren't displayed.
59 This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
60 Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem.
62 * Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
64 This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
65 defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
66 patch to assert.h should solve this:
68 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
69 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
73 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
75 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
77 #else /* debugging enabled */
81 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
83 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
85 #else /* debugging enabled */
88 * When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
89 click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
90 is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
93 * Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
95 This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
96 a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
97 --without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
99 * Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
101 Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
102 emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
103 entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
104 "Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
105 supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
106 Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
107 uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
110 In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
111 ``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
112 back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
113 use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
114 doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
115 sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
116 it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
119 Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
120 attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
121 incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
122 this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
124 Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
125 of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
126 entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
127 `xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
130 Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
131 Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
132 Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
133 recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
134 global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
135 `global-font-lock-mode'.
137 * Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
139 The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
140 emulation for which it is set up.
142 Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
143 Lesstif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
144 On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
145 --enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
146 successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
147 lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
150 On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
151 locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
152 what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
155 * Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 21.1.
157 Emacs 21.1 built for MS-Windows doesn't support images, the tool bar,
158 and tooltips. Support for these will be added in future versions.
160 There are problems with display if the variable `redisplay-dont-pause'
161 is set to nil (w32-win.el sets it to t by default, to avoid these
162 problems). The problems include:
164 . No redisplay as long as help echo is displayed in the echo area,
165 e.g. if the mouse is on a mouse-sensitive part of the mode line.
167 . When the mode line is dragged with the mouse, multiple copies of the
168 mode line are left behind, until the mouse button is released and
169 the next input event occurs.
171 . Window contents are not updated when text is selected by dragging
172 the mouse, and the mouse is dragged below the bottom line of the
173 window. When the mouse button is released, the window display is
176 Again, these problems only occur if `redisplay-dont-pause' is nil.
178 Emacs can sometimes abort when non-ASCII text, possibly with null
179 characters, is copied and pasted into a buffer.
181 An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
182 Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
184 Windows 2000 input methods are not recognized by Emacs (as of v21.1).
185 These input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded in
186 the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
187 characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make this
188 work, set the keyboard coding system to the appropriate value after
189 you activate the Windows input method. For example, if you activate
190 the Hebrew input method, type "C-x RET k iso-8859-8 RET". (Emacs
191 ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up the
192 appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do that
195 Multilingual text put into the Windows 2000 clipboard by Windows
196 applications cannot be safely pasted into Emacs (as of v21.1). This
197 is because Windows 2000 uses Unicode to represent multilingual text,
198 but Emacs does not yet support Unicode well enough to decode it. This
199 means that Emacs can only interchange non-ASCII text with other
200 Windows 2000 programs if the characters are in the system codepage.
201 Reportedly, a partial solution is to install the Mule-UCS package and
202 set selection-coding-system to utf-16-le-dos.
204 * The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
206 This can happen because the linker by default only looks for shared
207 libraries, but jpeg distribution by default doesn't build and doesn't
208 install a shared version of the library, `libjpeg.so'. One system
209 where this is known to happen is Compaq OSF/1 (`Tru64'), but it
210 probably isn't limited to that system.
212 You can configure the jpeg library with the `--enable-shared' option
213 and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a shared version of libjpeg,
214 which you need to install. Finally, rerun the Emacs configure script,
215 which should now find the jpeg library. Alternatively, modify the
216 generated src/Makefile to link the .a file explicitly.
218 (If you need the static version of the jpeg library as well, configure
219 libjpeg with both `--enable-static' and `--enable-shared' options.)
221 * Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
223 This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
224 (RedHat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
225 (SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
226 configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
227 files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
228 left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
229 itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
230 Emacs excutable to fail with the above message.
232 In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
233 machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
234 (it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
235 This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
237 If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
238 (Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
239 you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
240 force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
241 problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
242 blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
243 `mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
244 options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
247 Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
248 a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
249 waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
250 to work around the problem.
252 * Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
254 Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
255 other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
256 that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
257 size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
258 when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
259 fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
261 To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
263 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
265 If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
268 The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
269 `fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
272 * Large file support is disabled on HP-UX. See the comments in
275 * Crashes when displaying uncompressed GIFs with version
276 libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
278 * Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
280 Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
281 MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
282 port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
283 keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
284 of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
286 * The latest released version of the W3 package doesn't run properly
287 with Emacs 21 and needs work. However, these problems are already
288 fixed in W3's CVS. This patch is reported to make w3-4.0pre.46 work:
290 diff -aur --new-file w3-4.0pre.46-orig/lisp/w3-display.el w3-4.0pre.46-new/lisp/w3-display.el
291 --- w3-4.0pre.46-orig/lisp/w3-display.el Sun Nov 14 22:00:12 1999
292 +++ w3-4.0pre.46-new/lisp/w3-display.el Thu Dec 14 14:59:15 2000
294 (dispatch-event (next-command-event)))
297 - (if (and (not (sit-for 0)) (input-pending-p))
298 + ;; modified for GNU Emacs 21 by bob@rattlesnake.com on 2000 Dec 14
299 + (if (and (not (sit-for 0)) nil)
302 (setq w3-pause-keystroke
303 diff -aur --new-file w3-4.0pre.46-orig/lisp/w3-e21.el w3-4.0pre.46-new/lisp/w3-e21.el
304 --- w3-4.0pre.46-orig/lisp/w3-e21.el Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970
305 +++ w3-4.0pre.46-new/lisp/w3-e21.el Thu Dec 14 14:54:58 2000
307 +;;; w3-e21.el --- ** required for GNU Emacs 21 **
308 +;; Added by bob@rattlesnake.com on 2000 Dec 14
314 * On AIX, if linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
315 are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
316 so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
317 Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
319 * The PSGML package uses the obsolete variables
320 `before-change-function' and `after-change-function', which are no
321 longer used by Emacs. These changes to PSGML 1.2.2 fix that.
323 --- psgml-edit.el 2001/03/03 00:23:31 1.1
324 +++ psgml-edit.el 2001/03/03 00:24:22
327 - (before-change-function nil)
328 - (after-change-function nil))
329 + (before-change-functions nil)
330 + (after-change-functions nil))
331 (setq selective-display t)
332 @@ -1544,3 +1544,3 @@
333 (buffer-read-only nil)
334 - (before-change-function nil)
335 + (before-change-functions nil)
336 (markup-index ; match-data index in tag regexp
337 @@ -1596,3 +1596,3 @@
338 (defun sgml-expand-shortref-to-text (name)
339 - (let (before-change-function
340 + (let (before-change-functions
341 (entity (sgml-lookup-entity name (sgml-dtd-entities sgml-dtd-info))))
342 @@ -1613,3 +1613,3 @@
344 - before-change-function)
345 + before-change-functions)
346 (goto-char sgml-markup-start)
347 @@ -1646,3 +1646,3 @@
348 (goto-char (sgml-element-end element))
349 - (let ((before-change-function nil))
350 + (let ((before-change-functions nil))
351 (sgml-normalize-content element only-one)))
352 --- psgml-other.el 2001/03/03 00:23:42 1.1
353 +++ psgml-other.el 2001/03/03 00:30:05
356 +(eval-when-compile (require 'cl))
360 - (subseq entries 0 (min (length entries)
361 - sgml-max-menu-size))))
362 +;;; (subseq entries 0 (min (length entries)
363 +;;; sgml-max-menu-size))
364 + (let ((new (copy-sequence entries)))
365 + (setcdr (nthcdr (1- (min (length entries)
366 + sgml-max-menu-size))
369 (setq entries (nthcdr sgml-max-menu-size entries))
371 (let ((inhibit-read-only t)
372 - (after-change-function nil) ; obsolete variable
373 - (before-change-function nil) ; obsolete variable
374 (after-change-functions nil)
375 - (before-change-functions nil))
376 + (before-change-functions nil)
377 + (modified (buffer-modified-p))
378 + (buffer-undo-list t)
380 (put-text-property start end 'face face)
381 - (when (< start end)
382 - (put-text-property (1- end) end 'rear-nonsticky '(face)))))
383 + (when (and (not modified) (buffer-modified-p))
384 + (set-buffer-modified-p nil))))
386 --- psgml-parse.el 2001/03/03 00:23:57 1.1
387 +++ psgml-parse.el 2001/03/03 00:29:56
390 +(eval-when-compile (require 'cl))
393 @@ -2493,8 +2495,8 @@
394 (setq sgml-scratch-buffer nil))
395 - (when after-change-function ;***
396 - (message "OOPS: after-change-function not NIL in scratch buffer %s: %s"
397 + (when after-change-functions ;***
398 + (message "OOPS: after-change-functions not NIL in scratch buffer %s: %S"
400 - after-change-function)
401 - (setq before-change-function nil
402 - after-change-function nil))
403 + after-change-functions)
404 + (setq before-change-functions nil
405 + after-change-functions nil))
406 (setq sgml-last-entity-buffer (current-buffer))
407 @@ -2878,6 +2880,5 @@
408 "Set initial state of parsing"
409 - (make-local-variable 'before-change-function)
410 - (setq before-change-function 'sgml-note-change-at)
411 - (make-local-variable 'after-change-function)
412 - (setq after-change-function 'sgml-set-face-after-change)
413 + (set (make-local-variable 'before-change-functions) '(sgml-note-change-at))
414 + (set (make-local-variable 'after-change-functions)
415 + '(sgml-set-face-after-change))
416 (sgml-set-active-dtd-indicator (sgml-dtd-doctype dtd))
417 @@ -3925,7 +3926,7 @@
419 - (unless before-change-function
420 - (message "WARN: before-change-function has been lost, restoring (%s)"
421 + (unless before-change-functions
422 + (message "WARN: before-change-functions has been lost, restoring (%s)"
424 - (setq before-change-function 'sgml-note-change-at)
425 - (setq after-change-function 'sgml-set-face-after-change))
426 + (setq before-change-functions '(sgml-note-change-at))
427 + (setq after-change-functions '(sgml-set-face-after-change)))
428 (sgml-with-parser-syntax-ro
430 * The Calc package fails to build and signals errors with Emacs 21.
432 Apply the following patches which reportedly fix several problems:
434 --- calc-ext.el.~1~ Sun Apr 3 02:26:34 1994
435 +++ calc-ext.el Wed Sep 18 17:35:01 1996
436 @@ -1354,6 +1354,25 @@
437 (calc-fancy-prefix 'calc-inverse-flag "Inverse..." n)
440 +(defconst calc-fancy-prefix-map
441 + (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
442 + (define-key map [t] 'calc-fancy-prefix-other-key)
443 + (define-key map (vector meta-prefix-char t) 'calc-fancy-prefix-other-key)
444 + (define-key map [switch-frame] nil)
445 + (define-key map [?\C-u] 'universal-argument)
446 + (define-key map [?0] 'digit-argument)
447 + (define-key map [?1] 'digit-argument)
448 + (define-key map [?2] 'digit-argument)
449 + (define-key map [?3] 'digit-argument)
450 + (define-key map [?4] 'digit-argument)
451 + (define-key map [?5] 'digit-argument)
452 + (define-key map [?6] 'digit-argument)
453 + (define-key map [?7] 'digit-argument)
454 + (define-key map [?8] 'digit-argument)
455 + (define-key map [?9] 'digit-argument)
457 + "Keymap used while processing calc-fancy-prefix.")
459 (defun calc-fancy-prefix (flag msg n)
462 @@ -1364,6 +1383,8 @@
463 (message (if prefix msg "")))
465 (not calc-is-keypad-press)
466 + (if (boundp 'overriding-terminal-local-map)
467 + (setq overriding-terminal-local-map calc-fancy-prefix-map)
468 (let ((event (calc-read-key t)))
469 (if (eq (setq last-command-char (car event)) ?\C-u)
471 @@ -1376,9 +1397,18 @@
472 (if (or (not (integerp last-command-char))
473 (eq last-command-char ?-))
474 (calc-unread-command)
475 - (digit-argument n))))))
476 + (digit-argument n)))))))
478 (setq calc-is-keypad-press nil)
480 +(defun calc-fancy-prefix-other-key (arg)
482 + (if (or (not (integerp last-command-char))
483 + (and (>= last-command-char 0) (< last-command-char ? )
484 + (not (eq last-command-char meta-prefix-char))))
485 + (calc-wrapper)) ; clear flags if not a Calc command.
486 + (calc-unread-command)
487 + (setq overriding-terminal-local-map nil))
489 (defun calc-invert-func ()
492 --- Makefile.~1~ Sun Dec 15 23:50:45 1996
493 +++ Makefile Thu Nov 30 15:09:45 2000
498 -MAINT = -l calc-maint.elc
499 +MAINT = -l calc-maint.el
501 # Control whether intermediate files are kept.
506 # All this because "-l calc-maint" doesn't work.
507 -maint: calc-maint.elc
508 -calc-maint.elc: calc-maint.el
509 - cp calc-maint.el calc-maint.elc
511 +maint: calc-maint.el
513 # Create an Emacs TAGS file
516 --- calc-aent.el.~1~ Sun Dec 15 23:50:36 1996
517 +++ calc-aent.el Tue Nov 21 18:34:33 2000
519 (calc-minibuffer-contains
520 "\\`\\([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\"\\)*[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\\'"))
522 - (setq alg-exp (buffer-string))
523 + (setq alg-exp (field-string))
524 (and (> (length alg-exp) 0) (setq calc-previous-alg-entry alg-exp))
527 @@ -393,14 +393,14 @@
529 (defun calcAlg-enter ()
531 - (let* ((str (buffer-string))
532 + (let* ((str (field-string))
533 (exp (and (> (length str) 0)
535 (set-buffer calc-buffer)
536 (math-read-exprs str)))))
537 (if (eq (car-safe exp) 'error)
539 - (goto-char (point-min))
540 + (goto-char (field-beginning))
541 (forward-char (nth 1 exp))
543 (calc-temp-minibuffer-message
544 @@ -455,14 +455,14 @@
546 (if (calc-minibuffer-contains ".*[@oh] *[^'m ]+[^'m]*\\'")
548 - (setq calc-digit-value (buffer-string))
549 + (setq calc-digit-value (field-string))
553 (defun calcDigit-edit ()
555 (calc-unread-command)
556 - (setq calc-digit-value (buffer-string))
557 + (setq calc-digit-value (field-string))
561 --- calc.el.~1~ Sun Dec 15 23:50:47 1996
562 +++ calc.el Wed Nov 22 13:08:49 2000
563 @@ -2051,11 +2051,11 @@
564 ;; Exercise for the reader: Figure out why this is a good precaution!
565 (or (boundp 'calc-buffer)
566 (use-local-map minibuffer-local-map))
567 - (let ((str (buffer-string)))
568 + (let ((str (field-string)))
569 (setq calc-digit-value (save-excursion
570 (set-buffer calc-buffer)
571 (math-read-number str))))
572 - (if (and (null calc-digit-value) (> (buffer-size) 0))
573 + (if (and (null calc-digit-value) (> (field-end) (field-beginning)))
576 (calc-temp-minibuffer-message " [Bad format]"))
577 @@ -2071,7 +2071,7 @@
579 (defun calc-minibuffer-contains (rex)
581 - (goto-char (point-min))
582 + (goto-char (field-end (point-min)))
586 @@ -2158,10 +2158,8 @@
587 (upcase last-command-char))))
591 - (goto-char (point-min))
593 - "[-+]?\\(.*\\+/- *\\|.*mod *\\)?\\([0-9]+\\.?0*[@oh] *\\)?\\([0-9]+\\.?0*['m] *\\)?[0-9]*\\(\\.?[0-9]*\\(e[-+]?[0-3]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?\\)?\\|[0-9]:\\([0-9]+:\\)?[0-9]*\\)?[\"s]?\\'")))
594 + (calc-minibuffer-contains
595 + "[-+]?\\(.*\\+/- *\\|.*mod *\\)?\\([0-9]+\\.?0*[@oh] *\\)?\\([0-9]+\\.?0*['m] *\\)?[0-9]*\\(\\.?[0-9]*\\(e[-+]?[0-3]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9]?\\)?\\|[0-9]:\\([0-9]+:\\)?[0-9]*\\)?[\"s]?\\'"))
596 (if (and (memq last-command-char '(?@ ?o ?h ?\' ?m))
597 (string-match " " calc-hms-format))
599 @@ -2190,7 +2188,7 @@
600 ((eq last-command 'calcDigit-start)
602 (t (backward-delete-char 1)))
603 - (if (= (buffer-size) 0)
604 + (if (= (field-beginning) (field-end))
606 (setq last-command-char 13)
607 (calcDigit-nondigit)))
609 * TeX'ing the Calc manual fails.
611 The following patches allow to build the Calc manual using texinfo.tex
612 from Emacs 19.34 distribution:
614 *** calc-maint.e~0 Mon Dec 16 07:11:26 1996
615 --- calc-maint.el Sun Dec 10 14:32:38 2000
619 "\\global\\advance\\appendixno2\n"
620 "\\gdef\\xref#1.{See ``#1.''}\n")
621 ! (setq midpos (point))
622 (insert "@end tex\n")
623 (insert-buffer-substring srcbuf sumpos endpos)
627 "\\global\\advance\\appendixno2\n"
628 "\\gdef\\xref#1.{See ``#1.''}\n")
629 ! (setq midpos (point-marker))
630 (insert "@end tex\n")
631 (insert-buffer-substring srcbuf sumpos endpos)
633 *** Makefile.~0 Mon Dec 16 07:11:24 1996
634 --- Makefile Sun Dec 10 14:44:00 2000
637 # Format the Calc manual as one printable volume using TeX.
640 ! $(TEX) calc.texinfo
641 $(TEXINDEX) calc.[cfkptv]?
642 ! $(TEX) calc.texinfo
643 $(PURGE) calc.cp calc.fn calc.pg calc.tp calc.vr
644 $(PURGE) calc.cps calc.fns calc.kys calc.pgs calc.tps calc.vrs
647 # Format the Calc manual as one printable volume using TeX.
650 ! -$(TEX) calc.texinfo
651 $(TEXINDEX) calc.[cfkptv]?
652 ! -$(TEX) calc.texinfo
653 $(PURGE) calc.cp calc.fn calc.pg calc.tp calc.vr
654 $(PURGE) calc.cps calc.fns calc.kys calc.pgs calc.tps calc.vrs
656 *** calc.texinfo.~1~ Thu Oct 10 18:18:56 1996
657 --- calc.texinfo Mon Dec 11 08:25:00 2000
661 % Because makeinfo.c exists, we can't just define new commands.
662 % So instead, we take over little-used existing commands.
664 + % Suggested by Karl Berry <karl@@freefriends.org>
665 + \gdef\!{\mskip-\thinmuskip}
666 % Redefine @cite{text} to act like $text$ in regular TeX.
667 % Info will typeset this same as @samp{text}.
668 \gdef\goodtex{\tex \let\rm\goodrm \let\t\ttfont \turnoffactive}
671 a vector of the actual parameter values, written as equations:
672 @cite{[a = 3, b = 2]}, in case you'd rather read them in a list
673 than pick them out of the formula. (You can type @kbd{t y}
674 ! to move this vector to the stack; @pxref{Trail Commands}.)
676 Specifying a different independent variable name will affect the
677 resulting formula: @kbd{a F 1 k RET} produces @kbd{3 + 2 k}.
679 a vector of the actual parameter values, written as equations:
680 @cite{[a = 3, b = 2]}, in case you'd rather read them in a list
681 than pick them out of the formula. (You can type @kbd{t y}
682 ! to move this vector to the stack; see @ref{Trail Commands}.)
684 Specifying a different independent variable name will affect the
685 resulting formula: @kbd{a F 1 k RET} produces @kbd{3 + 2 k}.
687 * Unicode characters are not unified with other Mule charsets.
689 As of v21.1, Emacs charsets are still not unified. This means that
690 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
691 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
692 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
693 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
694 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system; and if you yank Greek
695 text from a buffer whose buffer-file-coding-system is greek-iso-8bit
696 into a mule-unicode-0100-24ff buffer, Emacs won't be able to save that
697 buffer neither as ISO 8859-7 nor as UTF-8.
699 To work around this, install some add-on package such as Mule-UCS.
701 * The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
703 This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
704 slots now. If the built-in Unicode/UTF-8 support is insufficient,
705 e.g. if you need more CJK coverage, use the current Mule-UCS package.
706 Any files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode won't be read
707 correctly by Emacs 21.
709 * On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
710 from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
711 shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
712 These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
713 library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
715 On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
716 environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
719 Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
720 Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
721 specified run-time search path in the executable.
723 Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details.
725 * On Solaris 2.7, building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
726 C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
727 compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
728 release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
729 another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
730 and the default CFLAGS.
732 * Compiling syntax.c with the OPENSTEP 4.2 compiler gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
734 The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
737 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
739 To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
740 INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
741 functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
743 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
745 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
746 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
748 Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
749 with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
751 * Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails.
753 If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
754 representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
755 ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux 2.4.3
756 with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other systems as well. To
757 avoid this problem, switch to using the standard ftp client. On a
760 update-alternatives --config ftpd
762 and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
764 * On Windows 95/98/ME, subprocesses do not terminate properly.
766 This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
767 when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
768 cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
769 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/doc/index.html
771 * Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
772 mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
773 exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
776 * On OSF/Dec Unix/Tru64/<whatever it is this year> under X locally or
777 remotely, M-SPC acts as a `compose' key with strange results. See
780 Changing Alt_L to Meta_L fixes it:
781 % xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L'
782 % xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_R = Meta_R Alt_R'
784 * Error "conflicting types for `initstate'" compiling with GCC on Irix 6.
786 Install GCC 2.95 or a newer version, and this problem should go away.
787 It is possible that this problem results from upgrading the operating
788 system without reinstalling GCC; so you could also try reinstalling
789 the same version of GCC, and telling us whether that fixes the problem.
791 * On Solaris 7, Emacs gets a segmentation fault when starting up using X.
793 This results from Sun patch 107058-01 (SunOS 5.7: Patch for
794 assembler) if you use GCC version 2.7 or later.
795 To work around it, either install patch 106950-03 or later,
796 or uninstall patch 107058-01, or install the GNU Binutils.
797 Then recompile Emacs, and it should work.
799 * With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
801 Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
803 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
804 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
806 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
807 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
808 /******************************************************************
810 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
817 + char* begin = NULL;
821 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
824 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
826 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
827 + if (begin != NULL) {
828 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
832 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
837 * Emacs crashes on Irix 6.5 on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
839 This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
841 * Emacs crashes in utmpname on Irix 5.3.
843 This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
844 It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
846 * The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
848 This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
849 combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
850 definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
851 might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
854 We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
855 you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
857 * On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
858 the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
860 You can fix this by editing the file:
862 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
864 Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
866 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
870 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
872 Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
874 * Emacs on Digital Unix 4.0 fails to build, giving error message
875 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
877 This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
878 Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
880 * Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
882 Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
883 problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
884 documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
886 * Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
888 These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
889 particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
890 configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
891 configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
894 * When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
896 When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
897 (either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
898 then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
899 correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
900 gives the appearance of "double spacing".
902 To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
903 feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
905 * Failure in unexec while dumping emacs on Digital Unix 4.0
907 This problem manifests itself as an error message
909 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
911 The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
912 were built for an older system version,
914 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
916 made the problem go away.
918 * No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
920 This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
923 The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
925 * As of version 20.4, Emacs doesn't work properly if configured for
926 the Motif toolkit and linked against the free LessTif library. The
927 next Emacs release is expected to work with LessTif.
929 * Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
931 This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
932 a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
935 We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
937 * Emacs makes HPUX 11.0 crash.
939 This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
941 * Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine (HPUX 10.20).
943 This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
945 * The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
946 Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
947 `add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
948 'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
950 * Versions of the PSGML package earlier than 1.0.3 (stable) or 1.1.2
951 (alpha) fail to parse DTD files correctly in Emacs 20.3 and later.
952 Here is a patch for psgml-parse.el from PSGML 1.0.1 and, probably,
955 --- psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:18:18 1.1
956 +++ psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:20:00
957 @@ -2383,7 +2383,7 @@ (defun sgml-push-to-entity (entity &opti
958 (setq sgml-buffer-parse-state nil))
960 ((stringp entity) ; a file name
961 - (save-excursion (insert-file-contents entity))
962 + (insert-file-contents entity)
963 (setq default-directory (file-name-directory entity)))
964 ((consp (sgml-entity-text entity)) ; external id?
965 (let* ((extid (sgml-entity-text entity))
967 * Emacs 21 freezes when visiting a TeX file with AUC TeX installed.
969 Emacs 21 needs version 10 or later of AUC TeX; upgrading should solve
972 * Running TeX from AUC TeX package with Emacs 20.3 gives a Lisp error
973 about a read-only tex output buffer.
975 This problem appeared for AUC TeX version 9.9j and some earlier
976 versions. Here is a patch for the file tex-buf.el in the AUC TeX
979 diff -c auctex/tex-buf.el~ auctex/tex-buf.el
980 *** auctex/tex-buf.el~ Wed Jul 29 18:35:32 1998
981 --- auctex/tex-buf.el Sat Sep 5 15:20:38 1998
984 (dir (TeX-master-directory)))
985 (TeX-process-check file) ; Check that no process is running
986 (setq TeX-command-buffer (current-buffer))
987 ! (with-output-to-temp-buffer buffer)
990 (insert "Running `" name "' on `" file "' with ``" command "''\n")
992 (dir (TeX-master-directory)))
993 (TeX-process-check file) ; Check that no process is running
994 (setq TeX-command-buffer (current-buffer))
995 ! (let (temp-buffer-show-function temp-buffer-show-hook)
996 ! (with-output-to-temp-buffer buffer))
999 (insert "Running `" name "' on `" file "' with ``" command "''\n")
1001 * On Irix 6.3, substituting environment variables in file names
1002 in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
1004 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
1006 This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
1007 003082 August 11, 1998.
1009 * After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
1011 The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
1012 (standard-display-european t)
1013 That should be changed to
1014 (standard-display-european 1 t)
1016 * Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
1018 You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
1019 supplies the `install-info' command.
1021 * Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key, on HPUX.
1023 To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1024 rights, containing this text:
1026 --------------------------------
1027 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1028 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1029 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1034 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1036 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1037 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1039 --------------------------------
1041 * Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
1043 This happens because KDE intercepts the X clipboard and appears not to
1044 notify Emacs properly when it is done. A C-g will not interrupt this:
1045 Emacs will print "Quit", but will continue waiting. After a while,
1046 Emacs will print a message:
1048 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
1050 A workaround is to kill the KDE application called `klipper'.
1052 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
1053 in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
1054 drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
1056 This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
1057 device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
1058 work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
1060 * M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
1062 See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1063 for character composition.
1065 * Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow.
1067 This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the
1068 full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the
1069 /etc/hosts file, something like this:
1072 129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04
1074 The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems.
1076 * Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs on Digital Unix 4.0.
1078 So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
1079 is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
1080 properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
1081 `tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
1084 * When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error.
1086 This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII
1087 characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII
1088 characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with
1089 support for 8-bit characters.
1091 To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type
1092 this at your shell's prompt:
1096 and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says
1097 "!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it
1100 To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file
1101 in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT.
1102 Then rebuild the speller.
1104 Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the
1105 version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade.
1107 Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word
1108 in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by
1109 Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because
1110 it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are
1111 spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other.
1113 * On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
1114 5.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
1116 This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1117 One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1120 * On Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
1121 CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
1123 This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
1125 Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
1126 events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
1127 distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
1128 combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
1129 AltGr has been pressed.
1131 * Under some Windows X-servers, Emacs' display is incorrect
1133 The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
1134 screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
1135 display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
1136 to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
1138 This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions as
1139 well. The problem lies in the X-server settings.
1141 There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
1142 running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
1143 un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
1146 Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
1147 please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
1148 If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
1151 * On Solaris 2, Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
1153 The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
1154 Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
1155 (Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
1156 You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
1157 You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
1158 look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
1159 are currently recommended for your host.
1161 On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
1162 105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
1163 105284-18 might fix it again.
1165 * On Solaris 2.6 and 7, the Compose key does not work.
1167 This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
1168 the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
1169 support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
1170 If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
1172 One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
1173 For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
1174 variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
1175 lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
1178 pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
1179 if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
1182 * Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
1184 You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
1185 either in /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system
1186 calls for specifying this.
1188 If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
1189 mail-host-address to the value you want.
1191 * Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs, on UnixWare 2.1
1193 Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
1194 virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
1195 the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
1196 error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
1197 exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
1198 memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
1200 You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
1201 But you have to be root to do it.
1203 According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
1205 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
1206 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
1207 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
1208 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
1209 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
1211 (He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
1212 These changes take effect when you reboot.
1214 * Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
1216 We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1217 scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1218 happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1219 on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
1221 Here's how to do this:
1223 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
1225 If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1226 try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1229 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
1231 * Under X11, some characters appear as hollow boxes.
1233 Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
1234 supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
1235 many different fonts, collected into a fontset.
1237 If some of the fonts called for in your fontset do not exist on your X
1238 server, then the characters that have no font appear as hollow boxes.
1239 You can remedy the problem by installing additional fonts.
1241 The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
1242 display all the characters Emacs supports.
1244 Another cause of this for specific characters is fonts which have a
1245 missing glyph and no default character. This is known ot occur for
1246 character number 160 (no-break space) in some fonts, such as Lucida
1247 but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte and Latin-1 version
1248 of this character to display a space.
1250 * Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
1252 You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution.
1254 * Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it "should".
1256 This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller
1257 than the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that
1258 lines do not overlap.
1260 * You request inverse video, and the first Emacs frame is in inverse
1261 video, but later frames are not in inverse video.
1263 This can happen if you have an old version of the custom library in
1264 your search path for Lisp packages. Use M-x list-load-path-shadows to
1265 check whether this is true. If it is, delete the old custom library.
1267 * In FreeBSD 2.1.5, useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1268 directories that have the +t bit.
1270 This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1271 Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1272 with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1273 link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
1275 If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1276 file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
1278 * When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
1279 commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
1281 You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
1283 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
1285 * Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
1288 This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
1289 remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
1290 implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
1291 detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
1292 calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
1293 where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
1295 * "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
1297 If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
1298 will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
1299 in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
1300 did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
1301 character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
1302 must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
1304 You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
1305 them to two different keys.
1307 * Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup, on AIX4.2.
1309 If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
1310 without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
1312 * movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
1314 Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
1315 NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
1316 entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
1317 listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
1318 the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
1321 * Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
1323 This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
1324 use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
1325 an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
1326 happens to exist on your X server).
1328 * Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
1330 This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
1331 prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
1332 to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
1334 Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
1335 (src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
1337 * Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on HPUX 9 after you delete a frame.
1339 We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
1340 the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
1343 * Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
1345 We suspect that this is a similar bug in the X libraries provided by
1346 Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
1347 makes the problem stop:
1349 105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
1350 105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
1351 106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
1352 105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
1354 Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
1355 suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
1357 106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
1358 106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
1359 105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
1361 * Problems running Perl under Emacs on Windows NT/95.
1363 `perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
1364 The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
1366 The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
1367 "CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
1370 On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
1371 pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
1372 communicate with the subprocess.
1374 On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
1375 relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
1376 redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
1379 A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
1383 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
1384 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
1391 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1399 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1404 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
1405 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
1412 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1420 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1424 * Problems running DOS programs on Windows NT versions earlier than 3.51.
1426 Some DOS programs, such as pkzip/pkunzip will not work at all, while
1427 others will only work if their stdin is redirected from a file or NUL.
1429 When a DOS program does not work, a new process is actually created, but
1430 hangs. It cannot be interrupted from Emacs, and might need to be killed
1431 by an external program if Emacs is hung waiting for the process to
1432 finish. If Emacs is not waiting for it, you should be able to kill the
1433 instance of ntvdm that is running the hung process from Emacs, if you
1434 can find out the process id.
1436 It is safe to run most DOS programs using call-process (eg. M-! and
1437 M-|) since stdin is then redirected from a file, but not with
1438 start-process since that redirects stdin to a pipe. Also, running DOS
1439 programs in a shell buffer prompt without redirecting stdin does not
1442 * Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs:
1444 There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
1446 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
1447 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
1448 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
1450 To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
1451 subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
1452 them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
1453 incorrect library functions.
1455 * When compiling with DJGPP on Windows NT, "config msdos" fails.
1457 If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
1458 Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
1459 program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
1460 config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
1461 the front of your PATH environment variable.
1463 * When compiling with DJGPP on Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
1466 This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
1467 variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
1468 compilation are not the same. See the MSDOG section of INSTALL for
1469 the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
1471 * Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
1472 run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
1473 (Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
1474 immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
1475 the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
1476 and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.)
1478 This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
1479 support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
1480 characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
1481 You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
1482 filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
1483 compiled with DJGPP v2). The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
1484 explains this issue in more detail.
1486 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
1488 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
1490 This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
1491 on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
1492 value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
1493 works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
1494 support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
1495 undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
1496 [emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
1497 `TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
1498 your system works as before.
1500 * On Windows 95, Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
1502 This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
1503 You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
1505 * Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on Windows 95.
1507 This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
1508 you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
1509 and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way.
1511 * `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
1513 This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
1514 version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
1515 definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
1516 incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
1517 does not work with this version of ncurses.
1519 The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
1521 * Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
1523 Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
1524 editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
1527 * Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly truncated
1528 on GNU/Linux systems.
1530 This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
1533 * Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
1535 There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1536 caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1537 problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1538 is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1540 Using the old library version is a workaround.
1542 * On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
1544 This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
1545 version of Solaris that you are using.
1547 * Emacs dumps core on startup, on Solaris.
1549 Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
1550 102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
1551 Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
1552 by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
1553 However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
1555 Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
1556 you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
1557 We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
1560 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
1561 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
1562 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
1564 (One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
1565 with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
1567 If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
1568 bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
1570 Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
1573 * Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called, on Solaris.
1575 If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
1576 of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
1577 called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
1579 * "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes on HPUX, in
1580 Emacs built with Motif.
1582 This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
1583 such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
1585 * On Irix 6.0, make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi
1587 A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
1588 in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
1589 find that string, and take out the spaces.
1591 Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
1593 * "out of virtual swap space" on Irix 5.3
1595 This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
1596 many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
1597 swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
1598 can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
1601 You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
1604 /usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
1606 where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
1607 by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
1608 that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
1609 new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
1612 The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
1613 swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
1614 on the network that can log on to the host.
1616 If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
1617 the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
1618 some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
1621 You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
1622 FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
1623 ("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
1624 ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
1626 * With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
1627 character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
1629 One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
1630 away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
1631 XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
1633 * On SunOS 4.1.3, Emacs unpredictably crashes in _yp_dobind_soft.
1635 This happens if you configure Emacs specifying just `sparc-sun-sunos4'
1636 on a system that is version 4.1.3. You must specify the precise
1637 version number (or let configure figure out the configuration, which
1638 it can do perfectly well for SunOS).
1640 * On SunOS 4, Emacs processes keep going after you kill the X server
1641 (or log out, if you logged in using X).
1643 Someone reported that recompiling with GCC 2.7.0 fixed this problem.
1645 * On AIX 4, some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
1646 with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
1648 On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
1649 `unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
1650 Definitions" to make them defined.
1652 * On SunOS, you get linker errors
1653 ld: Undefined symbol
1654 _get_wmShellWidgetClass
1655 _get_applicationShellWidgetClass
1657 The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
1658 or link libXmu statically.
1660 * On AIX 4.1.2, linker error messages such as
1661 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
1662 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
1664 This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
1665 these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
1668 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
1672 Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
1675 * Unpredictable segmentation faults on Solaris 2.3 and 2.4.
1677 A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
1678 the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
1680 We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
1682 * Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for
1685 A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
1686 Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
1689 * Emacs crashes at startup on MSDOS.
1691 Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
1692 and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
1693 know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
1694 memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
1695 However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
1697 You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
1698 arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
1699 information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
1700 is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
1702 Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
1703 configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
1704 removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
1705 and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
1706 the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
1708 * A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
1710 twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
1711 You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
1713 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
1715 * Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
1717 This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
1718 the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
1719 Emacs's configure script.
1721 * Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
1723 This results from a bug in GNU Sed version 2.03. To solve the
1724 problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
1727 * On Sunos 4.1.1, there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
1729 If you get errors such as
1731 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
1732 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
1733 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
1735 This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
1736 to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
1737 script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
1738 make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
1739 ones available when you build Emacs.
1741 * The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1742 other non-English HP keyboards too).
1744 This is because HPUX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1745 shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1746 configures the X server.
1748 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1749 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1750 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1755 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1757 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1758 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1761 * The Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
1763 Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
1764 command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
1765 Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
1766 manager to use some other command. You can disable the
1767 shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
1769 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
1771 * Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
1773 There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
1774 that replacing the mouse made it stop.
1776 * Trouble using ptys on IRIX, or running out of ptys.
1778 The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
1779 be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
1780 to allocate ptys reliably.
1782 * On Irix 5.2, unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
1784 The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
1785 Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
1786 compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
1787 workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
1790 * Slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
1792 People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1793 startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
1795 This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
1796 Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
1797 improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
1798 networked and non-networked machines.
1800 Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
1804 First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1805 exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1806 (replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
1810 Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1816 Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1817 indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1818 database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1819 dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1821 ** Non-Networked Case
1823 The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1824 However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1825 simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1826 `touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1827 file is not necessary with this approach.
1829 * On Solaris 2.4, Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
1830 forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
1832 casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
1833 after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
1836 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
1841 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
1843 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
1847 Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
1848 (as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
1849 OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
1850 Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
1851 definition for your type of machine and system.
1853 Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
1854 the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
1855 Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
1857 For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
1858 101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
1859 to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
1862 However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
1864 #define ThreadedX YES
1866 #define ThreadedX NO
1867 in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
1868 `-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
1869 typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
1871 * With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
1872 to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
1874 This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
1875 with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
1876 another escape character in kermit. One user did
1878 set escape-character 17
1880 in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
1882 * The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
1884 This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
1886 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
1888 That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1889 do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1890 explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1891 the resource prevents the problem.
1893 * Emacs gets hung shortly after startup, on Sunos 4.1.3.
1895 We think this is due to a bug in Sunos. The word is that
1896 one of these Sunos patches fixes the bug:
1898 100075-11 100224-06 100347-03 100482-05 100557-02 100623-03 100804-03 101080-01
1899 100103-12 100249-09 100496-02 100564-07 100630-02 100891-10 101134-01
1900 100170-09 100296-04 100377-09 100507-04 100567-04 100650-02 101070-01 101145-01
1901 100173-10 100305-15 100383-06 100513-04 100570-05 100689-01 101071-03 101200-02
1902 100178-09 100338-05 100421-03 100536-02 100584-05 100784-01 101072-01 101207-01
1904 We don't know which of these patches really matter. If you find out
1905 which ones, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
1907 * Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
1909 This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
1910 installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
1911 specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
1912 corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
1913 the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
1914 Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
1915 files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
1916 original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
1919 The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
1920 when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
1921 is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
1922 same directory where system header files are kept.
1924 * On Solaris 2.x, GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported"
1926 This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
1927 are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
1928 does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
1929 later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
1930 described in the Solaris FAQ
1931 <http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
1932 to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
1934 * The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
1936 This shell command should fix it:
1938 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
1940 * Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
1942 On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
1943 with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
1944 version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
1945 C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
1948 * On Sunos 4, you get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
1950 This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
1951 for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
1952 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
1954 * You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
1956 On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
1957 works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
1958 bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
1961 This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
1962 due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
1963 knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
1964 workaround can be found.
1966 * Unusable default font on SCO 3.2v4.
1968 The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
1969 that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
1970 fonts, so it does not work.
1972 This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
1973 the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
1974 emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
1975 that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
1976 resources affect Emacs also:
1978 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
1979 *Background: scoBackground
1980 *Foreground: scoForeground
1982 The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
1983 Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
1985 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
1986 Emacs*Background: white
1987 Emacs*Foreground: black
1989 (These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
1990 suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
1991 starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
1992 environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
1993 as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
1994 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
1995 but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
1996 Open Desktop display.
1998 These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
1999 machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
2001 * rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
2003 This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
2004 The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
2006 * Emacs is slow using X11R5 on HP/UX.
2008 This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
2009 doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
2010 because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
2011 libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
2012 those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
2013 install them and rebuild Emacs.
2015 * Loading fonts is very slow.
2017 You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
2018 Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
2019 directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
2022 If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
2023 font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
2025 With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
2026 directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
2027 Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
2029 * On AIX 3.2.4, releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2031 Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2032 ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2033 lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2034 treated as control characters.
2036 You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2037 releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2039 * display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
2041 Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2042 versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2043 cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2044 This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2045 processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
2047 Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2048 the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
2050 The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
2052 * On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
2054 This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2055 C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
2057 * Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
2058 segmentation fault and core dump.
2060 This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
2061 added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
2063 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
2065 If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
2068 * Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
2070 To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
2072 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
2074 and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
2076 The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2077 cannot easily arrange to supply them.
2079 * Link failure on IBM AIX 1.3 ptf 0013.
2081 There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2082 the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2086 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2087 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2089 * Undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym and/or _dlclose on a Sun.
2091 If you see undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym, or _dlclose when linking
2092 with -lX11, compile and link against the file mit/util/misc/dlsym.c in
2093 the MIT X11R5 distribution. Alternatively, link temacs using shared
2094 libraries with s/sunos4shr.h. (This doesn't work if you use the X
2097 If you get the additional error that the linker could not find
2098 lib_version.o, try extracting it from X11/usr/lib/X11/libvim.a in
2099 X11R4, then use it in the link.
2101 * Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'
2103 This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2104 Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2105 Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2106 where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
2108 So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
2110 * In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
2112 This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
2113 smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
2114 on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
2115 problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
2118 if ($EMACS == "t") then
2120 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
2124 * An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
2125 parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
2127 This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
2129 (which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
2130 that isn't a color.)
2132 The fix is to correct your X resources.
2134 * Undefined symbols when linking on Sunos 4.1 using --with-x-toolkit.
2136 If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
2137 _iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
2138 -lXaw in the command that links temacs.
2140 This problem seems to arise only when the international language
2141 extensions to X11R5 are installed.
2143 * Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
2145 This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
2146 to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
2147 Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
2149 * src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2151 This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2152 had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.
2154 * Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
2156 If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
2157 resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
2158 renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
2161 One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
2162 your font path, like this:
2164 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
2166 * Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
2168 An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
2170 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
2172 This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
2173 individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
2174 want, rewrite the resource.
2176 To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
2177 -query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
2178 the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
2180 * --with-x-toolkit version crashes when used with shared libraries.
2182 On some systems, including Sunos 4 and DGUX 5.4.2 and perhaps others,
2183 unexec doesn't work properly with the shared library for the X
2184 toolkit. You might be able to work around this by using a nonshared
2185 libXt.a library. The real fix is to upgrade the various versions of
2186 unexec and/or ralloc. We think this has been fixed on Sunos 4
2187 and Solaris in version 19.29.
2189 * `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
2191 This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
2192 commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
2193 Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
2196 * --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong on BSD/386.
2198 This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
2199 The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
2202 * Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies, on Sunos 5.3.
2204 A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2205 exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2206 applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2207 communicating through pipes.
2209 * Mail is lost when sent to local aliases.
2211 Many emacs mail user agents (VM and rmail, for instance) use the
2212 sendmail.el library. This library can arrange for mail to be
2213 delivered by passing messages to the /usr/lib/sendmail (usually)
2214 program . In doing so, it passes the '-t' flag to sendmail, which
2215 means that the name of the recipient of the message is not on the
2216 command line and, therefore, that sendmail must parse the message to
2217 obtain the destination address.
2219 There is a bug in the SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3 versions of sendmail.
2220 In short, when given the -t flag, the SunOS sendmail won't recognize
2221 non-local (i.e. NIS) aliases. It has been reported that the Solaris
2222 2.x versions of sendmail do not have this bug. For those using SunOS
2223 4.1, the best fix is to install sendmail V8 or IDA sendmail (which
2224 have other advantages over the regular sendmail as well). At the time
2225 of this writing, these official versions are available:
2227 Sendmail V8 on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/sendmail:
2228 sendmail.8.6.9.base.tar.Z (the base system source & documentation)
2229 sendmail.8.6.9.cf.tar.Z (configuration files)
2230 sendmail.8.6.9.misc.tar.Z (miscellaneous support programs)
2231 sendmail.8.6.9.xdoc.tar.Z (extended documentation, with postscript)
2233 IDA sendmail on vixen.cso.uiuc.edu in /pub:
2234 sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5.tar.gz
2236 * On AIX, you get this message when running Emacs:
2238 Could not load program emacs
2239 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2240 Error was: Exec format error
2244 Could not load program .emacs
2245 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2246 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2247 Error was: Exec format error
2249 These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2250 compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2252 * On AIX, you get this compiler error message:
2254 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2255 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2257 This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2258 libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2259 X11Dev... with smit.
2261 * You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
2263 This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
2264 Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
2265 character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
2266 to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
2268 For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
2270 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
2272 If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
2273 Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
2274 xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
2276 * C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
2278 You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
2279 though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
2280 or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
2282 * Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars
2284 These control the actions of Emacs.
2285 ~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
2286 EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
2289 If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
2290 of them, then try again.
2292 * After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
2294 Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
2295 mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
2296 the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
2298 Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
2299 you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
2300 operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
2301 configure script) that reads:
2302 #define SYSTEM_MALLOC
2303 This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
2306 * Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
2307 directly with an X server.
2309 If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
2310 does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
2311 whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
2312 followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
2313 it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
2314 have made the key binding correctly.
2316 If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
2317 be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
2318 server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
2321 If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
2323 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
2324 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
2326 If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
2327 commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
2328 are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
2329 modifier bit not otherwise used.
2331 If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
2332 keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
2333 some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
2334 commands show above to make them modifier keys.
2336 Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
2337 into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
2339 * `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'
2341 On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
2342 file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
2343 does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
2344 value is just ten seconds.
2346 If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
2348 * `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
2350 On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
2351 in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
2352 expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
2353 in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
2355 The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
2356 anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
2358 I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
2359 going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
2360 Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
2361 in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
2363 * On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
2365 Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
2366 the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
2367 sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
2369 * Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
2371 Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
2373 * Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
2374 the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
2375 * Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
2376 * GNUs can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
2378 This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
2379 libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
2380 shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
2381 similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
2383 The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
2384 the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
2386 The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
2387 installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
2389 On SunOS 4.1, simply define HAVE_RES_INIT.
2391 If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
2392 then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
2393 do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
2394 or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
2395 that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
2396 be careful not to lose the others.
2398 Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
2400 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
2402 Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
2403 the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
2406 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
2408 * On a Sun running SunOS 4.1.1, you get this error message from GNU ld:
2410 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
2412 The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
2414 The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
2416 * Self documentation messages are garbled.
2418 This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
2419 with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
2420 corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
2422 * Trouble using ptys on AIX.
2424 People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
2425 Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
2427 * Shell mode on HP/UX gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
2429 christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
2431 The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
2432 execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
2433 tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
2434 but tty is giving it back 3.
2436 The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
2439 if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
2441 should be changed to:
2443 if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
2445 Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
2448 * Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
2450 Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
2452 * Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
2453 * `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
2455 One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
2456 your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
2459 * Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
2461 If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
2462 `ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
2463 that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
2464 with a floating point option other than the default.
2466 It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
2467 crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
2468 However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
2469 floating point option: -fsoft.
2471 * Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
2473 The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
2474 arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
2475 tell Emacs to compensate for this.
2477 I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
2478 whether this problem is present on a given system.
2480 * Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
2483 This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
2484 7 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
2486 * M-x shell persistently reports "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1".
2488 This happened on Suns as a result of what is said to be a bug in Sunos
2489 version 4.0.x. The only fix was to reboot the machine.
2491 * Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
2494 The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
2495 environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
2496 provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
2499 Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
2500 in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
2501 it only if it is undefined.
2503 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
2505 Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
2506 happen in a non-login shell.
2508 * X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
2510 People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
2511 not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
2512 the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
2513 the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
2515 You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
2516 However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
2517 you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
2519 The easy way to do this is to put
2521 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
2523 in your site-init.el file.
2525 * Problem with remote X server on Suns.
2527 On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2528 may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2529 is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2530 As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
2532 * Shell mode ignores interrupts on Apollo Domain
2534 You may find that M-x shell prints the following message:
2536 Warning: no access to tty; thus no job control in this shell...
2538 This can happen if there are not enough ptys on your system.
2539 Here is how to make more of them.
2543 # shows how many pty's you have. I had 8, named pty0 to pty7)
2545 # creates eight new pty's
2547 * Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump
2549 This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
2550 Makefile in the src subdirectory, or by build.com on VMS.
2552 It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2553 space available on the machine.
2555 On 68000's, it has also happened because of bugs in the
2556 subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2557 for large blocks (many pages).
2559 * test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered
2560 * or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127"
2561 * or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2562 * or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs
2564 This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2565 fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2566 binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2568 In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2569 It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2570 a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2571 itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2572 when unpacking the shell archive.
2574 I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
2575 what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
2576 file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
2578 If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
2579 nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
2581 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
2582 2) Delete all the .elc files.
2583 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
2584 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
2585 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
2586 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
2587 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
2588 You may need to increase the value of the variable
2589 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
2590 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
2591 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
2593 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
2595 * temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted"
2597 This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
2598 files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
2599 space than was allocated.
2601 This could be caused by
2602 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
2603 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
2604 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
2605 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
2606 if you have received Emacs from some other site
2607 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
2609 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
2610 (not from the directory you expected).
2611 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
2612 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
2613 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
2614 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
2617 If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
2618 of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
2620 But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
2621 of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
2624 * Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
2626 You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
2627 Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
2628 will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
2629 and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
2631 Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
2632 than the corresponding .el file.
2634 * The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
2636 Two causes have been seen for such problems.
2638 1) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
2639 as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
2640 it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
2641 value in the man page for a.out (5).
2643 2) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
2644 initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
2645 of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
2646 not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
2647 may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
2649 * Compilation errors on VMS.
2651 You will get warnings when compiling on VMS because there are
2652 variable names longer than 32 (or whatever it is) characters.
2653 This is not an error. Ignore it.
2655 VAX C does not support #if defined(foo). Uses of this construct
2656 were removed, but some may have crept back in. They must be rewritten.
2658 There is a bug in the C compiler which fails to sign extend characters
2659 in conditional expressions. The bug is:
2664 The result is i == 255; the fix is to typecast the char in the
2665 conditional expression as an (int). Known occurrences of such
2666 constructs in Emacs have been fixed.
2668 * rmail gets error getting new mail
2670 rmail gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
2671 called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
2672 the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
2674 There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
2675 the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
2676 `movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
2677 this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
2678 the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
2679 IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
2680 SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
2682 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
2683 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
2684 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
2685 `mail'. You can use these commands (as root):
2690 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
2691 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
2692 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
2693 `mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
2699 Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
2700 installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
2701 installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
2702 /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
2703 mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
2704 directory copy is ineffective.
2706 * Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
2708 This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
2709 used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
2710 away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
2711 streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
2712 user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
2713 properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
2714 input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
2715 easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
2717 There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
2719 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
2720 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
2721 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
2723 First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
2724 they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
2725 "no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
2726 escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
2727 and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
2728 control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
2730 Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
2731 needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
2732 by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
2733 rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
2734 your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
2735 it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
2736 the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
2737 problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
2738 to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
2740 For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
2741 giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
2742 codes. You might as well try it.
2744 If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
2745 through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
2746 computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
2747 much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
2748 control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
2749 you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
2750 replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
2751 measures can make Emacs semi-work.
2753 You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
2754 handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
2755 enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
2756 now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
2757 enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
2760 If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
2761 is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
2762 other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
2763 and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
2764 other control characters are already used by emacs.
2766 IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
2767 Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
2770 If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
2771 certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
2772 `enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
2773 automatically. Here is an example:
2775 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
2777 If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
2778 and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
2781 I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
2782 assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
2783 control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
2784 merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
2785 widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
2786 use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
2787 will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
2788 of inferior systems.
2790 * Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
2792 For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
2793 control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
2794 terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
2795 that wants to use flow control.
2797 You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
2798 If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
2799 flow control, as described in the preceding section.
2801 If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
2802 into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
2803 shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
2805 * Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
2807 Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
2808 control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
2809 On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
2810 control on the local system.
2812 One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
2813 (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
2814 stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
2815 "stty start u stop u" will do this.
2817 Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
2818 around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
2819 issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
2821 If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
2822 M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
2823 if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
2824 following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
2826 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
2828 See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
2831 * Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
2833 This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
2834 terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
2835 the combination of features specified for that terminal.
2837 The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
2838 Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
2839 (open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
2840 terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
2841 what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
2842 and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
2843 There are several possibilities:
2845 1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
2847 In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
2848 need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
2850 2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
2851 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
2854 This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
2855 Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
2856 and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
2857 classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
2858 Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
2859 tested on many kinds of terminals.
2861 3) The termcap entry is wrong.
2863 See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
2864 that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
2865 for certain terminals.
2867 4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
2868 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
2870 This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
2871 in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
2873 * Output from Control-V is slow.
2875 On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
2876 Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
2877 to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
2878 before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
2879 the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
2880 it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
2882 If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
2883 that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
2884 specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
2885 concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
2886 send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
2887 fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
2888 time as the operations really take.
2890 Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
2891 at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
2892 terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
2893 operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
2894 flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
2895 an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
2896 Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
2897 cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
2898 not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
2899 is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
2901 Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
2902 multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
2903 termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
2904 fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
2905 each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
2906 to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
2909 You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
2910 has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
2911 take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
2913 A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
2914 of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
2916 * Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal, using an AIXterm.
2918 The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
2920 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
2921 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
2923 This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
2925 * You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
2927 Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
2930 The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
2931 the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
2932 character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
2933 of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
2934 overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
2937 For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
2938 and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
2939 other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
2940 but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
2941 that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
2942 important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
2944 If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
2945 you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
2946 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
2947 You can probably access help-command via f1.
2949 * Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
2950 It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
2951 but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
2954 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
2955 call in the RFS server.
2957 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
2958 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
2959 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
2960 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
2962 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
2964 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
2965 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
2966 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
2967 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
2968 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
2969 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
2970 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
2972 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
2974 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
2975 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
2976 retrieving revision 1.2
2977 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
2978 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
2979 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
2983 * No return sent for close or fsync!
2985 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
2986 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
2991 * No return sent for close or fsync!
2993 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
2994 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
2998 * Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
3000 You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3002 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3003 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3005 These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3006 Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3007 may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3008 on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3009 in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3010 can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3011 that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3013 As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3014 you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3015 can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3016 should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3017 array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3020 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3021 putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3026 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3027 causes the problem to go away.
3028 The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3029 so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3031 * 68000 C compiler problems
3033 Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3034 These are some that have been observed.
3036 ** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
3037 This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3038 if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3040 ** "cannot reclaim" error.
3042 This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3043 line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3044 simpler expressions.
3046 ** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
3048 If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3049 Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3051 struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3056 test ((int *) arg.y);
3059 If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3060 In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3061 ((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3063 This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3064 of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE. That is the recommended setting now.
3066 * C compilers lose on returning unions
3068 I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3069 Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3070 defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3072 This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3073 of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE.