1 This file describes various problems that have been encountered
2 in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs.
4 * Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
6 This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
7 of the GCC snapshots between Oct 2000 and Feb 2001, or from a released
8 version of GCC newer than 2.95.2 which was prepared around those
9 dates; similar problems were reported with some snapshots of GCC 3.1
10 around Sep 30 2001. The preprocessor in those versions is
11 incompatible with a traditional Unix cpp (e.g., it expands ".." into
12 ". .", which breaks relative file names that reference the parent
13 directory; or inserts TAB characters before lines that set Make
16 The solution is to make sure the preprocessor is run with the
17 `-traditional' option. The `configure' script does that automatically
18 when it detects the known problems in your cpp, but you might hit some
19 unknown ones. To force the `configure' script to use `-traditional',
20 run the script like this:
22 CPP='gcc -E -traditional' ./configure ...
24 (replace the ellipsis "..." with any additional arguments you pass to
27 Note that this problem does not pertain to the MS-Windows port of
28 Emacs, since it doesn't use the preprocessor to generate Makefiles.
30 * Building Emacs with a system compiler fails to link because of an
31 undefined symbol such as __eprintf which does not appear in Emacs.
33 This can happen if some of the libraries linked into Emacs were built
34 with GCC, but Emacs itself is being linked with a compiler other than
35 GCC. Object files compiled with GCC might need some helper functions
36 from libgcc.a, the library which comes with GCC, but the system
37 compiler does not instruct the linker to search libgcc.a during the
40 A solution is to link with GCC, like this:
44 Since the .o object files already exist, this will not recompile Emacs
45 with GCC, but just start by trying again to link temacs.
47 * Building the MS-Windows port with Cygwin GCC can fail.
49 Emacs may not build using recent Cygwin builds of GCC, such as Cygwin
50 version 1.1.8, using the default configure settings. It appears to be
51 necessary to specify the -mwin32 flag when compiling, and define
54 configure --with-gcc --cflags -mwin32 --cflags -D__MSVCRT__
56 * Building the MS-Windows port with Leim fails in the `leim' directory.
58 The error message might be something like this:
60 Converting d:/emacs-21.2/leim/CXTERM-DIC/4Corner.tit to quail-package...
61 Invalid ENCODE: value in TIT dictionary
62 NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"../src/obj-spd/i386/emacs.exe"' : return code
66 This can happen if the Leim distribution is unpacked with a program
67 which converts the `*.tit' files to DOS-style CR-LF text format. The
68 `*.tit' files in the leim/CXTERM-DIC directory require Unix-style line
69 endings to compile properly, because Emacs reads them without any code
72 The solution is to make sure the program used to unpack Leim does not
73 change the files' line endings behind your back. The GNU FTP site has
74 in the `/gnu/emacs/windows' directory a program called `djtarnt.exe'
75 which can be used to unpack `.tar.gz' and `.zip' archives without
78 * Emacs crashes when dumping itself on Mac PPC running Yellow Dog GNU/Linux.
80 The crashes happen inside the function Fmake_symbol; here's a typical
81 C backtrace printed by GDB:
83 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
85 #0 0x190c0c0 in Fmake_symbol ()
86 #1 0x1942ca4 in init_obarray ()
87 #2 0x18b3500 in main ()
88 #3 0x114371c in __libc_start_main (argc=5, argv=0x7ffff5b4, envp=0x7ffff5cc,
90 This could happen because GCC version 2.95 and later changed the base
91 of the load address to 0x10000000. Emacs needs to be told about this,
92 but we currently cannot do that automatically, because that breaks
93 other versions of GNU/Linux on the MacPPC. Until we find a way to
94 distinguish between the Yellow Dog and the other varieties of
95 GNU/Linux systems on the PPC, you will have to manually uncomment the
96 following section near the end of the file src/m/macppc.h in the Emacs
99 #if 0 /* This breaks things on PPC GNU/Linux ecept for Yellowdog,
100 even with identical GCC, as, ld. Let's take it out until we
101 know what's really going on here. */
102 /* GCC 2.95 and newer on GNU/Linux PPC changed the load address to
104 #if defined __linux__
105 #if __GNUC__ > 2 || (__GNUC__ == 2 && __GNUC_MINOR__ >= 95)
106 #define DATA_SEG_BITS 0x10000000
111 Remove the "#if 0" and "#endif" directives which surround this, save
112 the file, and then reconfigure and rebuild Emacs. The dumping process
115 * JPEG images aren't displayed.
117 This has been reported when Emacs is built with jpeg-6a library.
118 Upgrading to jpeg-6b solves the problem.
120 * Building `ctags' for MS-Windows with the MinGW port of GCC fails.
122 This might happen due to a bug in the MinGW header assert.h, which
123 defines the `assert' macro with a trailing semi-colon. The following
124 patch to assert.h should solve this:
126 *** include/assert.h.orig Sun Nov 7 02:41:36 1999
127 --- include/assert.h Mon Jan 29 11:49:10 2001
131 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
133 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0);
135 #else /* debugging enabled */
139 * If not debugging, assert does nothing.
141 ! #define assert(x) ((void)0)
143 #else /* debugging enabled */
147 * Improving performance with slow X connections
149 If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
150 language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by
151 configuring Emacs with option `--without-xim'. Configuring Emacs
152 without XIM does not affect the use of Emacs' own input methods, which
153 are part of the Leim package.
155 If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
156 switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar.
158 * Getting a Meta key on the FreeBSD console
160 By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
161 FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
162 current keymap to a file with the command
164 $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
166 Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
167 definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
168 key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
171 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
173 to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
175 $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
177 * Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
179 A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
180 into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
181 incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
182 other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
185 * Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font
187 This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
188 2.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
189 event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
190 Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
192 A workaround for this is to add something like
194 emacs.waitForWM: false
196 to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
197 frame's parameter list, like this:
199 (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
201 (this should go into your `.emacs' file).
203 * Underlines appear at the wrong position.
205 This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
206 Examples are the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1, or the jmk
207 neep font from the Debian xfonts-jmk package. To circumvent this
208 problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties to nil in your
211 To see what is the value of UNDERLINE_POSITION defined by the font,
212 type `xlsfonts -lll FONT' and look at the font's UNDERLINE_POSITION
215 * When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
216 click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
217 is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
220 * There are known binary incompatibilities between Xaw, Xaw3d, neXtaw,
221 XawM and the few other derivatives of Xaw. So when you compile with
222 one of these, it may not work to dynamically link with another one.
223 For example, strange problems, such as Emacs exiting when you type
224 "C-x 1", were reported when Emacs compiled with Xaw3d and libXaw was
225 used with neXtaw at run time.
227 The solution is to rebuild Emacs with the toolkit version you actually
228 want to use, or set LD_PRELOAD to preload the same toolkit version you
231 * Clicking C-mouse-2 in the scroll bar doesn't split the window.
233 This currently doesn't work with scroll-bar widgets (and we don't know
234 a good way of implementing it with widgets). If Emacs is configured
235 --without-toolkit-scroll-bars, C-mouse-2 on the scroll bar does work.
237 * Emacs aborts inside the function `tparam1'.
239 This can happen if Emacs was built without terminfo support, but the
240 terminal's capabilities use format that is only supported by terminfo.
241 If your system has ncurses installed, this might happen if your
242 version of ncurses is broken; upgrading to a newer version of ncurses
243 and reconfiguring and rebuilding Emacs should solve this.
245 All modern systems support terminfo, so even if ncurses is not the
246 problem, you should look for a way to configure Emacs so that it uses
249 * Error messages about undefined colors on X.
251 The messages might say something like this:
253 Unable to load color "grey95"
255 (typically, in the `*Messages*' buffer), or something like this:
257 Error while displaying tooltip: (error Undefined color lightyellow)
259 These problems could happen if some other X program has used up too
260 many colors of the X palette, leaving Emacs with insufficient system
261 resources to load all the colors it needs.
263 A solution is to exit the offending X programs before starting Emacs.
265 * Colors are not available on a tty or in xterm.
267 Emacs 21 supports colors on character terminals and terminal
268 emulators, but this support relies on the terminfo or termcap database
269 entry to specify that the display supports color. Emacs looks at the
270 "Co" capability for the terminal to find out how many colors are
271 supported; it should be non-zero to activate the color support within
272 Emacs. (Most color terminals support 8 or 16 colors.) If your system
273 uses terminfo, the name of the capability equivalent to "Co" is
276 In addition to the "Co" capability, Emacs needs the "op" (for
277 ``original pair'') capability, which tells how to switch the terminal
278 back to the default foreground and background colors. Emacs will not
279 use colors if this capability is not defined. If your terminal entry
280 doesn't provide such a capability, try using the ANSI standard escape
281 sequence \E[00m (that is, define a new termcap/terminfo entry and make
282 it use your current terminal's entry plus \E[00m for the "op"
285 Finally, the "NC" capability (terminfo name: "ncv") tells Emacs which
286 attributes cannot be used with colors. Setting this capability
287 incorrectly might have the effect of disabling colors; try setting
288 this capability to `0' (zero) and see if that helps.
290 Emacs uses the database entry for the terminal whose name is the value
291 of the environment variable TERM. With `xterm', a common terminal
292 entry that supports color is `xterm-color', so setting TERM's value to
293 `xterm-color' might activate the color support on an xterm-compatible
296 Some modes do not use colors unless you turn on the Font-lock mode.
297 Some people have long ago set their `~/.emacs' files to turn on
298 Font-lock on X only, so they won't see colors on a tty. The
299 recommended way of turning on Font-lock is by typing "M-x
300 global-font-lock-mode RET" or by customizing the variable
301 `global-font-lock-mode'.
303 * Emacs on a tty switches the cursor to large blinking block.
305 This was reported to happen on some GNU/Linux systems which use
306 ncurses version 5.0, but could be relevant for other versions as well.
307 These versions of ncurses come with a `linux' terminfo entry, where
308 the "cvvis" capability (termcap "vs") is defined as "\E[?25h\E[?8c"
309 (show cursor, change size). This escape sequence switches on a
310 blinking hardware text-mode cursor whose size is a full character
311 cell. This blinking cannot be stopped, since a hardware cursor
314 A work-around is to redefine the "cvvis" capability so that it
315 enables a *software* cursor. The software cursor works by inverting
316 the colors of the character at point, so what you see is a block
317 cursor that doesn't blink. For this to work, you need to redefine
318 the "cnorm" capability as well, so that it operates on the software
319 cursor instead of the hardware cursor.
321 To this end, run "infocmp linux > linux-term", edit the file
322 `linux-term' to make both the "cnorm" and "cvvis" capabilities send
323 the sequence "\E[?25h\E[?17;0;64c", and then run "tic linux-term" to
324 produce a modified terminfo entry.
326 * Problems in Emacs built with LessTif.
328 The problems seem to depend on the version of LessTif and the Motif
329 emulation for which it is set up.
331 Only the Motif 1.2 emulation seems to be stable enough in LessTif.
332 Lesstif 0.92-17's Motif 1.2 emulation seems to work okay on FreeBSD.
333 On GNU/Linux systems, lesstif-0.92.6 configured with "./configure
334 --enable-build-12 --enable-default-12" is reported to be the most
335 successful. The binary GNU/Linux package
336 lesstif-devel-0.92.0-1.i386.rpm was reported to have problems with
339 On some systems, even with Motif 1.2 emulation, Emacs occasionally
340 locks up, grabbing all mouse and keyboard events. We still don't know
341 what causes these problems; they are not reproducible by Emacs
344 * Known problems with the MS-Windows port of Emacs 21.2.
346 Emacs 21.2 built for MS-Windows doesn't support images, the tool bar,
347 and tooltips. Support for these will be added in future versions.
349 Help text that is displayed in a tooltip on other window systems, on
350 Windows is printed in the echo area, since tooltips are not yet
353 Frames are not refreshed while the File or Font dialog or a pop-up menu
354 is displayed. This also means help text for pop-up menu items is not
355 displayed at all. This is because message handling under Windows is
356 synchronous, so we cannot handle repaint (or any other) messages while
357 waiting for a system function to return the result of the dialog or
358 pop-up menu interaction.
360 There are problems with display if mouse-tracking is enabled and the
361 mouse is moved off a frame, over another frame then back over the first
362 frame. A workaround is to click the left mouse button inside the frame
363 after moving back into it.
365 Some minor flickering still persists during mouse-tracking, although
366 not as severely as in 21.1.
368 Emacs can sometimes abort when non-ASCII text, possibly with null
369 characters, is copied and pasted into a buffer.
371 An inactive cursor remains in an active window after the Windows
372 Manager driven switch of the focus, until a key is pressed.
374 Windows input methods are not recognized by Emacs (as of v21.2). Some
375 of these input methods cause the keyboard to send characters encoded
376 in the appropriate coding system (e.g., ISO 8859-1 for Latin-1
377 characters, ISO 8859-8 for Hebrew characters, etc.). To make this
378 work, set the keyboard coding system to the appropriate value after
379 you activate the Windows input method. For example, if you activate
380 the Hebrew input method, type "C-x RET k iso-8859-8 RET". (Emacs
381 ought to recognize the Windows language-change event and set up the
382 appropriate keyboard encoding automatically, but it doesn't do that
385 Multilingual text put into the Windows clipboard by other Windows
386 applications cannot be safely pasted into Emacs (as of v21.2). This
387 is because Windows uses Unicode to represent multilingual text, but
388 Emacs does not yet support Unicode well enough to decode it. This
389 means that Emacs can only interchange non-ASCII text with other
390 Windows programs if the characters are in the system codepage.
391 Reportedly, a partial solution is to install the Mule-UCS package and
392 set selection-coding-system to utf-16-le-dos.
394 The %h format specifier for format-time-string does not work on Windows.
395 The %b format specifier does not produce abbreviated month names with
396 consistent widths for some locales on some versions of Windows. This is
397 caused by a deficiency in the underlying system library function.
399 * The `configure' script doesn't find the jpeg library.
401 This can happen because the linker by default only looks for shared
402 libraries, but jpeg distribution by default doesn't build and doesn't
403 install a shared version of the library, `libjpeg.so'. One system
404 where this is known to happen is Compaq OSF/1 (`Tru64'), but it
405 probably isn't limited to that system.
407 You can configure the jpeg library with the `--enable-shared' option
408 and then rebuild libjpeg. This produces a shared version of libjpeg,
409 which you need to install. Finally, rerun the Emacs configure script,
410 which should now find the jpeg library. Alternatively, modify the
411 generated src/Makefile to link the .a file explicitly.
413 (If you need the static version of the jpeg library as well, configure
414 libjpeg with both `--enable-static' and `--enable-shared' options.)
416 * Building Emacs over NFS fails with ``Text file busy''.
418 This was reported to happen when building Emacs on a GNU/Linux system
419 (RedHat Linux 6.2) using a build directory automounted from Solaris
420 (SunOS 5.6) file server, but it might not be limited to that
421 configuration alone. Presumably, the NFS server doesn't commit the
422 files' data to disk quickly enough, and the Emacs executable file is
423 left ``busy'' for several seconds after Emacs has finished dumping
424 itself. This causes the subsequent commands which invoke the dumped
425 Emacs excutable to fail with the above message.
427 In some of these cases, a time skew between the NFS server and the
428 machine where Emacs is built is detected and reported by GNU Make
429 (it says that some of the files have modification time in the future).
430 This might be a symptom of NFS-related problems.
432 If the NFS server runs on Solaris, apply the Solaris patch 105379-05
433 (Sunos 5.6: /kernel/misc/nfssrv patch). If that doesn't work, or if
434 you have a different version of the OS or the NFS server, you can
435 force the NFS server to use 1KB blocks, which was reported to fix the
436 problem albeit at a price of slowing down file I/O. You can force 1KB
437 blocks by specifying the "-o rsize=1024,wsize=1024" options to the
438 `mount' command, or by adding ",rsize=1024,wsize=1024" to the mount
439 options in the appropriate system configuration file, such as
442 Alternatively, when Make fails due to this problem, you could wait for
443 a few seconds and then invoke Make again. In one particular case,
444 waiting for 10 or more seconds between the two Make invocations seemed
445 to work around the problem.
447 Similar problems can happen if your machine NFS-mounts a directory
448 onto itself. Suppose the Emacs sources live in `/usr/local/src' and
449 you are working on the host called `marvin'. Then an entry in the
450 `/etc/fstab' file like the following is asking for trouble:
452 marvin:/usr/local/src /usr/local/src ...options.omitted...
454 The solution is to remove this line from `etc/fstab'.
456 * Emacs binary is not in executable format, and cannot be run.
458 This was reported to happen when Emacs is built in a directory mounted
459 via NFS. Usually, the file `emacs' produced in these cases is full of
460 binary null characters, and the `file' utility says:
462 emacs: ASCII text, with no line terminators
464 We don't know what exactly causes this failure. A work-around is to
465 build Emacs in a directory on a local disk.
467 * Accented ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed as | or _.
469 Try other font set sizes (S-mouse-1). If the problem persists with
470 other sizes as well, your text is corrupted, probably through software
471 that is not 8-bit clean. If the problem goes away with another font
472 size, it's probably because some fonts pretend to be ISO-8859-1 fonts
473 when they are really ASCII fonts. In particular the schumacher-clean
474 fonts have this bug in some versions of X.
476 To see what glyphs are included in a font, use `xfd', like this:
478 xfd -fn -schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
480 If this shows only ASCII glyphs, the font is indeed the source of the
483 The solution is to remove the corresponding lines from the appropriate
484 `fonts.alias' file, then run `mkfontdir' in that directory, and then run
487 * Large file support is disabled on HP-UX. See the comments in
490 * Crashes when displaying GIF images in Emacs built with version
491 libungif-4.1.0 are resolved by using version libungif-4.1.0b1.
493 * Font Lock displays portions of the bufefr in incorrect faces.
495 By far the most frequent cause of this is a parenthesis `(' or a brace
496 `{' in column zero. Font Lock assumes that such a paren is outside of
497 any comment or string. This is of course not true in general, but the
498 vast majority of well-formatted program source files don't have such
499 parens, and therefore this assumption is used to allow optimizations
500 in Font Lock's syntactical analysis. These optimizations avoid some
501 patological cases where jit-lock, the Just-in-Time fontification
502 introduced with Emacs 21.1, could significantly slow down scrolling
503 through the buffer, especially scrolling backwards, and also jumping
504 to the end of a very large buffer.
506 If you don't use large buffers, or have a very fast machine which
507 makes the delays insignificant, you can avoid the incorrect
508 fontification by setting the variable
509 `font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function' to a nil value. (This must
510 be done _after_ turning on Font Lock.)
512 Another alternative is to avoid a paren in column zero. For example,
513 in a Lisp string you could precede the paren with a backslash.
515 * When running on KDE, colors or fonts are not as specified for Emacs,
518 For examlpe, you could see background you set for Emacs only in the
519 empty portions of the Emacs display, while characters have some other
522 This happens because KDE's defaults apply its color and font
523 definitions even to applications that weren't compiled for KDE. The
524 solution is to uncheck the "Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps"
525 option in Preferences->Look&Feel->Style.
527 Alternatively, if you do want the KDE defaults to apply to other
528 applications, but not to Emacs, you could modify the file `Emacs.ad'
529 (should be in the `/usr/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/' directory)
530 so that it doesn't set the default background and foreground only for
531 Emacs. For example, make sure the following resources are either not
532 present or commented out:
534 Emacs.default.attributeForeground
535 Emacs.default.attributeBackground
539 * Interrupting Cygwin port of Bash from Emacs doesn't work.
541 Cygwin 1.x builds of the ported Bash cannot be interrupted from the
542 MS-Windows version of Emacs. This is due to some change in the Bash
543 port or in the Cygwin library which apparently make Bash ignore the
544 keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
545 of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
547 * Dired is very slow.
549 This could happen if invocation of the `df' program takes a long
550 time. Possible reasons for this include:
552 - ClearCase mounted filesystems (VOBs) that sometimes make `df'
553 response time extremely slow (dozens of seconds);
555 - slow automounters on some old versions of Unix;
557 - slow operation of some versions of `df'.
559 To work around the problem, you could either (a) set the variable
560 `directory-free-space-program' to nil, and thus prevent Emacs from
561 invoking `df'; (b) use `df' from the GNU Fileutils package; or
562 (c) use CVS, which is Free Software, instead of ClearCase.
564 * Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
566 If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
567 due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
568 and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
569 port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
570 are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
573 The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
574 (version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
575 Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' or 'C:\WINNT'
576 directory. To force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the
577 variable `ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the
578 client's executable. For example:
580 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
582 If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
583 this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
585 (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
588 * Some versions of the W3 package released before Emacs 21.1 don't run
589 properly with Emacs 21. These problems are fixed in W3 version
592 * On AIX, if linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
593 are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
594 so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
595 Emacs so that it isn't compiled with `-O5'.
597 * Compiling on AIX 4.3.x or 4.4 fails.
599 This could happen if you use /bin/c89 as your compiler, instead of
600 the default `cc'. /bin/c89 treats certain warnings, such as benign
601 redefinitions of macros, as errors, and fails the build. A solution
602 is to use the default compiler `cc'.
604 * Old versions of the PSGML package use the obsolete variables
605 `before-change-function' and `after-change-function', which are no
606 longer used by Emacs. Please use PSGML 1.2.3 or later.
608 * The Calc package fails to build and signals errors with Emacs 21.
610 Apply the following patches which reportedly fix several problems:
612 --- calc-ext.el.~1~ Sun Apr 3 02:26:34 1994
613 +++ calc-ext.el Wed Sep 18 17:35:01 1996
614 @@ -1354,6 +1354,25 @@
615 (calc-fancy-prefix 'calc-inverse-flag "Inverse..." n)
618 +(defconst calc-fancy-prefix-map
619 + (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
620 + (define-key map [t] 'calc-fancy-prefix-other-key)
621 + (define-key map (vector meta-prefix-char t) 'calc-fancy-prefix-other-key)
622 + (define-key map [switch-frame] nil)
623 + (define-key map [?\C-u] 'universal-argument)
624 + (define-key map [?0] 'digit-argument)
625 + (define-key map [?1] 'digit-argument)
626 + (define-key map [?2] 'digit-argument)
627 + (define-key map [?3] 'digit-argument)
628 + (define-key map [?4] 'digit-argument)
629 + (define-key map [?5] 'digit-argument)
630 + (define-key map [?6] 'digit-argument)
631 + (define-key map [?7] 'digit-argument)
632 + (define-key map [?8] 'digit-argument)
633 + (define-key map [?9] 'digit-argument)
635 + "Keymap used while processing calc-fancy-prefix.")
637 (defun calc-fancy-prefix (flag msg n)
640 @@ -1364,6 +1383,8 @@
641 (message (if prefix msg "")))
643 (not calc-is-keypad-press)
644 + (if (boundp 'overriding-terminal-local-map)
645 + (setq overriding-terminal-local-map calc-fancy-prefix-map)
646 (let ((event (calc-read-key t)))
647 (if (eq (setq last-command-char (car event)) ?\C-u)
649 @@ -1376,9 +1397,18 @@
650 (if (or (not (integerp last-command-char))
651 (eq last-command-char ?-))
652 (calc-unread-command)
653 - (digit-argument n))))))
654 + (digit-argument n)))))))
656 (setq calc-is-keypad-press nil)
658 +(defun calc-fancy-prefix-other-key (arg)
660 + (if (or (not (integerp last-command-char))
661 + (and (>= last-command-char 0) (< last-command-char ? )
662 + (not (eq last-command-char meta-prefix-char))))
663 + (calc-wrapper)) ; clear flags if not a Calc command.
664 + (calc-unread-command)
665 + (setq overriding-terminal-local-map nil))
667 (defun calc-invert-func ()
671 --- Makefile.~1~ Sun Dec 15 23:50:45 1996
672 +++ Makefile Thu Nov 30 15:09:45 2000
677 -MAINT = -l calc-maint.elc
678 +MAINT = -l calc-maint.el
680 # Control whether intermediate files are kept.
685 # All this because "-l calc-maint" doesn't work.
686 -maint: calc-maint.elc
687 -calc-maint.elc: calc-maint.el
688 - cp calc-maint.el calc-maint.elc
690 +maint: calc-maint.el
692 # Create an Emacs TAGS file
696 --- calc-aent.el.~1~ Sun Dec 15 23:50:36 1996
697 +++ calc-aent.el Tue Nov 21 18:34:33 2000
699 (calc-minibuffer-contains
700 "\\`\\([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\"\\)*[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\\'"))
702 - (setq alg-exp (buffer-string))
703 + (setq alg-exp (field-string))
704 (and (> (length alg-exp) 0) (setq calc-previous-alg-entry alg-exp))
707 @@ -393,14 +393,14 @@
709 (defun calcAlg-enter ()
711 - (let* ((str (buffer-string))
712 + (let* ((str (field-string))
713 (exp (and (> (length str) 0)
715 (set-buffer calc-buffer)
716 (math-read-exprs str)))))
717 (if (eq (car-safe exp) 'error)
719 - (goto-char (point-min))
720 + (goto-char (field-beginning))
721 (forward-char (nth 1 exp))
723 (calc-temp-minibuffer-message
724 @@ -455,14 +455,14 @@
726 (if (calc-minibuffer-contains ".*[@oh] *[^'m ]+[^'m]*\\'")
728 - (setq calc-digit-value (buffer-string))
729 + (setq calc-digit-value (field-string))
733 (defun calcDigit-edit ()
735 (calc-unread-command)
736 - (setq calc-digit-value (buffer-string))
737 + (setq calc-digit-value (field-string))
742 --- calc.el.~1~ Sun Dec 15 23:50:47 1996
743 +++ calc.el Wed Nov 22 13:08:49 2000
744 @@ -2051,11 +2051,11 @@
745 ;; Exercise for the reader: Figure out why this is a good precaution!
746 (or (boundp 'calc-buffer)
747 (use-local-map minibuffer-local-map))
748 - (let ((str (buffer-string)))
749 + (let ((str (field-string)))
750 (setq calc-digit-value (save-excursion
751 (set-buffer calc-buffer)
752 (math-read-number str))))
753 - (if (and (null calc-digit-value) (> (buffer-size) 0))
754 + (if (and (null calc-digit-value) (> (field-end) (field-beginning)))
757 (calc-temp-minibuffer-message " [Bad format]"))
758 @@ -2071,7 +2071,7 @@
760 (defun calc-minibuffer-contains (rex)
762 - (goto-char (point-min))
763 + (goto-char (field-end (point-min)))
767 @@ -2158,10 +2158,8 @@
768 (upcase last-command-char))))
772 - (goto-char (point-min))
774 - "[-+]?\\(.*\\+/- *\\|.*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]?\\'")))
775 + (calc-minibuffer-contains
776 + "[-+]?\\(.*\\+/- *\\|.*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]?\\'"))
777 (if (and (memq last-command-char '(?@ ?o ?h ?\' ?m))
778 (string-match " " calc-hms-format))
780 @@ -2190,7 +2188,7 @@
781 ((eq last-command 'calcDigit-start)
783 (t (backward-delete-char 1)))
784 - (if (= (buffer-size) 0)
785 + (if (= (field-beginning) (field-end))
787 (setq last-command-char 13)
788 (calcDigit-nondigit)))
790 * TeX'ing the Calc manual fails.
792 The following patches allow to build the Calc manual using texinfo.tex
793 from Emacs 19.34 distribution:
795 *** calc-maint.e~0 Mon Dec 16 07:11:26 1996
796 --- calc-maint.el Sun Dec 10 14:32:38 2000
800 "\\global\\advance\\appendixno2\n"
801 "\\gdef\\xref#1.{See ``#1.''}\n")
802 ! (setq midpos (point))
803 (insert "@end tex\n")
804 (insert-buffer-substring srcbuf sumpos endpos)
808 "\\global\\advance\\appendixno2\n"
809 "\\gdef\\xref#1.{See ``#1.''}\n")
810 ! (setq midpos (point-marker))
811 (insert "@end tex\n")
812 (insert-buffer-substring srcbuf sumpos endpos)
814 *** Makefile.~0 Mon Dec 16 07:11:24 1996
815 --- Makefile Sun Dec 10 14:44:00 2000
818 # Format the Calc manual as one printable volume using TeX.
821 ! $(TEX) calc.texinfo
822 $(TEXINDEX) calc.[cfkptv]?
823 ! $(TEX) calc.texinfo
824 $(PURGE) calc.cp calc.fn calc.pg calc.tp calc.vr
825 $(PURGE) calc.cps calc.fns calc.kys calc.pgs calc.tps calc.vrs
828 # Format the Calc manual as one printable volume using TeX.
831 ! -$(TEX) calc.texinfo
832 $(TEXINDEX) calc.[cfkptv]?
833 ! -$(TEX) calc.texinfo
834 $(PURGE) calc.cp calc.fn calc.pg calc.tp calc.vr
835 $(PURGE) calc.cps calc.fns calc.kys calc.pgs calc.tps calc.vrs
837 *** calc.texinfo.~1~ Thu Oct 10 18:18:56 1996
838 --- calc.texinfo Mon Dec 11 08:25:00 2000
842 % Because makeinfo.c exists, we can't just define new commands.
843 % So instead, we take over little-used existing commands.
845 + % Suggested by Karl Berry <karl@@freefriends.org>
846 + \gdef\!{\mskip-\thinmuskip}
847 % Redefine @cite{text} to act like $text$ in regular TeX.
848 % Info will typeset this same as @samp{text}.
849 \gdef\goodtex{\tex \let\rm\goodrm \let\t\ttfont \turnoffactive}
852 a vector of the actual parameter values, written as equations:
853 @cite{[a = 3, b = 2]}, in case you'd rather read them in a list
854 than pick them out of the formula. (You can type @kbd{t y}
855 ! to move this vector to the stack; @pxref{Trail Commands}.)
857 Specifying a different independent variable name will affect the
858 resulting formula: @kbd{a F 1 k RET} produces @kbd{3 + 2 k}.
860 a vector of the actual parameter values, written as equations:
861 @cite{[a = 3, b = 2]}, in case you'd rather read them in a list
862 than pick them out of the formula. (You can type @kbd{t y}
863 ! to move this vector to the stack; see @ref{Trail Commands}.)
865 Specifying a different independent variable name will affect the
866 resulting formula: @kbd{a F 1 k RET} produces @kbd{3 + 2 k}.
868 * Unicode characters are not unified with other Mule charsets.
870 As of v21.2, Emacs charsets are still not unified. This means that
871 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
872 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
873 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
874 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
875 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system; and if you yank Greek
876 text from a buffer whose buffer-file-coding-system is greek-iso-8bit
877 into a mule-unicode-0100-24ff buffer, Emacs won't be able to save that
878 buffer neither as ISO 8859-7 nor as UTF-8.
880 To work around this, install some add-on package such as Mule-UCS.
882 * Problems when using Emacs with UTF-8 locales
884 Some systems, including recent versions of GNU/Linux, have terminals
885 or X11 subsystems that can be configured to provide Unicode/UTF-8
886 input and display. Normally, such a system sets environment variables
887 such as LANG, LC_CTYPE, or LC_ALL to a string which ends with a
888 `.UTF-8'. For example, a system like this in a French locale might
889 use `fr_FR.UTF-8' as the value of LANG.
891 Since Unicode support in Emacs, as of v21.2, is not yet complete (see
892 the previous entry in this file), UTF-8 support is not enabled by
893 default, even in UTF-8 locales. Thus, some Emacs features, such as
894 non-ASCII keyboard input, might appear to be broken in these locales.
895 To solve these problems, you need to turn on some options in your
896 `.emacs' file. Specifically, the following customizations should make
897 Emacs work correctly with UTF-8 input and text:
899 (setq locale-coding-system 'utf-8)
900 (set-terminal-coding-system 'utf-8)
901 (set-keyboard-coding-system 'utf-8)
902 (set-selection-coding-system 'utf-8)
903 (prefer-coding-system 'utf-8)
905 * The `oc-unicode' package doesn't work with Emacs 21.
907 This package tries to define more private charsets than there are free
908 slots now. If the built-in Unicode/UTF-8 support is insufficient,
909 e.g. if you need more CJK coverage, use the current Mule-UCS package.
910 Any files encoded as emacs-mule using oc-unicode won't be read
911 correctly by Emacs 21.
913 * ps-print commands fail to find prologue files ps-prin*.ps.
915 This can happen if you use an old version of X-Symbol package: it
916 defines compatibility functions which trick ps-print into thinking it
917 runs in XEmacs, and look for the prologue files in a wrong directory.
919 The solution is to upgrade X-Symbol to a later version.
921 * Using epop3.el package causes Emacs to signal an error.
923 The error message might be something like this:
925 "Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth"
927 This happens because epop3 redefines the function gethash, which is a
928 built-in primitive beginning with Emacs 21.1. We don't have a patch
929 for epop3 that fixes this, but perhaps a newer version of epop3
932 * The arrow indicating the current execution line in GUD is invisible.
934 This was reported to happen when Emacs 21 is run on an xterm, and the
935 python-mode package was loaded. It appears that python-mode is
936 incompatible with Emacs 21; newer versions of python-mode are likely
939 * On systems with shared libraries you might encounter run-time errors
940 from the dynamic linker telling you that it is unable to find some
941 shared libraries, for instance those for Xaw3d or image support.
942 These errors mean Emacs has been linked with a library whose shared
943 library is not in the default search path of the dynamic linker.
945 Similar problems could prevent Emacs from building, since the build
946 process invokes Emacs several times.
948 On many systems, it is possible to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your
949 environment to specify additional directories where shared libraries
952 Other systems allow to set LD_RUN_PATH in a similar way, but before
953 Emacs is linked. With LD_RUN_PATH set, the linker will include a
954 specified run-time search path in the executable.
956 On some systems, Emacs could crash due to problems with dynamic
957 linking. Specifically, on SGI Irix 6.5, crashes were reported with
958 backtraces like this:
961 0 strcmp(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2) ["/xlv22/ficus-jan23/work/irix/lib/libc/libc_n32_M3_ns/strings/strcmp.s":35, 0xfb7e480]
962 1 general_find_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
963 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":2140, 0xfb65a98]
964 2 resolve_symbol(0xf49239d, 0x4031184, 0x0, 0xfbdd438, 0x0, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
965 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":1947, 0xfb657e4]
966 3 lazy_text_resolve(0xd18, 0x1a3, 0x40302b4, 0x12, 0xf0000000, 0xf4923aa, 0x0, 0x492ddb2)
967 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld.c":997, 0xfb64d44]
968 4 _rld_text_resolve(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
969 ["/comp2/mtibuild/v73/workarea/v7.3/rld/rld_bridge.s":175, 0xfb6032c]
971 (`rld' is the dynamic linker.) We don't know yet why this
972 happens, but setting the environment variable LD_BIND_NOW to 1 (which
973 forces the dynamic linker to bind all shared objects early on) seems
974 to work around the problem.
976 Please refer to the documentation of your dynamic linker for details.
978 * On Solaris 2.7, building Emacs with WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15
979 C 5.0 failed, apparently with non-default CFLAGS, most probably due to
980 compiler bugs. Using Sun Solaris 2.7 Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C
981 release was reported to work without problems. It worked OK on
982 another system with Solaris 8 using apparently the same 5.0 compiler
983 and the default CFLAGS.
985 * Compiling syntax.c with the OPENSTEP 4.2 compiler gcc 2.7.2.1 fails.
987 The compiler was reported to crash while compiling syntax.c with the
990 cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1obj got fatal signal 11
992 To work around this, replace the macros UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD,
993 INC_BOTH, and INC_FROM with functions. To this end, first define 3
994 functions, one each for every macro. Here's an example:
996 static int update_syntax_table_forward(int from)
998 return(UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD(from));
999 }/*update_syntax_table_forward*/
1001 Then replace all references to UPDATE_SYNTAX_TABLE_FORWARD in syntax.c
1002 with a call to the function update_syntax_table_forward.
1004 * Emacs fails to start, complaining about missing fonts.
1006 A typical error message might be something like
1008 No fonts match `-*-fixed-medium-r-*--6-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1'
1010 This happens because some X resource specifies a bad font family for
1011 Emacs to use. The possible places where this specification might be
1014 - in your ~/.Xdefaults file
1016 - client-side X resource file, such as ~/Emacs or
1017 /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Emacs or
1018 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
1020 One of these files might have bad or malformed specification of a
1021 fontset that Emacs should use. To fix the problem, you need to find
1022 the problematic line(s) and correct them.
1024 * Emacs 20 and later fails to load Lisp files at startup.
1026 The typical error message might be like this:
1028 "Cannot open load file: fontset"
1030 This could happen if you compress the file lisp/subdirs.el. That file
1031 tells Emacs what are the directories where it should look for Lisp
1032 files. Emacs cannot work with subdirs.el compressed, since the
1033 Auto-compress mode it needs for this will not be loaded until later,
1034 when your .emacs file is processed. (The package `fontset.el' is
1035 required to set up fonts used to display text on window systems, and
1036 its loaded very early in the startup procedure.)
1038 Similarly, any other .el file for which there's no corresponding .elc
1039 file could fail to load if it is compressed.
1041 The solution is to uncompress all .el files which don't have a .elc
1044 Another possible reason for such failures is stale *.elc files
1045 lurking somewhere on your load-path. The following command will
1046 print any duplicate Lisp files that are present in load-path:
1048 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
1050 If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
1051 and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
1054 * Emacs prints an error at startup after upgrading from an earlier version.
1056 An example of such an error is:
1058 x-complement-fontset-spec: "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil"
1060 This can be another symptom of stale *.elc files in your classpath.
1061 The following command will print any duplicate Lisp files that are
1062 present in load-path:
1064 emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
1066 If this command prints any file names, some of these files are stale,
1067 and should be deleted or their directories removed from your
1070 * Attempting to visit remote files via ange-ftp fails.
1072 If the error message is "ange-ftp-file-modtime: Specified time is not
1073 representable", then this could happen when `lukemftp' is used as the
1074 ftp client. This was reported to happen on Debian GNU/Linux 2.4.3
1075 with `lukemftp' 1.5-5, but might happen on other systems as well. To
1076 avoid this problem, switch to using the standard ftp client. On a
1079 update-alternatives --config ftpd
1081 and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
1083 * Emacs built on Windows 9x/ME crashes at startup on Windows XP,
1084 or Emacs built on XP crashes at startup on Windows 9x/ME.
1086 There appear to be general problems running programs compiled on
1087 Windows 9x/ME on Windows XP and vice-versa, at least when compilation
1088 is done with MSVC 6.0. This affects other programs as well as Emacs.
1089 The compatibility options in the program properties on Windows XP may
1092 * Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
1094 The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
1095 work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
1096 was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
1097 work when an antivirus package is installed.
1099 The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
1100 mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
1101 or disable it entirely.
1103 * On Windows 95/98/ME, subprocesses do not terminate properly.
1105 This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
1106 when shutting down Windows. Ensure that all subprocesses are exited
1107 cleanly before exiting Emacs. For more details, see the FAQ at
1108 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/doc/index.html
1110 * Windows 95/98/ME crashes when Emacs invokes non-existent programs.
1112 When a program you are trying to run is not found on the PATH,
1113 Windows might respond by crashing or locking up your system. In
1114 particular, this has been reported when trying to compile a Java
1115 program in JDEE when javac.exe is installed, but not on the system
1118 * Mail sent through Microsoft Exchange in some encodings appears to be
1119 mangled and is not seen correctly in Rmail or Gnus. We don't know
1120 exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
1123 * After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs, the Meta key stops working.
1125 This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
1126 Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
1127 modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
1128 keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
1129 modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
1130 was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
1131 Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
1133 The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
1134 modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
1135 and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
1136 which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
1137 the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
1140 xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
1142 A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
1143 is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
1145 xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
1147 This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
1148 keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
1149 keys can serve as Meta.
1151 The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
1152 keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
1154 * On OSF/Dec Unix/Tru64/<whatever it is this year> under X locally or
1155 remotely, M-SPC acts as a `compose' key with strange results. See
1158 Changing Alt_L to Meta_L fixes it:
1159 % xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L'
1160 % xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_R = Meta_R Alt_R'
1162 * Error "conflicting types for `initstate'" compiling with GCC on Irix 6.
1164 Install GCC 2.95 or a newer version, and this problem should go away.
1165 It is possible that this problem results from upgrading the operating
1166 system without reinstalling GCC; so you could also try reinstalling
1167 the same version of GCC, and telling us whether that fixes the problem.
1169 * Emacs dumps core on Solaris in function IMCheckWindow.
1171 This was reported to happen when Emacs runs with more than one frame,
1172 and one of them is closed, either with "C-x 5 0" or from the window
1175 This bug was reported to Sun as
1177 Gtk apps dump core in ximlocal.so.2:IMCheckIMWindow()
1178 Bug Reports: 4463537
1180 Installing Solaris 8 patch 108773-12 for Sparc and 108774-12 for x86
1181 reportedly fixes the bug, which appears to be inside the shared
1184 Alternatively, you can configure Emacs with `--with-xim=no' to prevent
1185 the core dump, but will loose X input method support, of course. (You
1186 can use Emacs's own input methods instead, if you install Leim.)
1188 * On Solaris 7, Emacs gets a segmentation fault when starting up using X.
1190 This results from Sun patch 107058-01 (SunOS 5.7: Patch for
1191 assembler) if you use GCC version 2.7 or later.
1192 To work around it, either install patch 106950-03 or later,
1193 or uninstall patch 107058-01, or install the GNU Binutils.
1194 Then recompile Emacs, and it should work.
1196 * With X11R6.4, public-patch-3, Emacs crashes at startup.
1198 Reportedly this patch in X fixes the problem.
1200 --- xc/lib/X11/imInt.c~ Wed Jun 30 13:31:56 1999
1201 +++ xc/lib/X11/imInt.c Thu Jul 1 15:10:27 1999
1203 -/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
1204 +/* $TOG: imInt.c /main/5 1998/05/30 21:11:16 kaleb $ */
1205 /******************************************************************
1207 Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by FUJITSU LIMITED
1214 + char* begin = NULL;
1218 char* ximmodifier = XIMMODIFIER;
1219 @@ -182,7 +182,11 @@
1221 ret = Xmalloc(end - begin + 2);
1223 - (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
1224 + if (begin != NULL) {
1225 + (void)strncpy(ret, begin, end - begin + 1);
1229 ret[end - begin + 1] = '\0';
1234 * Emacs crashes on Irix 6.5 on the SGI R10K, when compiled with GCC.
1236 This seems to be fixed in GCC 2.95.
1238 * Emacs crashes in utmpname on Irix 5.3.
1240 This problem is fixed in Patch 3175 for Irix 5.3.
1241 It is also fixed in Irix versions 6.2 and up.
1243 * The S-C-t key combination doesn't get passed to Emacs on X.
1245 This happens because some X configurations assign the Ctrl-Shift-t
1246 combination the same meaning as the Multi_key. The offending
1247 definition is in the file `...lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose'; there
1248 might be other similar combinations which are grabbed by X for similar
1251 We think that this can be countermanded with the `xmodmap' utility, if
1252 you want to be able to bind one of these key sequences within Emacs.
1254 * On Solaris, CTRL-t is ignored by Emacs when you use
1255 the fr.ISO-8859-15 locale (and maybe other related locales).
1257 You can fix this by editing the file:
1259 /usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso8859-15/Compose
1261 Near the bottom there is a line that reads:
1263 Ctrl<t> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
1267 Ctrl<T> <quotedbl> <Y> : "\276" threequarters
1269 Note the lower case <t>. Changing this line should make C-t work.
1271 * Emacs on Digital Unix 4.0 fails to build, giving error message
1272 Invalid dimension for the charset-ID 160
1274 This is due to a bug or an installation problem in GCC 2.8.0.
1275 Installing a more recent version of GCC fixes the problem.
1277 * Buffers from `with-output-to-temp-buffer' get set up in Help mode.
1279 Changes in Emacs 20.4 to the hooks used by that function cause
1280 problems for some packages, specifically BBDB. See the function's
1281 documentation for the hooks involved. BBDB 2.00.06 fixes the problem.
1283 * Under X, C-v and/or other keys don't work.
1285 These may have been intercepted by your window manager. In
1286 particular, AfterStep 1.6 is reported to steal C-v in its default
1287 configuration. Various Meta keys are also likely to be taken by the
1288 configuration of the `feel'. See the WM's documentation for how to
1291 * When using Exceed, fonts sometimes appear too tall.
1293 When the display is set to an Exceed X-server and fonts are specified
1294 (either explicitly with the -fn option or implicitly with X resources)
1295 then the fonts may appear "too tall". The actual character sizes are
1296 correct but there is too much vertical spacing between rows, which
1297 gives the appearance of "double spacing".
1299 To prevent this, turn off the Exceed's "automatic font substitution"
1300 feature (in the font part of the configuration window).
1302 * Failure in unexec while dumping emacs on Digital Unix 4.0
1304 This problem manifests itself as an error message
1306 unexec: Bad address, writing data section to ...
1308 The user suspects that this happened because his X libraries
1309 were built for an older system version,
1311 ./configure --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/shlib
1313 made the problem go away.
1315 * No visible display on mips-sgi-irix6.2 when compiling with GCC 2.8.1.
1317 This problem went away after installing the latest IRIX patches
1320 The same problem has been reported on Irix 6.3.
1322 * As of version 20.4, Emacs doesn't work properly if configured for
1323 the Motif toolkit and linked against the free LessTif library. The
1324 next Emacs release is expected to work with LessTif.
1326 * Emacs gives the error, Couldn't find per display information.
1328 This can result if the X server runs out of memory because Emacs uses
1329 a large number of fonts. On systems where this happens, C-h h is
1332 We do not know of a way to prevent the problem.
1334 * Emacs makes HPUX 11.0 crash.
1336 This is a bug in HPUX; HPUX patch PHKL_16260 is said to fix it.
1338 * Emacs crashes during dumping on the HPPA machine (HPUX 10.20).
1340 This seems to be due to a GCC bug; it is fixed in GCC 2.8.1.
1342 * The Hyperbole package causes *Help* buffers not to be displayed in
1343 Help mode due to setting `temp-buffer-show-hook' rather than using
1344 `add-hook'. Using `(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook
1345 'help-mode-maybe)' after loading Hyperbole should fix this.
1347 * Versions of the PSGML package earlier than 1.0.3 (stable) or 1.1.2
1348 (alpha) fail to parse DTD files correctly in Emacs 20.3 and later.
1349 Here is a patch for psgml-parse.el from PSGML 1.0.1 and, probably,
1352 --- psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:18:18 1.1
1353 +++ psgml-parse.el 1998/08/21 19:20:00
1354 @@ -2383,7 +2383,7 @@ (defun sgml-push-to-entity (entity &opti
1355 (setq sgml-buffer-parse-state nil))
1357 ((stringp entity) ; a file name
1358 - (save-excursion (insert-file-contents entity))
1359 + (insert-file-contents entity)
1360 (setq default-directory (file-name-directory entity)))
1361 ((consp (sgml-entity-text entity)) ; external id?
1362 (let* ((extid (sgml-entity-text entity))
1364 * Emacs 21 freezes when visiting a TeX file with AUC TeX installed.
1366 Emacs 21 needs version 10 or later of AUC TeX; upgrading should solve
1369 * No colors in AUC TeX with Emacs 21.
1371 Upgrade to AUC TeX version 10 or later, and make sure it is
1372 byte-compiled with Emacs 21.
1374 * Running TeX from AUC TeX package with Emacs 20.3 gives a Lisp error
1375 about a read-only tex output buffer.
1377 This problem appeared for AUC TeX version 9.9j and some earlier
1378 versions. Here is a patch for the file tex-buf.el in the AUC TeX
1381 diff -c auctex/tex-buf.el~ auctex/tex-buf.el
1382 *** auctex/tex-buf.el~ Wed Jul 29 18:35:32 1998
1383 --- auctex/tex-buf.el Sat Sep 5 15:20:38 1998
1386 (dir (TeX-master-directory)))
1387 (TeX-process-check file) ; Check that no process is running
1388 (setq TeX-command-buffer (current-buffer))
1389 ! (with-output-to-temp-buffer buffer)
1392 (insert "Running `" name "' on `" file "' with ``" command "''\n")
1394 (dir (TeX-master-directory)))
1395 (TeX-process-check file) ; Check that no process is running
1396 (setq TeX-command-buffer (current-buffer))
1397 ! (let (temp-buffer-show-function temp-buffer-show-hook)
1398 ! (with-output-to-temp-buffer buffer))
1401 (insert "Running `" name "' on `" file "' with ``" command "''\n")
1403 * On Irix 6.3, substituting environment variables in file names
1404 in the minibuffer gives peculiar error messages such as
1406 Substituting nonexistent environment variable ""
1408 This is not an Emacs bug; it is caused by something in SGI patch
1409 003082 August 11, 1998.
1411 * After a while, Emacs slips into unibyte mode.
1413 The VM mail package, which is not part of Emacs, sometimes does
1414 (standard-display-european t)
1415 That should be changed to
1416 (standard-display-european 1 t)
1418 * Installing Emacs gets an error running `install-info'.
1420 You need to install a recent version of Texinfo; that package
1421 supplies the `install-info' command.
1423 * Emacs does not recognize the AltGr key, on HPUX.
1425 To fix this, set up a file ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc with executable
1426 rights, containing this text:
1428 --------------------------------
1429 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1430 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1431 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1436 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1438 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1439 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1441 --------------------------------
1443 * Emacs hangs on KDE when a large portion of text is killed.
1445 This is caused by a bug in the KDE applet `klipper' which periodically
1446 requests the X clipboard contents from applications. Early versions
1447 of klipper don't implement the ICCM protocol for large selections,
1448 which leads to Emacs being flooded with selection requests. After a
1449 while, Emacs will print a message:
1451 Timed out waiting for property-notify event
1453 A workaround is to not use `klipper'.
1455 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP for MS-DOS/MS-Windows cannot access files
1456 in the directory with the special name `dev' under the root of any
1457 drive, e.g. `c:/dev'.
1459 This is an unfortunate side-effect of the support for Unix-style
1460 device names such as /dev/null in the DJGPP runtime library. A
1461 work-around is to rename the problem directory to another name.
1463 * M-SPC seems to be ignored as input.
1465 See if your X server is set up to use this as a command
1466 for character composition.
1468 * Emacs startup on GNU/Linux systems (and possibly other systems) is slow.
1470 This can happen if the system is misconfigured and Emacs can't get the
1471 full qualified domain name, FQDN. You should have your FQDN in the
1472 /etc/hosts file, something like this:
1475 129.187.137.82 nuc04.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de nuc04
1477 The way to set this up may vary on non-GNU systems.
1479 * Garbled display on non-X terminals when Emacs runs on Digital Unix 4.0.
1481 So far it appears that running `tset' triggers this problem (when TERM
1482 is vt100, at least). If you do not run `tset', then Emacs displays
1483 properly. If someone can tell us precisely which effect of running
1484 `tset' actually causes the problem, we may be able to implement a fix
1487 * When you run Ispell from Emacs, it reports a "misalignment" error.
1489 This can happen if you compiled the Ispell program to use ASCII
1490 characters only and then try to use it from Emacs with non-ASCII
1491 characters, like Latin-1. The solution is to recompile Ispell with
1492 support for 8-bit characters.
1494 To see whether your Ispell program supports 8-bit characters, type
1495 this at your shell's prompt:
1499 and look in the output for the string "NO8BIT". If Ispell says
1500 "!NO8BIT (8BIT)", your speller supports 8-bit characters; otherwise it
1503 To rebuild Ispell with 8-bit character support, edit the local.h file
1504 in the Ispell distribution and make sure it does _not_ define NO8BIT.
1505 Then rebuild the speller.
1507 Another possible cause for "misalignment" error messages is that the
1508 version of Ispell installed on your machine is old. Upgrade.
1510 Yet another possibility is that you are trying to spell-check a word
1511 in a language that doesn't fit the dictionary you choose for use by
1512 Ispell. (Ispell can only spell-check one language at a time, because
1513 it uses a single dictionary.) Make sure that the text you are
1514 spelling and the dictionary used by Ispell conform to each other.
1516 * On Linux-based GNU systems using libc versions 5.4.19 through
1517 5.4.22, Emacs crashes at startup with a segmentation fault.
1519 This problem happens if libc defines the symbol __malloc_initialized.
1520 One known solution is to upgrade to a newer libc version. 5.4.33 is
1523 * On Windows, you cannot use the right-hand ALT key and the left-hand
1524 CTRL key together to type a Control-Meta character.
1526 This is a consequence of a misfeature beyond Emacs's control.
1528 Under Windows, the AltGr key on international keyboards generates key
1529 events with the modifiers Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl. Since Emacs cannot
1530 distinguish AltGr from an explicit Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl
1531 combination, whenever it sees Right-Alt and Left-Ctrl it assumes that
1532 AltGr has been pressed. The variable `w32-recognize-altgr' can be set
1533 to nil to tell Emacs that AltGr is really Ctrl and Alt.
1535 * Emacs crashes when using the Exceed 6.0 X server
1537 If you are using Exceed 6.1, upgrade to a later version. This was
1538 reported to prevent the crashes.
1540 * Under some Windows X-servers, Emacs' display is incorrect
1542 The symptoms are that Emacs does not completely erase blank areas of the
1543 screen during scrolling or some other screen operations (e.g., selective
1544 display or when killing a region). M-x recenter will cause the screen
1545 to be completely redisplayed and the "extra" characters will disappear.
1547 This is known to occur under Exceed 6, and possibly earlier versions
1548 as well; it is reportedly solved in version 6.2.0.16 and later. The
1549 problem lies in the X-server settings.
1551 There are reports that you can solve the problem with Exceed by
1552 running `Xconfig' from within NT, choosing "X selection", then
1553 un-checking the boxes "auto-copy X selection" and "auto-paste to X
1556 Of this does not work, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Then
1557 please call support for your X-server and see if you can get a fix.
1558 If you do, please send it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org so we can list it
1561 * On Solaris 2, Emacs dumps core when built with Motif.
1563 The Solaris Motif libraries are buggy, at least up through Solaris 2.5.1.
1564 Install the current Motif runtime library patch appropriate for your host.
1565 (Make sure the patch is current; some older patch versions still have the bug.)
1566 You should install the other patches recommended by Sun for your host, too.
1567 You can obtain Sun patches from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/;
1568 look for files with names ending in `.PatchReport' to see which patches
1569 are currently recommended for your host.
1571 On Solaris 2.6, Emacs is said to work with Motif when Solaris patch
1572 105284-12 is installed, but fail when 105284-15 is installed.
1573 105284-18 might fix it again.
1575 * On Solaris 2.6 and 7, the Compose key does not work.
1577 This is a bug in Motif in Solaris. Supposedly it has been fixed for
1578 the next major release of Solaris. However, if someone with Sun
1579 support complains to Sun about the bug, they may release a patch.
1580 If you do this, mention Sun bug #4188711.
1582 One workaround is to use a locale that allows non-ASCII characters.
1583 For example, before invoking emacs, set the LC_ALL environment
1584 variable to "en_US" (American English). The directory /usr/lib/locale
1585 lists the supported locales; any locale other than "C" or "POSIX"
1588 pen@lysator.liu.se says (Feb 1998) that the Compose key does work
1589 if you link with the MIT X11 libraries instead of the Solaris X11
1592 * Frames may cover dialogs they created when using CDE.
1594 This can happen if you have "Allow Primary Windows On Top" enabled which
1595 seems to be the default in the Common Desktop Environment.
1596 To change, go in to "Desktop Controls" -> "Window Style Manager"
1597 and uncheck "Allow Primary Windows On Top".
1599 * Emacs does not know your host's fully-qualified domain name.
1601 You need to configure your machine with a fully qualified domain name,
1602 either in /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname, the NIS, or wherever your system
1603 calls for specifying this.
1605 If you cannot fix the configuration, you can set the Lisp variable
1606 mail-host-address to the value you want.
1608 * Error 12 (virtual memory exceeded) when dumping Emacs, on UnixWare 2.1
1610 Paul Abrahams (abrahams@acm.org) reports that with the installed
1611 virtual memory settings for UnixWare 2.1.2, an Error 12 occurs during
1612 the "make" that builds Emacs, when running temacs to dump emacs. That
1613 error indicates that the per-process virtual memory limit has been
1614 exceeded. The default limit is probably 32MB. Raising the virtual
1615 memory limit to 40MB should make it possible to finish building Emacs.
1617 You can do this with the command `ulimit' (sh) or `limit' (csh).
1618 But you have to be root to do it.
1620 According to Martin Sohnius, you can also retune this in the kernel:
1622 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SDATLIM 33554432 ## soft data size limit
1623 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HDATLIM 33554432 ## hard "
1624 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune SVMMSIZE unlimited ## soft process size limit
1625 # /etc/conf/bin/idtune HVMMSIZE unlimited ## hard "
1626 # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -B
1628 (He recommends you not change the stack limit, though.)
1629 These changes take effect when you reboot.
1631 * Redisplay using X11 is much slower than previous Emacs versions.
1633 We've noticed that certain X servers draw the text much slower when
1634 scroll bars are on the left. We don't know why this happens. If this
1635 happens to you, you can work around it by putting the scroll bars
1636 on the right (as they were in Emacs 19).
1638 Here's how to do this:
1640 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
1642 If you're not sure whether (or how much) this problem affects you,
1643 try that and see how much difference it makes. To set things back
1646 (set-scroll-bar-mode 'left)
1648 * Under X11, some characters appear as hollow boxes.
1650 Each X11 font covers just a fraction of the characters that Emacs
1651 supports. To display the whole range of Emacs characters requires
1652 many different fonts, collected into a fontset.
1654 If some of the fonts called for in your fontset do not exist on your X
1655 server, then the characters that have no font appear as hollow boxes.
1656 You can remedy the problem by installing additional fonts.
1658 The intlfonts distribution includes a full spectrum of fonts that can
1659 display all the characters Emacs supports.
1661 Another cause of this for specific characters is fonts which have a
1662 missing glyph and no default character. This is known ot occur for
1663 character number 160 (no-break space) in some fonts, such as Lucida
1664 but Emacs sets the display table for the unibyte and Latin-1 version
1665 of this character to display a space.
1667 * Under X11, some characters appear improperly aligned in their lines.
1669 You may have bad X11 fonts; try installing the intlfonts distribution.
1671 * Certain fonts make each line take one pixel more than it "should".
1673 This is because these fonts contain characters a little taller
1674 than the font's nominal height. Emacs needs to make sure that
1675 lines do not overlap.
1677 * You request inverse video, and the first Emacs frame is in inverse
1678 video, but later frames are not in inverse video.
1680 This can happen if you have an old version of the custom library in
1681 your search path for Lisp packages. Use M-x list-load-path-shadows to
1682 check whether this is true. If it is, delete the old custom library.
1684 * In FreeBSD 2.1.5, useless symbolic links remain in /tmp or other
1685 directories that have the +t bit.
1687 This is because of a kernel bug in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (fixed in 2.2).
1688 Emacs uses symbolic links to implement file locks. In a directory
1689 with +t bit, the directory owner becomes the owner of the symbolic
1690 link, so that it cannot be removed by anyone else.
1692 If you don't like those useless links, you can let Emacs not to using
1693 file lock by adding #undef CLASH_DETECTION to config.h.
1695 * When using M-x dbx with the SparcWorks debugger, the `up' and `down'
1696 commands do not move the arrow in Emacs.
1698 You can fix this by adding the following line to `~/.dbxinit':
1700 dbxenv output_short_file_name off
1702 * Emacs says it has saved a file, but the file does not actually
1705 This can happen on certain systems when you are using NFS, if the
1706 remote disk is full. It is due to a bug in NFS (or certain NFS
1707 implementations), and there is apparently nothing Emacs can do to
1708 detect the problem. Emacs checks the failure codes of all the system
1709 calls involved in writing a file, including `close'; but in the case
1710 where the problem occurs, none of those system calls fails.
1712 * "Compose Character" key does strange things when used as a Meta key.
1714 If you define one key to serve as both Meta and Compose Character, you
1715 will get strange results. In previous Emacs versions, this "worked"
1716 in that the key acted as Meta--that's because the older Emacs versions
1717 did not try to support Compose Character. Now Emacs tries to do
1718 character composition in the standard X way. This means that you
1719 must pick one meaning or the other for any given key.
1721 You can use both functions (Meta, and Compose Character) if you assign
1722 them to two different keys.
1724 * Emacs gets a segmentation fault at startup, on AIX4.2.
1726 If you are using IBM's xlc compiler, compile emacs.c
1727 without optimization; that should avoid the problem.
1729 * movemail compiled with POP support can't connect to the POP server.
1731 Make sure that the `pop' entry in /etc/services, or in the services
1732 NIS map if your machine uses NIS, has the same port number as the
1733 entry on the POP server. A common error is for the POP server to be
1734 listening on port 110, the assigned port for the POP3 protocol, while
1735 the client is trying to connect on port 109, the assigned port for the
1738 * Emacs crashes in x-popup-dialog.
1740 This can happen if the dialog widget cannot find the font it wants to
1741 use. You can work around the problem by specifying another font with
1742 an X resource--for example, `Emacs.dialog*.font: 9x15' (or any font that
1743 happens to exist on your X server).
1745 * Emacs crashes when you use Bibtex mode.
1747 This happens if your system puts a small limit on stack size. You can
1748 prevent the problem by using a suitable shell command (often `ulimit')
1749 to raise the stack size limit before you run Emacs.
1751 Patches to raise the stack size limit automatically in `main'
1752 (src/emacs.c) on various systems would be greatly appreciated.
1754 * Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on HPUX 9 after you delete a frame.
1756 We think this is due to a bug in the X libraries provided by HP. With
1757 the alternative X libraries in /usr/contrib/mitX11R5/lib, the problem
1760 * Emacs crashes with SIGBUS or SIGSEGV on Solaris after you delete a frame.
1762 We suspect that this is a similar bug in the X libraries provided by
1763 Sun. There is a report that one of these patches fixes the bug and
1764 makes the problem stop:
1766 105216-01 105393-01 105518-01 105621-01 105665-01 105615-02 105216-02
1767 105667-01 105401-08 105615-03 105621-02 105686-02 105736-01 105755-03
1768 106033-01 105379-01 105786-01 105181-04 105379-03 105786-04 105845-01
1769 105284-05 105669-02 105837-01 105837-02 105558-01 106125-02 105407-01
1771 Another person using a newer system (kernel patch level Generic_105181-06)
1772 suspects that the bug was fixed by one of these more recent patches:
1774 106040-07 SunOS 5.6: X Input & Output Method patch
1775 106222-01 OpenWindows 3.6: filemgr (ff.core) fixes
1776 105284-12 Motif 1.2.7: sparc Runtime library patch
1778 * Problems running Perl under Emacs on Windows NT/95.
1780 `perl -de 0' just hangs when executed in an Emacs subshell.
1781 The fault lies with Perl (indirectly with Windows NT/95).
1783 The problem is that the Perl debugger explicitly opens a connection to
1784 "CON", which is the DOS/NT equivalent of "/dev/tty", for interacting
1787 On Unix, this is okay, because Emacs (or the shell?) creates a
1788 pseudo-tty so that /dev/tty is really the pipe Emacs is using to
1789 communicate with the subprocess.
1791 On NT, this fails because CON always refers to the handle for the
1792 relevant console (approximately equivalent to a tty), and cannot be
1793 redirected to refer to the pipe Emacs assigned to the subprocess as
1796 A workaround is to modify perldb.pl to use STDIN/STDOUT instead of CON.
1800 *** PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL.orig Wed May 26 08:24:18 1993
1801 --- PERL/LIB/PERLDB.PL Mon Jul 01 15:28:16 1996
1808 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1816 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1821 *** perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl.orig Sun Jun 04 21:13:40 1995
1822 --- perl/5.001/lib/perl5db.pl Mon Jul 01 17:00:08 1996
1829 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1837 $rcfile="perldb.ini";
1841 * Problems on MS-DOG if DJGPP v2.0 is used to compile Emacs:
1843 There are two DJGPP library bugs which cause problems:
1845 * Running `shell-command' (or `compile', or `grep') you get
1846 `Searching for program: permission denied (EACCES), c:/command.com';
1847 * After you shell to DOS, Ctrl-Break kills Emacs.
1849 To work around these bugs, you can use two files in the msdos
1850 subdirectory: `is_exec.c' and `sigaction.c'. Compile them and link
1851 them into the Emacs executable `temacs'; then they will replace the
1852 incorrect library functions.
1854 * When compiling with DJGPP on Windows NT, "config msdos" fails.
1856 If the error message is "VDM has been already loaded", this is because
1857 Windows has a program called `redir.exe' that is incompatible with a
1858 program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
1859 config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
1860 the front of your PATH environment variable.
1862 * When compiling with DJGPP on Windows 95, Make fails for some targets
1865 This can happen if long file name support (the setting of environment
1866 variable LFN) when Emacs distribution was unpacked and during
1867 compilation are not the same. See the MSDOG section of INSTALL for
1868 the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
1870 * Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
1871 run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
1873 Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
1874 immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
1875 the Lisp files it needs to load at startup. Redirect Emacs stdout
1876 and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
1878 Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
1879 the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
1882 This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
1883 support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
1884 characters and a numeric tail that Windows 95 normally attaches to it.
1885 You should unzip the files again with a utility that supports long
1886 filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
1887 compiled with DJGPP v2). The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
1888 explains this issue in more detail.
1890 Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
1891 MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
1892 by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
1893 unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
1894 them to DOS 8+3 limits. To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
1895 must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
1898 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
1900 "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"
1902 This can happen if you define an environment variable `TERM'. Emacs
1903 on MSDOS uses an internal terminal emulator which is disabled if the
1904 value of `TERM' is anything but the string "internal". Emacs then
1905 works as if its terminal were a dumb glass teletype that doesn't
1906 support faces. To work around this, arrange for `TERM' to be
1907 undefined when Emacs runs. The best way to do that is to add an
1908 [emacs] section to the DJGPP.ENV file which defines an empty value for
1909 `TERM'; this way, only Emacs gets the empty value, while the rest of
1910 your system works as before.
1912 * On Windows 95, Alt-f6 does not get through to Emacs.
1914 This character seems to be trapped by the kernel in Windows 95.
1915 You can enter M-f6 by typing ESC f6.
1917 * Typing Alt-Shift has strange effects on Windows.
1919 This combination of keys is a command to change keyboard layout. If
1920 you proceed to type another non-modifier key before you let go of Alt
1921 and Shift, the Alt and Shift act as modifiers in the usual way. A
1922 more permanent work around is to change it to another key combination,
1923 or disable it in the keyboard control panel.
1925 * `tparam' reported as a multiply-defined symbol when linking with ncurses.
1927 This problem results from an incompatible change in ncurses, in
1928 version 1.9.9e approximately. This version is unable to provide a
1929 definition of tparm without also defining tparam. This is also
1930 incompatible with Terminfo; as a result, the Emacs Terminfo support
1931 does not work with this version of ncurses.
1933 The fix is to install a newer version of ncurses, such as version 4.2.
1935 * Emacs does not start complaining that it cannot open termcap database file.
1937 If your system uses Terminfo rather than termcap (most modern systems
1938 do), this could happen if you have an old version of ncurses
1939 installed, or if the newer version is not visible to the Emacs
1940 configure script (i.e. it cannot be found along the usual path the
1941 linker looks for libraries).
1943 The solution is to install a newer version of ncurses, and make sure
1944 the linker can find it.
1946 * Strange results from format %d in a few cases, on a Sun.
1948 Sun compiler version SC3.0 has been found to miscompile part of
1949 editfns.c. The workaround is to compile with some other compiler such
1952 * Output from subprocess (such as man or diff) is randomly truncated
1953 on GNU/Linux systems.
1955 This is due to a kernel bug which seems to be fixed in Linux version
1958 * Error messages `internal facep []' happen on GNU/Linux systems.
1960 There is a report that replacing libc.so.5.0.9 with libc.so.5.2.16
1961 caused this to start happening. People are not sure why, but the
1962 problem seems unlikely to be in Emacs itself. Some suspect that it
1963 is actually Xlib which won't work with libc.so.5.2.16.
1965 Using the old library version is a workaround.
1967 * On Solaris, Emacs crashes if you use (display-time).
1969 This can happen if you configure Emacs without specifying the precise
1970 version of Solaris that you are using.
1972 * Emacs dumps core on startup, on Solaris.
1974 Bill Sebok says that the cause of this is Solaris 2.4 vendor patch
1975 102303-05, which extends the Solaris linker to deal with the Solaris
1976 Common Desktop Environment's linking needs. You can fix the problem
1977 by removing this patch and installing patch 102049-02 instead.
1978 However, that linker version won't work with CDE.
1980 Solaris 2.5 comes with a linker that has this bug. It is reported that if
1981 you install all the latest patches (as of June 1996), the bug is fixed.
1982 We suspect the crucial patch is one of these, but we don't know
1985 103093-03: [README] SunOS 5.5: kernel patch (2140557 bytes)
1986 102832-01: [README] OpenWindows 3.5: Xview Jumbo Patch (4181613 bytes)
1987 103242-04: [README] SunOS 5.5: linker patch (595363 bytes)
1989 (One user reports that the bug was fixed by those patches together
1990 with patches 102980-04, 103279-01, 103300-02, and 103468-01.)
1992 If you can determine which patch does fix the bug, please tell
1993 bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
1995 Meanwhile, the GNU linker links Emacs properly on both Solaris 2.4 and
1998 * Emacs dumps core if lisp-complete-symbol is called, on Solaris.
2000 If you compile Emacs with the -fast or -xO4 option with version 3.0.2
2001 of the Sun C compiler, Emacs dumps core when lisp-complete-symbol is
2002 called. The problem does not happen if you compile with GCC.
2004 * "Cannot find callback list" messages from dialog boxes on HPUX, in
2005 Emacs built with Motif.
2007 This problem resulted from a bug in GCC 2.4.5. Newer GCC versions
2008 such as 2.7.0 fix the problem.
2010 * On Irix 6.0, make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi
2012 A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
2013 in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
2014 find that string, and take out the spaces.
2016 Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
2018 * "out of virtual swap space" on Irix 5.3
2020 This message occurs when the system runs out of swap space due to too
2021 many large programs running. The solution is either to provide more
2022 swap space or to reduce the number of large programs being run. You
2023 can check the current status of the swap space by executing the
2026 You can increase swap space by changing the file /etc/fstab. Adding a
2029 /usr/swap/swap.more swap swap pri=3 0 0
2031 where /usr/swap/swap.more is a file previously created (for instance
2032 by using /etc/mkfile), will increase the swap space by the size of
2033 that file. Execute `swap -m' or reboot the machine to activate the
2034 new swap area. See the manpages for `swap' and `fstab' for further
2037 The objectserver daemon can use up lots of memory because it can be
2038 swamped with NIS information. It collects information about all users
2039 on the network that can log on to the host.
2041 If you want to disable the objectserver completely, you can execute
2042 the command `chkconfig objectserver off' and reboot. That may disable
2043 some of the window system functionality, such as responding CDROM
2046 You can also remove NIS support from the objectserver. The SGI `admin'
2047 FAQ has a detailed description on how to do that; see question 35
2048 ("Why isn't the objectserver working?"). The admin FAQ can be found at
2049 ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/.
2051 * With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
2052 character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
2054 One user on a Linux-based GNU system reported that this problem went
2055 away with installation of a new X server. The failing server was
2056 XFree86 3.1.1. XFree86 3.1.2 works.
2058 * On SunOS 4.1.3, Emacs unpredictably crashes in _yp_dobind_soft.
2060 This happens if you configure Emacs specifying just `sparc-sun-sunos4'
2061 on a system that is version 4.1.3. You must specify the precise
2062 version number (or let configure figure out the configuration, which
2063 it can do perfectly well for SunOS).
2065 * On SunOS 4, Emacs processes keep going after you kill the X server
2066 (or log out, if you logged in using X).
2068 Someone reported that recompiling with GCC 2.7.0 fixed this problem.
2070 * On AIX 4, some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
2071 with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
2073 On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
2074 `unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
2075 Definitions" to make them defined.
2077 * On SunOS, you get linker errors
2078 ld: Undefined symbol
2079 _get_wmShellWidgetClass
2080 _get_applicationShellWidgetClass
2082 The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
2083 or link libXmu statically.
2085 * On AIX 4.1.2, linker error messages such as
2086 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
2087 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
2089 This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
2090 these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
2093 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
2097 Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
2100 * Unpredictable segmentation faults on Solaris 2.3 and 2.4.
2102 A user reported that this happened in 19.29 when it was compiled with
2103 the Sun compiler, but not when he recompiled with GCC 2.7.0.
2105 We do not know whether something in Emacs is partly to blame for this.
2107 * Emacs exits with "X protocol error" when run with an X server for
2110 A certain X server for Windows had a bug which caused this.
2111 Supposedly the newer 32-bit version of this server doesn't have the
2114 * Emacs crashes at startup on MSDOS.
2116 Some users report that Emacs 19.29 requires dpmi memory management,
2117 and crashes on startup if the system does not have it. We don't yet
2118 know why this happens--perhaps these machines don't have enough real
2119 memory, or perhaps something is wrong in Emacs or the compiler.
2120 However, arranging to use dpmi support is a workaround.
2122 You can find out if you have a dpmi host by running go32 without
2123 arguments; it will tell you if it uses dpmi memory. For more
2124 information about dpmi memory, consult the djgpp FAQ. (djgpp
2125 is the GNU C compiler as packaged for MSDOS.)
2127 Compiling Emacs under MSDOS is extremely sensitive for proper memory
2128 configuration. If you experience problems during compilation, consider
2129 removing some or all memory resident programs (notably disk caches)
2130 and make sure that your memory managers are properly configured. See
2131 the djgpp faq for configuration hints.
2133 * A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
2135 twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
2136 You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
2138 UsePPosition "on" #allow clients to request a position
2140 * Compiling lib-src says there is no rule to make test-distrib.c.
2142 This results from a bug in a VERY old version of GNU Sed. To solve
2143 the problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun
2144 Emacs's configure script.
2146 * Compiling wakeup, in lib-src, says it can't make wakeup.c.
2148 This results from a bug in GNU Sed version 2.03. To solve the
2149 problem, install the current version of GNU Sed, then rerun Emacs's
2152 * On Sunos 4.1.1, there are errors compiling sysdep.c.
2154 If you get errors such as
2156 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
2157 "sysdep.c", line 2017: undefined structure or union
2158 "sysdep.c", line 2019: nodename undefined
2160 This can result from defining LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It is very tricky
2161 to use that environment variable with Emacs. The Emacs configure
2162 script links many test programs with the system libraries; you must
2163 make sure that the libraries available to configure are the same
2164 ones available when you build Emacs.
2166 * The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
2167 other non-English HP keyboards too).
2169 This is because HPUX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
2170 shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
2171 configures the X server.
2173 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
2174 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
2175 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
2180 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
2182 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
2183 add mod2 = Mode_switch
2186 * The Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
2188 Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
2189 command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
2190 Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
2191 manager to use some other command. You can disable the
2192 shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
2194 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
2196 * Emacs does not notice when you release the mouse.
2198 There are reports that this happened with (some) Microsoft mice and
2199 that replacing the mouse made it stop.
2201 * Trouble using ptys on IRIX, or running out of ptys.
2203 The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
2204 be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
2205 to allocate ptys reliably.
2207 * On Irix 5.2, unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
2209 The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
2210 Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
2211 compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
2212 workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
2215 * Slow startup on Linux-based GNU systems.
2217 People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
2218 startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'.
2220 This is because Emacs looks up the host name when it starts.
2221 Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due to
2222 improper system configuration. This problem can occur for both
2223 networked and non-networked machines.
2225 Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
2229 First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
2230 exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
2231 (replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
2235 Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
2241 Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
2242 indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
2243 database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
2244 dynamically allocate ip addresses).
2246 ** Non-Networked Case
2248 The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
2249 However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
2250 simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
2251 `touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
2252 file is not necessary with this approach.
2254 * On Solaris 2.4, Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
2255 forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
2257 casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
2258 after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
2261 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
2266 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
2268 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
2272 Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
2273 (as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
2274 OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
2275 Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
2276 definition for your type of machine and system.
2278 Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
2279 the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
2280 Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
2282 For multithreaded X to work it is necessary to install patch
2283 101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
2284 to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
2287 However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
2289 #define ThreadedX YES
2291 #define ThreadedX NO
2292 in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
2293 `-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
2294 typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
2296 * With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice
2297 to do incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
2299 This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
2300 with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
2301 another escape character in kermit. One user did
2303 set escape-character 17
2305 in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
2307 * The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
2309 This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
2311 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
2313 That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
2314 do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
2315 explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
2316 the resource prevents the problem.
2318 * Emacs gets hung shortly after startup, on Sunos 4.1.3.
2320 We think this is due to a bug in Sunos. The word is that
2321 one of these Sunos patches fixes the bug:
2323 100075-11 100224-06 100347-03 100482-05 100557-02 100623-03 100804-03 101080-01
2324 100103-12 100249-09 100496-02 100564-07 100630-02 100891-10 101134-01
2325 100170-09 100296-04 100377-09 100507-04 100567-04 100650-02 101070-01 101145-01
2326 100173-10 100305-15 100383-06 100513-04 100570-05 100689-01 101071-03 101200-02
2327 100178-09 100338-05 100421-03 100536-02 100584-05 100784-01 101072-01 101207-01
2329 We don't know which of these patches really matter. If you find out
2330 which ones, please inform bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
2332 * Emacs aborts while starting up, only when run without X.
2334 This problem often results from compiling Emacs with GCC when GCC was
2335 installed incorrectly. The usual error in installing GCC is to
2336 specify --includedir=/usr/include. Installation of GCC makes
2337 corrected copies of the system header files. GCC is supposed to use
2338 the corrected copies in preference to the original system headers.
2339 Specifying --includedir=/usr/include causes the original system header
2340 files to be used. On some systems, the definition of ioctl in the
2341 original system header files is invalid for ANSI C and causes Emacs
2344 The fix is to reinstall GCC, and this time do not specify --includedir
2345 when you configure it. Then recompile Emacs. Specifying --includedir
2346 is appropriate only in very special cases and it should *never* be the
2347 same directory where system header files are kept.
2349 * On Solaris 2.x, GCC complains "64 bit integer types not supported"
2351 This suggests that GCC is not installed correctly. Most likely you
2352 are using GCC 2.7.2.3 (or earlier) on Solaris 2.6 (or later); this
2353 does not work without patching. To run GCC 2.7.2.3 on Solaris 2.6 or
2354 later, you must patch fixinc.svr4 and reinstall GCC from scratch as
2355 described in the Solaris FAQ
2356 <http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>. A better fix is
2357 to upgrade to GCC 2.8.1 or later.
2359 * The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
2361 This shell command should fix it:
2363 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
2365 * Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
2367 On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
2368 with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
2369 version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
2370 C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
2373 * On Sunos 4, you get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
2375 This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
2376 for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
2377 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
2379 * You can't select from submenus (in the X toolkit version).
2381 On certain systems, mouse-tracking and selection in top-level menus
2382 works properly with the X toolkit, but neither of them works when you
2383 bring up a submenu (such as Bookmarks or Compare or Apply Patch, in
2386 This works on most systems. There is speculation that the failure is
2387 due to bugs in old versions of X toolkit libraries, but no one really
2388 knows. If someone debugs this and finds the precise cause, perhaps a
2389 workaround can be found.
2391 * Unusable default font on SCO 3.2v4.
2393 The Open Desktop environment comes with default X resource settings
2394 that tell Emacs to use a variable-width font. Emacs cannot use such
2395 fonts, so it does not work.
2397 This is caused by the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/ScoTerm, which is
2398 the application-specific resource file for the `scoterm' terminal
2399 emulator program. It contains several extremely general X resources
2400 that affect other programs besides `scoterm'. In particular, these
2401 resources affect Emacs also:
2403 *Font: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--12-*-p-*
2404 *Background: scoBackground
2405 *Foreground: scoForeground
2407 The best solution is to create an application-specific resource file for
2408 Emacs, /usr/lib/X11/sco/startup/Emacs, with the following contents:
2410 Emacs*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
2411 Emacs*Background: white
2412 Emacs*Foreground: black
2414 (These settings mimic the Emacs defaults, but you can change them to
2415 suit your needs.) This resource file is only read when the X server
2416 starts up, so you should restart it by logging out of the Open Desktop
2417 environment or by running `scologin stop; scologin start` from the shell
2418 as root. Alternatively, you can put these settings in the
2419 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs resource file and simply restart Emacs,
2420 but then they will not affect remote invocations of Emacs that use the
2421 Open Desktop display.
2423 These resource files are not normally shared across a network of SCO
2424 machines; you must create the file on each machine individually.
2426 * rcs2log gives you the awk error message "too many fields".
2428 This is due to an arbitrary limit in certain versions of awk.
2429 The solution is to use gawk (GNU awk).
2431 * Emacs is slow using X11R5 on HP/UX.
2433 This happens if you use the MIT versions of the X libraries--it
2434 doesn't run as fast as HP's version. People sometimes use the version
2435 because they see the HP version doesn't have the libraries libXaw.a,
2436 libXmu.a, libXext.a and others. HP/UX normally doesn't come with
2437 those libraries installed. To get good performance, you need to
2438 install them and rebuild Emacs.
2440 * Loading fonts is very slow.
2442 You might be getting scalable fonts instead of precomputed bitmaps.
2443 Known scalable font directories are "Type1" and "Speedo". A font
2444 directory contains scalable fonts if it contains the file
2447 If this is so, re-order your X windows font path to put the scalable
2448 font directories last. See the documentation of `xset' for details.
2450 With some X servers, it may be necessary to take the scalable font
2451 directories out of your path entirely, at least for Emacs 19.26.
2452 Changes in the future may make this unnecessary.
2454 * On AIX 3.2.4, releasing Ctrl/Act key has no effect, if Shift is down.
2456 Due to a feature of AIX, pressing or releasing the Ctrl/Act key is
2457 ignored when the Shift, Alt or AltGr keys are held down. This can
2458 lead to the keyboard being "control-locked"--ordinary letters are
2459 treated as control characters.
2461 You can get out of this "control-locked" state by pressing and
2462 releasing Ctrl/Act while not pressing or holding any other keys.
2464 * display-time causes kernel problems on ISC systems.
2466 Under Interactive Unix versions 3.0.1 and 4.0 (and probably other
2467 versions), display-time causes the loss of large numbers of STREVENT
2468 cells. Eventually the kernel's supply of these cells is exhausted.
2469 This makes emacs and the whole system run slow, and can make other
2470 processes die, in particular pcnfsd.
2472 Other emacs functions that communicate with remote processes may have
2473 the same problem. Display-time seems to be far the worst.
2475 The only known fix: Don't run display-time.
2477 * On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
2479 This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
2480 C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
2482 * Error message `Symbol's value as variable is void: x', followed by
2483 segmentation fault and core dump.
2485 This has been tracked to a bug in tar! People report that tar erroneously
2486 added a line like this at the beginning of files of Lisp code:
2488 x FILENAME, N bytes, B tape blocks
2490 If your tar has this problem, install GNU tar--if you can manage to
2493 * Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
2495 To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
2497 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
2499 and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
2501 The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
2502 cannot easily arrange to supply them.
2504 * Link failure on IBM AIX 1.3 ptf 0013.
2506 There is a real duplicate definition of the function `_slibc_free' in
2507 the library /lib/libc_s.a (just do nm on it to verify). The
2511 ar xv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2512 ar dv libc_s.a NLtmtime.o
2514 * Undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym and/or _dlclose on a Sun.
2516 If you see undefined symbols _dlopen, _dlsym, or _dlclose when linking
2517 with -lX11, compile and link against the file mit/util/misc/dlsym.c in
2518 the MIT X11R5 distribution. Alternatively, link temacs using shared
2519 libraries with s/sunos4shr.h. (This doesn't work if you use the X
2522 If you get the additional error that the linker could not find
2523 lib_version.o, try extracting it from X11/usr/lib/X11/libvim.a in
2524 X11R4, then use it in the link.
2526 * Error messages `Wrong number of arguments: #<subr where-is-internal>, 5'
2528 This typically results from having the powerkey library loaded.
2529 Powerkey was designed for Emacs 19.22. It is obsolete now because
2530 Emacs 19 now has this feature built in; and powerkey also calls
2531 where-is-internal in an obsolete way.
2533 So the fix is to arrange not to load powerkey.
2535 * In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
2537 This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
2538 smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
2539 on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
2540 problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
2543 if ($EMACS == "t") then
2545 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
2549 * An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
2550 parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
2552 This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
2554 (which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
2555 that isn't a color.)
2557 The fix is to correct your X resources.
2559 * Undefined symbols when linking on Sunos 4.1 using --with-x-toolkit.
2561 If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
2562 _iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
2563 -lXaw in the command that links temacs.
2565 This problem seems to arise only when the international language
2566 extensions to X11R5 are installed.
2568 * Typing C-c C-c in Shell mode kills your X server.
2570 This happens with Linux kernel 1.0 thru 1.04, approximately. The workaround is
2571 to define SIGNALS_VIA_CHARACTERS in config.h and recompile Emacs.
2572 Newer Linux kernel versions don't have this problem.
2574 * src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
2576 This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
2577 had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.
2579 * Slow startup on X11R6 with X windows.
2581 If Emacs takes two minutes to start up on X11R6, see if your X
2582 resources specify any Adobe fonts. That causes the type-1 font
2583 renderer to start up, even if the font you asked for is not a type-1
2586 One way to avoid this problem is to eliminate the type-1 fonts from
2587 your font path, like this:
2589 xset -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/
2591 * Pull-down menus appear in the wrong place, in the toolkit version of Emacs.
2593 An X resource of this form can cause the problem:
2595 Emacs*geometry: 80x55+0+0
2597 This resource is supposed to apply, and does apply, to the menus
2598 individually as well as to Emacs frames. If that is not what you
2599 want, rewrite the resource.
2601 To check thoroughly for such resource specifications, use `xrdb
2602 -query' to see what resources the X server records, and also look at
2603 the user's ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xdefaults-* files.
2605 * --with-x-toolkit version crashes when used with shared libraries.
2607 On some systems, including Sunos 4 and DGUX 5.4.2 and perhaps others,
2608 unexec doesn't work properly with the shared library for the X
2609 toolkit. You might be able to work around this by using a nonshared
2610 libXt.a library. The real fix is to upgrade the various versions of
2611 unexec and/or ralloc. We think this has been fixed on Sunos 4
2612 and Solaris in version 19.29.
2614 * `make install' fails on install-doc with `Error 141'.
2616 This happens on Ultrix 4.2 due to failure of a pipeline of tar
2617 commands. We don't know why they fail, but the bug seems not to be in
2618 Emacs. The workaround is to run the shell command in install-doc by
2621 * --with-x-toolkit option configures wrong on BSD/386.
2623 This problem is due to bugs in the shell in version 1.0 of BSD/386.
2624 The workaround is to edit the configure file to use some other shell,
2627 * Subprocesses remain, hanging but not zombies, on Sunos 5.3.
2629 A bug in Sunos 5.3 causes Emacs subprocesses to remain after Emacs
2630 exits. Sun patch # 101415-02 is part of the fix for this, but it only
2631 applies to ptys, and doesn't fix the problem with subprocesses
2632 communicating through pipes.
2634 * Mail is lost when sent to local aliases.
2636 Many emacs mail user agents (VM and rmail, for instance) use the
2637 sendmail.el library. This library can arrange for mail to be
2638 delivered by passing messages to the /usr/lib/sendmail (usually)
2639 program . In doing so, it passes the '-t' flag to sendmail, which
2640 means that the name of the recipient of the message is not on the
2641 command line and, therefore, that sendmail must parse the message to
2642 obtain the destination address.
2644 There is a bug in the SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3 versions of sendmail.
2645 In short, when given the -t flag, the SunOS sendmail won't recognize
2646 non-local (i.e. NIS) aliases. It has been reported that the Solaris
2647 2.x versions of sendmail do not have this bug. For those using SunOS
2648 4.1, the best fix is to install sendmail V8 or IDA sendmail (which
2649 have other advantages over the regular sendmail as well). At the time
2650 of this writing, these official versions are available:
2652 Sendmail V8 on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/sendmail:
2653 sendmail.8.6.9.base.tar.Z (the base system source & documentation)
2654 sendmail.8.6.9.cf.tar.Z (configuration files)
2655 sendmail.8.6.9.misc.tar.Z (miscellaneous support programs)
2656 sendmail.8.6.9.xdoc.tar.Z (extended documentation, with postscript)
2658 IDA sendmail on vixen.cso.uiuc.edu in /pub:
2659 sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5.tar.gz
2661 * On AIX, you get this message when running Emacs:
2663 Could not load program emacs
2664 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
2665 Error was: Exec format error
2669 Could not load program .emacs
2670 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
2671 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
2672 Error was: Exec format error
2674 These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
2675 compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
2677 * On AIX, you get this compiler error message:
2679 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
2680 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
2682 This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
2683 libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
2684 X11Dev... with smit.
2686 * You "lose characters" after typing Compose Character key.
2688 This is because the Compose Character key is defined as the keysym
2689 Multi_key, and Emacs (seeing that) does the proper X11
2690 character-composition processing. If you don't want your Compose key
2691 to do that, you can redefine it with xmodmap.
2693 For example, here's one way to turn it into a Meta key:
2695 xmodmap -e "keysym Multi_key = Meta_L"
2697 If all users at your site of a particular keyboard prefer Meta to
2698 Compose, you can make the remapping happen automatically by adding the
2699 xmodmap command to the xdm setup script for that display.
2701 * C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
2703 You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
2704 though the system itself is capable of it. Either use a different shell,
2705 or set the variable `cannot-suspend' to a non-nil value.
2707 * Watch out for .emacs files and EMACSLOADPATH environment vars
2709 These control the actions of Emacs.
2710 ~/.emacs is your Emacs init file.
2711 EMACSLOADPATH overrides which directories the function
2714 If you observe strange problems, check for these and get rid
2715 of them, then try again.
2717 * After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
2719 Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
2720 mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
2721 the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
2723 Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
2724 you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
2725 operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
2726 configure script) that reads:
2727 #define SYSTEM_MALLOC
2728 This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
2731 * Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
2732 directly with an X server.
2734 If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
2735 does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
2736 whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
2737 followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
2738 it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
2739 have made the key binding correctly.
2741 If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
2742 be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
2743 server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
2746 If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
2748 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
2749 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
2751 If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
2752 commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
2753 are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
2754 modifier bit not otherwise used.
2756 If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
2757 keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
2758 some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
2759 commands show above to make them modifier keys.
2761 Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
2762 into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
2764 * `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'
2766 On HP/UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
2767 file system. HP/UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
2768 does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
2769 value is just ten seconds.
2771 If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
2773 * `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped Emacs on.
2775 On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
2776 in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
2777 expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
2778 in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
2780 The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
2781 anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
2783 I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
2784 going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
2785 Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
2786 in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
2788 * On some variants of SVR4, Emacs does not work at all with X.
2790 Try defining BROKEN_FIONREAD in your config.h file. If this solves
2791 the problem, please send a bug report to tell us this is needed; be
2792 sure to say exactly what type of machine and system you are using.
2794 * Linking says that the functions insque and remque are undefined.
2796 Change oldXMenu/Makefile by adding insque.o to the variable OBJS.
2798 * Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
2799 the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
2800 * Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
2801 * GNUs can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
2803 This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
2804 libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
2805 shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
2806 similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
2808 The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
2809 the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
2811 The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
2812 installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
2814 On SunOS 4.1, simply define HAVE_RES_INIT.
2816 If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
2817 then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
2818 do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
2819 or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
2820 that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
2821 be careful not to lose the others.
2823 Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
2825 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
2827 Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
2828 the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
2831 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
2833 * On a Sun running SunOS 4.1.1, you get this error message from GNU ld:
2835 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
2837 The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
2839 The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
2841 * Self documentation messages are garbled.
2843 This means that the file `etc/DOC-...' doesn't properly correspond
2844 with the Emacs executable. Redumping Emacs and then installing the
2845 corresponding pair of files should fix the problem.
2847 * Trouble using ptys on AIX.
2849 People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
2850 Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
2852 * Shell mode on HP/UX gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
2854 christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
2856 The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
2857 execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then
2858 tty will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places,
2859 but tty is giving it back 3.
2861 The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a single
2864 if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
2866 should be changed to:
2868 if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
2870 Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
2873 * Using X Windows, control-shift-leftbutton makes Emacs hang.
2875 Use the shell command `xset bc' to make the old X Menu package work.
2877 * Emacs running under X Windows does not handle mouse clicks.
2878 * `emacs -geometry 80x20' finds a file named `80x20'.
2880 One cause of such problems is having (setq term-file-prefix nil) in
2881 your .emacs file. Another cause is a bad value of EMACSLOADPATH in
2884 * Emacs gets error message from linker on Sun.
2886 If the error message says that a symbol such as `f68881_used' or
2887 `ffpa_used' or `start_float' is undefined, this probably indicates
2888 that you have compiled some libraries, such as the X libraries,
2889 with a floating point option other than the default.
2891 It's not terribly hard to make this work with small changes in
2892 crt0.c together with linking with Fcrt1.o, Wcrt1.o or Mcrt1.o.
2893 However, the easiest approach is to build Xlib with the default
2894 floating point option: -fsoft.
2896 * Emacs fails to get default settings from X Windows server.
2898 The X library in X11R4 has a bug; it interchanges the 2nd and 3rd
2899 arguments to XGetDefaults. Define the macro XBACKWARDS in config.h to
2900 tell Emacs to compensate for this.
2902 I don't believe there is any way Emacs can determine for itself
2903 whether this problem is present on a given system.
2905 * Keyboard input gets confused after a beep when using a DECserver
2908 This problem seems to be a matter of configuring the DECserver to use
2909 7 bit characters rather than 8 bit characters.
2911 * M-x shell persistently reports "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1".
2913 This happened on Suns as a result of what is said to be a bug in Sunos
2914 version 4.0.x. The only fix was to reboot the machine.
2916 * Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
2919 The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
2920 environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
2921 provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
2924 Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
2925 in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
2926 it only if it is undefined.
2928 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
2930 Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
2931 happen in a non-login shell.
2933 * X Windows doesn't work if DISPLAY uses a hostname.
2935 People have reported kernel bugs in certain systems that cause Emacs
2936 not to work with X Windows if DISPLAY is set using a host name. But
2937 the problem does not occur if DISPLAY is set to `unix:0.0'. I think
2938 the bug has to do with SIGIO or FIONREAD.
2940 You may be able to compensate for the bug by doing (set-input-mode nil nil).
2941 However, that has the disadvantage of turning off interrupts, so that
2942 you are unable to quit out of a Lisp program by typing C-g.
2944 The easy way to do this is to put
2946 (setq x-sigio-bug t)
2948 in your site-init.el file.
2950 * Problem with remote X server on Suns.
2952 On a Sun, running Emacs on one machine with the X server on another
2953 may not work if you have used the unshared system libraries. This
2954 is because the unshared libraries fail to use YP for host name lookup.
2955 As a result, the host name you specify may not be recognized.
2957 * Shell mode ignores interrupts on Apollo Domain
2959 You may find that M-x shell prints the following message:
2961 Warning: no access to tty; thus no job control in this shell...
2963 This can happen if there are not enough ptys on your system.
2964 Here is how to make more of them.
2968 # shows how many pty's you have. I had 8, named pty0 to pty7)
2970 # creates eight new pty's
2972 * Fatal signal in the command temacs -l loadup inc dump
2974 This command is the final stage of building Emacs. It is run by the
2975 Makefile in the src subdirectory, or by build.com on VMS.
2977 It has been known to get fatal errors due to insufficient swapping
2978 space available on the machine.
2980 On 68000's, it has also happened because of bugs in the
2981 subroutine `alloca'. Verify that `alloca' works right, even
2982 for large blocks (many pages).
2984 * test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered
2985 * or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127"
2986 * or, temacs runs and dumps emacs, but emacs totally fails to work.
2987 * or, temacs gets errors dumping emacs
2989 This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
2990 fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are
2991 binary files and can contain all 256 byte values.
2993 In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs.
2994 It typically truncates "lines". What appear to be "lines" in
2995 a binary file can of course be of any length. Even once `shar'
2996 itself is made to work correctly, `sh' discards null characters
2997 when unpacking the shell archive.
2999 I have also seen character \177 changed into \377. I do not know
3000 what transfer means caused this problem. Various network
3001 file transfer programs are suspected of clobbering the high bit.
3003 If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its
3004 nonprinting characters, you can fix them:
3006 1) Record the names of all the .elc files.
3007 2) Delete all the .elc files.
3008 3) Recompile alloc.c with a value of PURESIZE twice as large.
3009 (See puresize.h.) You might as well save the old alloc.o.
3010 4) Remake emacs. It should work now.
3011 5) Running emacs, do Meta-x byte-compile-file repeatedly
3012 to recreate all the .elc files that used to exist.
3013 You may need to increase the value of the variable
3014 max-lisp-eval-depth to succeed in running the compiler interpreted
3015 on certain .el files. 400 was sufficient as of last report.
3016 6) Reinstall the old alloc.o (undoing changes to alloc.c if any)
3018 7) Remake emacs. It should work now, with valid .elc files.
3020 * temacs prints "Pure Lisp storage exhausted"
3022 This means that the Lisp code loaded from the .elc and .el
3023 files during temacs -l loadup inc dump took up more
3024 space than was allocated.
3026 This could be caused by
3027 1) adding code to the preloaded Lisp files
3028 2) adding more preloaded files in loadup.el
3029 3) having a site-init.el or site-load.el which loads files.
3030 Note that ANY site-init.el or site-load.el is nonstandard;
3031 if you have received Emacs from some other site
3032 and it contains a site-init.el or site-load.el file, consider
3034 4) getting the wrong .el or .elc files
3035 (not from the directory you expected).
3036 5) deleting some .elc files that are supposed to exist.
3037 This would cause the source files (.el files) to be
3038 loaded instead. They take up more room, so you lose.
3039 6) a bug in the Emacs distribution which underestimates
3042 If the need for more space is legitimate, change the definition
3043 of PURESIZE in puresize.h.
3045 But in some of the cases listed above, this problem is a consequence
3046 of something else that is wrong. Be sure to check and fix the real
3049 * Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
3051 You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files.
3052 Then the old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes
3053 will not be seen. To fix this, do M-x byte-recompile-directory
3054 and specify the directory that contains the Lisp files.
3056 Emacs should print a warning when loading a .elc file which is older
3057 than the corresponding .el file.
3059 * The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
3061 Two causes have been seen for such problems.
3063 1) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
3064 as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
3065 it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
3066 value in the man page for a.out (5).
3068 2) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
3069 initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
3070 of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
3071 not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
3072 may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
3074 * Compilation errors on VMS.
3076 You will get warnings when compiling on VMS because there are
3077 variable names longer than 32 (or whatever it is) characters.
3078 This is not an error. Ignore it.
3080 VAX C does not support #if defined(foo). Uses of this construct
3081 were removed, but some may have crept back in. They must be rewritten.
3083 There is a bug in the C compiler which fails to sign extend characters
3084 in conditional expressions. The bug is:
3089 The result is i == 255; the fix is to typecast the char in the
3090 conditional expression as an (int). Known occurrences of such
3091 constructs in Emacs have been fixed.
3093 * rmail gets error getting new mail
3095 rmail gets new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
3096 called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using
3097 the protocol defined by /bin/mail.
3099 There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
3100 the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
3101 `movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
3102 this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining,
3103 the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.
3104 IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR
3105 SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
3107 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
3108 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
3109 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
3110 `mail'. You can use these commands (as root):
3115 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
3116 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
3117 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
3118 `mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the
3124 Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
3125 installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
3126 installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
3127 /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
3128 mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
3129 directory copy is ineffective.
3131 * Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
3133 This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
3134 used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
3135 away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
3136 streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
3137 user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
3138 properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
3139 input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
3140 easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
3142 There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
3144 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
3145 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
3146 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
3148 First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
3149 they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
3150 "no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
3151 escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
3152 and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
3153 control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
3155 Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
3156 needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
3157 by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
3158 rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
3159 your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
3160 it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
3161 the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
3162 problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
3163 to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
3165 For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
3166 giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
3167 codes. You might as well try it.
3169 If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
3170 through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
3171 computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
3172 much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
3173 control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
3174 you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
3175 replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
3176 measures can make Emacs semi-work.
3178 You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
3179 handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
3180 enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
3181 now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
3182 enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
3185 If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
3186 is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
3187 other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
3188 and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
3189 other control characters are already used by emacs.
3191 IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
3192 Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
3195 If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
3196 certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
3197 `enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
3198 automatically. Here is an example:
3200 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
3202 If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
3203 and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
3206 I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
3207 assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
3208 control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
3209 merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
3210 widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
3211 use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
3212 will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
3213 of inferior systems.
3215 * Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
3217 For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
3218 control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
3219 terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
3220 that wants to use flow control.
3222 You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
3223 If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
3224 flow control, as described in the preceding section.
3226 If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
3227 into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
3228 shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
3230 * Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net connection.
3232 Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
3233 control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
3234 On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
3235 control on the local system.
3237 One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
3238 (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
3239 stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
3240 "stty start u stop u" will do this.
3242 Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
3243 around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
3244 issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
3246 If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
3247 M-x enable-flow-control at the beginning of your emacs session, or
3248 if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
3249 following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
3251 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
3253 See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
3256 * Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
3258 This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that
3259 terminal is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing
3260 the combination of features specified for that terminal.
3262 The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
3263 Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
3264 (open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all
3265 terminal output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do
3266 what makes the screen update wrong, and look at the file
3267 and decode the characters using the manual for the terminal.
3268 There are several possibilities:
3270 1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
3272 In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
3273 need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
3275 2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect
3276 of the terminal behavior not described in an obvious way
3279 This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for
3280 Emacs to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior
3281 and other terminals that behave subtly differently but are
3282 classified the same by termcap; or else find an algorithm for
3283 Emacs to use that avoids the difference. Such changes must be
3284 tested on many kinds of terminals.
3286 3) The termcap entry is wrong.
3288 See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes
3289 that are known to be needed in commonly used termcap entries
3290 for certain terminals.
3292 4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be
3293 right for any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
3295 This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed
3296 in termcap.c, tparam.c, term.c, scroll.c, cm.c or dispnew.c.
3298 * Output from Control-V is slow.
3300 On many bit-map terminals, scrolling operations are fairly slow.
3301 Often the termcap entry for the type of terminal in use fails
3302 to inform Emacs of this. The two lines at the bottom of the screen
3303 before a Control-V command are supposed to appear at the top after
3304 the Control-V command. If Emacs thinks scrolling the lines is fast,
3305 it will scroll them to the top of the screen.
3307 If scrolling is slow but Emacs thinks it is fast, the usual reason is
3308 that the termcap entry for the terminal you are using does not
3309 specify any padding time for the `al' and `dl' strings. Emacs
3310 concludes that these operations take only as much time as it takes to
3311 send the commands at whatever line speed you are using. You must
3312 fix the termcap entry to specify, for the `al' and `dl', as much
3313 time as the operations really take.
3315 Currently Emacs thinks in terms of serial lines which send characters
3316 at a fixed rate, so that any operation which takes time for the
3317 terminal to execute must also be padded. With bit-map terminals
3318 operated across networks, often the network provides some sort of
3319 flow control so that padding is never needed no matter how slow
3320 an operation is. You must still specify a padding time if you want
3321 Emacs to realize that the operation takes a long time. This will
3322 cause padding characters to be sent unnecessarily, but they do
3323 not really cost much. They will be transmitted while the scrolling
3324 is happening and then discarded quickly by the terminal.
3326 Most bit-map terminals provide commands for inserting or deleting
3327 multiple lines at once. Define the `AL' and `DL' strings in the
3328 termcap entry to say how to do these things, and you will have
3329 fast output without wasted padding characters. These strings should
3330 each contain a single %-spec saying how to send the number of lines
3331 to be scrolled. These %-specs are like those in the termcap
3334 You should also define the `IC' and `DC' strings if your terminal
3335 has a command to insert or delete multiple characters. These
3336 take the number of positions to insert or delete as an argument.
3338 A `cs' string to set the scrolling region will reduce the amount
3339 of motion you see on the screen when part of the screen is scrolled.
3341 * Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal, using an AIXterm.
3343 The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
3345 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
3346 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
3348 This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
3350 * You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
3352 Put `stty dec' in your .login file and your problems will disappear
3355 The choice of Backspace for erasure was based on confusion, caused by
3356 the fact that backspacing causes erasure (later, when you type another
3357 character) on most display terminals. But it is a mistake. Deletion
3358 of text is not the same thing as backspacing followed by failure to
3359 overprint. I do not wish to propagate this confusion by conforming
3362 For this reason, I believe `stty dec' is the right mode to use,
3363 and I have designed Emacs to go with that. If there were a thousand
3364 other control characters, I would define Control-h to delete as well;
3365 but there are not very many other control characters, and I think
3366 that providing the most mnemonic possible Help character is more
3367 important than adapting to people who don't use `stty dec'.
3369 If you are obstinate about confusing buggy overprinting with deletion,
3370 you can redefine Backspace in your .emacs file:
3371 (global-set-key "\b" 'delete-backward-char)
3372 You can probably access help-command via f1.
3374 * Editing files through RFS gives spurious "file has changed" warnings.
3375 It is possible that a change in Emacs 18.37 gets around this problem,
3376 but in case not, here is a description of how to fix the RFS bug that
3379 There was a serious pair of bugs in the handling of the fsync() system
3380 call in the RFS server.
3382 The first is that the fsync() call is handled as another name for the
3383 close() system call (!!). It appears that fsync() is not used by very
3384 many programs; Emacs version 18 does an fsync() before closing files
3385 to make sure that the bits are on the disk.
3387 This is fixed by the enclosed patch to the RFS server.
3389 The second, more serious problem, is that fsync() is treated as a
3390 non-blocking system call (i.e., it's implemented as a message that
3391 gets sent to the remote system without waiting for a reply). Fsync is
3392 a useful tool for building atomic file transactions. Implementing it
3393 as a non-blocking RPC call (when the local call blocks until the sync
3394 is done) is a bad idea; unfortunately, changing it will break the RFS
3395 protocol. No fix was supplied for this problem.
3397 (as always, your line numbers may vary)
3399 % rcsdiff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
3400 RCS file: RCS/serversyscall.c,v
3401 retrieving revision 1.2
3402 diff -c -r1.2 serversyscall.c
3403 *** /tmp/,RCSt1003677 Wed Jan 28 15:15:02 1987
3404 --- serversyscall.c Wed Jan 28 15:14:48 1987
3408 * No return sent for close or fsync!
3410 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close || syscall == RSYS_fsync)
3411 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
3416 * No return sent for close or fsync!
3418 ! if (syscall == RSYS_close)
3419 proc->p_returnval = deallocate_fd(proc, msg->m_args[0]);
3423 * Vax C compiler bugs affecting Emacs.
3425 You may get one of these problems compiling Emacs:
3427 foo.c line nnn: compiler error: no table entry for op STASG
3428 foo.c: fatal error in /lib/ccom
3430 These are due to bugs in the C compiler; the code is valid C.
3431 Unfortunately, the bugs are unpredictable: the same construct
3432 may compile properly or trigger one of these bugs, depending
3433 on what else is in the source file being compiled. Even changes
3434 in header files that should not affect the file being compiled
3435 can affect whether the bug happens. In addition, sometimes files
3436 that compile correctly on one machine get this bug on another machine.
3438 As a result, it is hard for me to make sure this bug will not affect
3439 you. I have attempted to find and alter these constructs, but more
3440 can always appear. However, I can tell you how to deal with it if it
3441 should happen. The bug comes from having an indexed reference to an
3442 array of Lisp_Objects, as an argument in a function call:
3445 ... foo (5, args[i], ...)...
3446 putting the argument into a temporary variable first, as in
3451 ... foo (r, tem, ...)...
3452 causes the problem to go away.
3453 The `contents' field of a Lisp vector is an array of Lisp_Objects,
3454 so you may see the problem happening with indexed references to that.
3456 * 68000 C compiler problems
3458 Various 68000 compilers have different problems.
3459 These are some that have been observed.
3461 ** Using value of assignment expression on union type loses.
3462 This means that x = y = z; or foo (x = z); does not work
3463 if x is of type Lisp_Object.
3465 ** "cannot reclaim" error.
3467 This means that an expression is too complicated. You get the correct
3468 line number in the error message. The code must be rewritten with
3469 simpler expressions.
3471 ** XCONS, XSTRING, etc macros produce incorrect code.
3473 If temacs fails to run at all, this may be the cause.
3474 Compile this test program and look at the assembler code:
3476 struct foo { char x; unsigned int y : 24; };
3481 test ((int *) arg.y);
3484 If the code is incorrect, your compiler has this problem.
3485 In the XCONS, etc., macros in lisp.h you must replace (a).u.val with
3486 ((a).u.val + coercedummy) where coercedummy is declared as int.
3488 This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3489 of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE. That is the recommended setting now.
3491 * C compilers lose on returning unions
3493 I hear that some C compilers cannot handle returning a union type.
3494 Most of the functions in GNU Emacs return type Lisp_Object, which is
3495 defined as a union on some rare architectures.
3497 This problem will not happen if the m-...h file for your type
3498 of machine defines NO_UNION_TYPE.