pkg://xemacs-21.4.10.tar.gz:10610789/
xemacs-21.4.10/PROBLEMS
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-*- mode:outline -*-
This file describes various problems that have been encountered
in compiling, installing and running XEmacs. It has been updated for
XEmacs 21.4.
This file is rather large, but we have tried to sort the entries by
their respective relevance for XEmacs, but may have not succeeded
completely in that task. The file is divided into four parts:
- Problems with building XEmacs
- Problems with running XEmacs
- Compatibility problems
- Mule issues
Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
`C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
info about the Outline mode.
Also, try finding the things you need using one of the search commands
XEmacs provides (e.g. `C-s').
General advice:
WATCH OUT for your init file! (~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs) If
you observe strange problems, invoke XEmacs with the `-vanilla'
option and see if you can repeat the problem.
Note that most of the problems described here manifest at RUN
time, even those described as BUILD problems. It is quite unusual
for a released XEmacs to fail to build. So a "build problem"
requires you to tweak the build environment, then rebuild XEmacs.
A "runtime problem" is one that can be fixed by proper
configuration of the existing build. Compatibility problems and
Mule issues are generally runtime problems, but are treated
separately for convenience.
* Problems with building XEmacs
===============================
** General
Much general information is in INSTALL. If it's covered in
INSTALL, we don't repeat it here.
*** How does I configure to get the buffer tabs/progress bars?
These features depend on support for "native widgets". Use the
--with-widgets option to configure. Configuration of widgets is
automatic for "modern" toolkits (MS Windows, GTK, and Motif), but if
you are using Xt and the Athena widgets, you will probably want to
specify a "3d" widget set. See configure --usage, and don't forget to
install the corresponding development libraries.
*** I know I have libfoo installed, but configure doesn't find it.
Typical of Linux systems with package managers. To link with a shared
library, you only need the shared library. To compile objects that
link with it, you need the headers---and distros don't provide them with
the libraries. You need the additional "development" package, too.
*** Don't use -O2 with gcc 2.8.1 and egcs 1.0 under SPARC architectures
without also using `-fno-schedule-insns'.
gcc will generate incorrect code otherwise, typically resulting in
crashes in the function skip-syntax-backward.
*** egcs-1.1
There have been reports of egcs-1.1 not compiling XEmacs correctly on
Alpha Linux. There have also been reports that egcs-1.0.3a is O.K.
*** Don't use -O2 or -O3 with Cygwin 1.0, CodeFusion-99070 or gcc 2.7.2 on x86
without also using `-fno-strength-reduce'.
gcc will generate incorrect code otherwise. This bug is present in at
least 2.6.x and 2.7.[0-2]. This bug has been fixed in GCC 2.7.2.1 and
later. This bug is O/S independent, but is limited to x86 architectures.
This problem is known to be fixed in egcs (or pgcc) 1.0 or later.
Unfortunately, later releases of Cygnus-released compilers (not the
Net-released ones) have a bug with the same `problem signature'.
If you're lucky, you'll get an error while compiling that looks like:
event-stream.c:3189: internal error--unrecognizable insn:
(insn 256 14 15 (set (reg/v:SI 24)
(minus:SI (reg/v:SI 25)
(const_int 2))) -1 (insn_list 11 (nil))
(nil))
0 0 [main]
If you're unlucky, your code will simply execute incorrectly.
*** Don't use gcc-2.95.2 with -mcpu=ultrasparc on Solaris 2.6.
gcc will assume a 64-bit operating system, even though you've
merely told it to assume a 64-bit instruction set.
*** Don't use -O2 with gcc 2.7.2 under Intel architectures without also
using `-fno-caller-saves'.
gcc will generate incorrect code otherwise. This bug is still
present in gcc 2.7.2.3. There have been no reports to indicate the
bug is present in egcs 1.0 (or pgcc 1.0) or later. This bug is O/S
independent, but limited to x86 architectures.
This problem is known to be fixed in egcs (or pgcc) 1.0 or later.
*** When using gcc, you get the error message "undefined symbol __fixunsdfsi".
When using gcc, you get the error message "undefined symbol __main".
This means that you need to link with the gcc library. It may be called
"gcc-gnulib" or "libgcc.a"; figure out where it is, and define LIB_GCC in
config.h to point to it.
It may also work to use the GCC version of `ld' instead of the standard one.
*** Excessive optimization with pgcc can break XEmacs
It has been reported on some systems that compiling with -O6 can lead
to XEmacs failures. The workaround is to use a lower optimization
level. -O2 and -O4 have been tested extensively.
All of this depends heavily on the version of pgcc and the version
of libc. Snapshots near the release of pgcc-1.0 have been tested
extensively and no sign of breakage has been seen on systems using
glibc-2.
*** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.
*** When compiling with X11, you get "undefined symbol _XtStrings".
This means that you are trying to link emacs against the X11r4 version of
libXt.a, but you have compiled either Emacs or the code in the lwlib
subdirectory with the X11r5 header files. That doesn't work.
Remember, you can't compile lwlib for r4 and emacs for r5, or vice versa.
They must be in sync.
*** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered
or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127"
or, temacs runs and dumps xemacs, but xemacs totally fails to work.
or, temacs gets errors dumping xemacs
This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are binary
files and can contain all 256 byte values.
In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs. It
typically truncates "lines". (this does not apply to GNU shar, which
uses uuencode to encode binary files.)
If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its nonprinting
characters, you can fix them by running:
make all-elc
This will rebuild all the needed .elc files.
*** `compress' and `uncompress' not found and XFree86
XFree86 installs a very old version of libz.a by default ahead of where
more modern version of libz might be installed. This will cause problems
when attempting to link against libMagick. The fix is to remove the old
libz.a in the X11 binary directory.
** AIX
*** On AIX 4.3, you must specify --with-dialogs=athena with configure
*** The libXt shipped with AIX 4.3 up to 4.3.2 is broken. This causes
xemacs -nw to fail in various ways. The official APAR is this:
APAR NUMBER: <IX89470> RESOLVED AS: PROGRAM ERROR
ABSTRACT:
<IX89470>: LIBXT.A INCORRECT HANDLING OF EXCEPTIONS IN XTAPPADDINPUT
The solution is to install X11.base.lib at version >=4.3.2.5.
*** On AIX, you get this compiler error message:
Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
X11Dev... with smit.
*** On AIX 4.1.2, linker error messages such as
ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
you build Emacs:
cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
chmod 664 libIM.a
ranlib libIM.a
Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
Makefile).
*** Excessive optimization on AIX 4.2 can lead to compiler failure.
Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu writes:
At least at the b34 level, and the latest-and-greatest IBM xlc
(3.1.4.4), there are problems with -O3. I haven't investigated
further.
** SunOS/Solaris
*** Crashes when using Motif libraries, especially with multiple frames.
Crashes that produce C-backtraces like this:
#0 0xfec9a118 in _libc_kill () from /usr/lib/libc.so.1
#1 0x77f48 in fatal_error_signal (sig=11)
at /codes/rpluim/xemacs-21.4/src/emacs.c:539
#2 <signal handler called>
#3 0xfee929f4 in XFindContext () from /usr/openwin/lib/libX11.so.4
#4 0xfee92930 in XFindContext () from /usr/openwin/lib/libX11.so.4
#5 0xff297e54 in DisplayDestroy () from /usr/dt/lib/libXm.so.4
#6 0xfefbece0 in XtCallCallbackList () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
#7 0xfefc486c in XtPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
#8 0xfefc45d0 in _XtDoPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
#9 0xfefc43b4 in XtDestroyWidget () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
#10 0x15cf9c in x_delete_device (d=0x523f00)
are caused by buggy Motif libraries. Installing the following patches
has been reported to solve the problem on Solaris 2.7:
107081-40 107656-07
For information (although they have not been confirmed to work), the
equivalent patches for Solaris 2.8 are:
108940-33 108652-25
*** Dumping error when using GNU binutils / GNU ld on a Sun.
Errors similar to the following:
Dumping under the name xemacs unexec():
dldump(/space/rpluim/xemacs-obj/src/xemacs): ld.so.1: ./temacs:
fatal: /space/rpluim/xemacs-obj/src/xemacs: unknown dynamic entry:
1879048176
are caused by using GNU ld. There are several workarounds available:
In XEmacs 21.2 or later, configure using the new portable dumper
(--pdump).
Alternatively, you can link using the Sun version of ld, which is
normally held in /usr/ccs/bin. This can be done by one of:
- building gcc with these configure flags:
configure --with-ld=/usr/ccs/bin/ld --with-as=/usr/ccs/bin/as
- adding -B/usr/ccs/bin/ to CFLAGS used to configure XEmacs
(Note: The trailing '/' there is significant.)
- uninstalling GNU ld.
- configuring XEmacs with these environment settings (suggested by
Goran Koruga <goran.koruga@hermes.si>):
LD=/usr/ccs/bin/ld AS=/usr/ccs/bin/as configure
The Solaris2 FAQ claims:
When you install gcc, don't make the mistake of installing
GNU binutils or GNU libc, they are not as capable as their
counterparts you get with Solaris 2.x.
*** Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
cannot easily arrange to supply them.
*** Problems finding X11 libraries on Solaris with Openwindows
Some users have reported problems in this area. The reported solution
is to define the environment variable OPENWINHOME, even if you must set
it to `/usr/openwin'.
*** Sed problems on Solaris 2.5
There have been reports of Sun sed truncating very lines in the
Makefile during configuration. The workaround is to use GNU sed or,
even better, think of a better way to generate Makefile, and send us a
patch. :-)
*** On Solaris 2 I get undefined symbols from libcurses.a.
You probably have /usr/ucblib/ on your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Do the link with
LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset. Generally, avoid using any ucb* stuff when
building XEmacs.
*** On Solaris 2 I cannot make alloc.o, glyphs.o or process.o.
The SparcWorks C compiler may have difficulty building those modules
with optimization level -xO4. Try using only "-fast" optimization
for just those modules. (Or use gcc).
*** Solaris 2.3 /bin/sh coredumps during configuration.
This only occurs if you have LANG != C. This is a known bug with
/bin/sh fixed by installing Patch-ID# 101613-01. Or, you can use
bash, as a workaround.
*** On SunOS, you get linker errors
ld: Undefined symbol
_get_wmShellWidgetClass
_get_applicationShellWidgetClass
The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
or link libXmu statically.
*** On Sunos 4, you get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
/usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
*** Undefined symbols when linking on Sunos 4.1.
If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
_iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
-lXaw in the command that links temacs.
This problem seems to arise only when the international language
extensions to X11R5 are installed.
*** On a Sun running SunOS 4.1.1, you get this error message from GNU ld:
/lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
*** SunOS 4.1.2: undefined symbol _get_wmShellWidgetClass
Apparently the version of libXmu.so.a that Sun ships is hosed: it's missing
some stuff that is in libXmu.a (the static version). Sun has a patch for
this, but a workaround is to use the static version of libXmu, by changing
the link command from "-lXmu" to "-Bstatic -lXmu -Bdynamic". If you have
OpenWindows 3.0, ask Sun for these patches:
100512-02 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 libXt Jumbo patch
100573-03 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 undefined symbols with shared libXmu
*** Random other SunOS 4.1.[12] link errors.
The X headers and libraries that Sun ships in /usr/{include,lib}/X11 are
broken. Use the ones in /usr/openwin/{include,lib} instead.
** Linux
*** Under Linux, you get "too many arguments to function `getpgrp'".
You have probably installed LessTiff under `/usr/local' and `libXm.so'
could not be found when linking `getpgrp()' test program, making XEmacs
think that `getpgrp()' takes an argument. Try adding `/usr/local/lib'
in `/etc/ld.so.conf' and run `ldconfig'. Then run XEmacs's `configure'
again. As with all problems of this type, reading the config.log file
generated from configure and seeing the log of how the test failed can
prove enlightening.
*** `Error: No ExtNode to pop!' on Linux systems with Lesstif.
This error message has been observed with lesstif-0.75a. It does not
appear to cause any harm.
*** xemacs: can't resolve symbol '__malloc_hook'
This is a Linux problem where you've compiled the XEmacs binary on a libc
5.4 with version higher than 5.4.19 and attempted to run the binary against
an earlier version. The solution is to upgrade your old library.
** IRIX
*** On Irix 6.5, the MIPSpro compiler gets an internal compiler error
The MIPSpro Compiler (at least version 7.2.1) can't seem to handle the
union type properly, and fails to compile src/glyphs.c. To avoid this
problem, always build ---use-union-type=no (but that's the default, so
you should only see this problem if you're an XEmacs maintainer).
*** Linking with -rpath on IRIX.
Darrell Kindred <dkindred@cmu.edu> writes:
There are a couple of problems [with use of -rpath with Irix ld], though:
1. The ld in IRIX 5.3 ignores all but the last -rpath
spec, so the patched configure spits out a warning
if --x-libraries or --site-runtime-libraries are
specified under irix 5.x, and it only adds -rpath
entries for the --site-runtime-libraries. This bug was
fixed sometime between 5.3 and 6.2.
2. IRIX gcc 2.7.2 doesn't accept -rpath directly, so
it would have to be prefixed by -Xlinker or "-Wl,".
This would be fine, except that configure compiles with
${CC-cc} $CFLAGS $LDFLAGS ...
rather than quoting $LDFLAGS with prefix-args, like
src/Makefile does. So if you specify --x-libraries
or --site-runtime-libraries, you must use --use-gcc=no,
or configure will fail.
*** On Irix 6.3, the SGI ld quits with segmentation fault when linking temacs
This occurs if you use the SGI linker version 7.1. Installing the
patch SG0001872 fixes this problem.
*** On Irix 6.0, make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi
A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
find that string, and take out the spaces.
Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
*** On Irix 5.2, unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
syms.h.
*** Coredumping in Irix 6.2
Pete Forman <gsez020@compo.bedford.waii.com> writes:
A problem noted by myself and others (I've lost the references) was
that XEmacs coredumped when the cut or copy toolbar buttons were
pressed. This has been fixed by loading the SGI patchset (Feb 98)
without having to recompile XEmacs.
My versions are XEmacs 20.3 (problem first noted in 19.15) and IRIX
6.2, compiled using -n32. I'd guess that the relevant individual
patch was "SG0002580: multiple fixes for X libraries". SGI recommends
that the complete patch set be installed rather than parts of it.
** Digital UNIX/OSF/VMS
*** On Digital UNIX, the DEC C compiler might have a problem compiling
some files.
In particular, src/extents.c and src/faces.c might cause the DEC C
compiler to abort. When this happens: cd src, compile the files by
hand, cd .., and redo the "make" command. When recompiling the files by
hand, use the old C compiler for the following versions of Digital UNIX:
- V3.n: Remove "-migrate" from the compile command.
- V4.n: Add "-oldc" to the compile command.
A related compiler bug has been fixed by the DEC compiler team. The
new versions of the compiler should run fine.
*** Under some versions of OSF XEmacs runs fine if built without
optimization but will crash randomly if built with optimization.
Using 'cc -g' is not sufficient to eliminate all optimization. Try
'cc -g -O0' instead.
*** Compilation errors on VMS.
Sorry, XEmacs does not work under VMS. You might consider working on
the port if you really want to have XEmacs work under VMS.
** HP-UX
*** On HPUX, the HP C compiler might have a problem compiling some files
with optimization.
Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
Had to drop once again to level 2 optimization, at least to
compile lstream.c. Otherwise, I get a "variable is void: \if"
problem while dumping (this is a problem I already reported
with vanilla hpux 10.01 and 9.07, which went away after
applying patches for the C compiler). Trouble is I still
haven't found the same patch for hpux 10.10, and I don't
remember the patch numbers. I think potential XEmacs builders
on HP should be warned about this.
*** I don't have `xmkmf' and `imake' on my HP.
You can get these standard X tools by anonymous FTP to
hpcvaaz.cv.hp.com. Essentially all X programs need these.
*** On HP-UX, problems with make
Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
Some releases of XEmacs (e.g. 20.4) require GNU make to build
successfully. You don't need GNU make when building 21.x.
*** On HP-UX 9.05 XEmacs won't compile or coredump during the build.
Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
This might be a sed problem. For your own safety make sure to use
GNU sed while dumping XEmacs.
*** On HP-UX 11.0 XEmacs causes excessive X11 errors when running.
(also appears on AIX as reported in comp.emacs.xemacs)
Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
Unfortunately, XEmacs releases prior to 21.0 don't work with
Motif2.1. It will compile but you will get excessive X11 errors like
xemacs: X Error of failed request: BadGC (invalid GC parameter)
and finally XEmacs gets killed. A workaround is to use the
Motif1.2_R6 libraries. You can the following line to your call to
configure:
--x-libraries="/usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6 -L/usr/lib/X11R6"
Make sure /usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/libXm.sl is a link to
/usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/libXm.3.
*** On HP-UX 11.0: Object "" does not have windowed ancestor
Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
XEmacs dies without core file and reports:
Error: Object "" does not have windowed ancestor.
This is a bug. Please apply the patch PHSS_19964 (check if
superseded). The other alternative is to link with Motif1.2_R6 (see
previous item).
** SCO OpenServer
*** Native cc on SCO OpenServer 5 is now OK. Icc may still throw you
a curve. Here is what Robert Lipe <robertl@arnet.com> says:
Unlike XEmacs 19.13, building with the native cc on SCO OpenServer 5
now produces a functional binary. I will typically build this
configuration for COFF with:
/path_to_xemacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
--site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
--with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas
This version now supports ELF builds. I highly recommend this to
reduce the in-core footprint of XEmacs. This is now how I compile
all my test releases. Build it like this:
/path_to_XEmacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
--site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
--with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas --dynamic
The compiler known as icc [ supplied with the OpenServer 5 Development
System ] generates a working binary, but it takes forever to generate
XEmacs. ICC also whines more about the code than /bin/cc does. I do
believe all its whining is legitimate, however. Note that you do
have to 'cd src ; make LD=icc' to avoid linker errors.
The way I handle the build procedure is:
/path_to_XEmacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
--site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
--with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas --dynamic --compiler="icc"
NOTE I have the xpm, xface, and audio libraries and includes in
/usr/local/lib, /usr/local/include. If you don't have these,
don't include the "--with-*" arguments in any of my examples.
In previous versions of XEmacs, you had to override the defaults while
compiling font-lock.o and extents.o when building with icc. This seems
to no longer be true, but I'm including this old information in case it
resurfaces. The process I used was:
make -k
[ procure pizza, beer, repeat ]
cd src
make CC="icc -W0,-mP1COPT_max_tree_size=3000" font-lock.o extents.o
make LD=icc
If you want sound support, get the tls566 supplement from
ftp.sco.com:/TLS or any of its mirrors. It works just groovy
with XEmacs.
The M-x manual-entry is known not to work. If you know Lisp and would
like help in making it work, e-mail me at <robertl@dgii.com>.
(UNCHECKED for 19.15 -- it might work).
In earlier releases, gnuserv/gnuclient/gnudoit would open a frame
just fine, but the client would lock up and the server would
terminate when you used C-x # to close the frame. This is now
fixed in XEmacs.
In etc/ there are two files of note. emacskeys.sco and emacsstrs.sco.
The comments at the top of emacskeys.sco describe its function, and
the emacstrs.sco is a suitable candidate for /usr/lib/keyboard/strings
to take advantage of the keyboard map in emacskeys.sco.
Note: Much of the above entry is probably not valid for XEmacs 21.0
and later.
** Cygwin
*** In general use etc/check_cygwin_setup.sh to trap environment problems.
The script etc/check_cygwin_setup.sh will attempt to detect whether
you have a suitable environment for building. This script may not work
correctly if you are using ash instead of bash (see below).
*** Syntax errors running configure scripts, make failing with exit code 127
in inexplicable situations, etc.
This may be because you are using the default cygwin shell. The
default cygwin shell (/bin/sh.exe) is ash which appears to work in
most circumstances but has some weird failure modes. You need to
replace the symlink with bash.exe.
*** Lots of compile errors, esp. on lines containing macro definitions
terminated by backslashes.
Your partition holding the source files is mounted binary. It needs
to be mounted text. (This will not screw up any binary files because
the Cygwin utilities specify explicitly whether they want binary or
text mode when working with source vs. binary files, which overrides
the mount type.) To fix this, you just need to run the appropriate
mount command once -- afterwards, the settings are remembered in the
registry.
*** Errors from make like /c:not found.
make sure you set the environment variable MAKE_MODE to UNIX in your
.bashrc, Control Panel (Windows 2000/NT), or AUTOEXEC.BAT (Windows
98/95).
*** X11 not detected.
This is usually because xmkmf is not in your path or because you are
using the default cygwin shell. The default cygwin shell (/bin/sh.exe)
is ash which appears to work in most circumstances but has some weird
failure modes. I recommend replacing sh.exe with bash.exe, this will
mean configure is slower but more reliable.
*** Subprocesses do not work.
You do not have "tty" in your CYGWIN environment variable. This must
be set in your autoexec.bat (win95) or the system properties (winnt)
as it must be read before the cygwin DLL initializes.
*** ^G does not work on hung subprocesses.
This is a known problem. It can be remedied with cygwin b20 or greater
by defining BROKEN_SIGIO in src/s/cygwin32.h, however this currently
leads to instability in XEmacs.
*** The info files will not build.
makeinfo that ships with cygwin (all versions) is a noop. You need to
obtain makeinfo from somewhere or build it yourself.
*** I have no graphics.
You need to obtain the various graphics libraries. Pre-built versions
of these and the X libraries are located on the XEmacs website in
ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/aux/cygwin/.
*** There are no images in the toolbar buttons.
You need version 4.71 of commctrl.dll which does not ship with windows
95. You can get this by installing IE 4.0 or downloading it from the
microsoft website.
* Problems with running XEmacs
==============================
** General
*** At startup I get a warning on stderr about missing charsets:
Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion
You need to specify appropriate charsets for your locale (usually the
value of the LANG environment variable) in .Xresources. See
etc/Emacs.ad for the relevant resources (mostly menubar fonts and
fontsets). Do not edit this file, it's purely informative.
If you have no satisfactory fonts for iso-8859-1, XEmacs will crash.
It looks like XFree86 4.x (the usual server on Linux and *BSD) has
some braindamage where .UTF-8 locales will always generate this
message, because the XFree86 (font)server doesn't know that UTF-8 will
use the ISO10646-1 font registry (or a Cmap or something).
If you are not using a .UTF-8 locale and see this warning for a
character set not listed in the default in Emacs.ad, please let
xemacs-beta@xemacs.org know about it, so we can add fonts to the
appropriate fontsets and stifle this warning. (Unfortunately it's
buried in Xlib, so we can't easily get rid of it otherwise.)
*** Whenever I try to retrieve a remote file, I have problems.
A typical error: FTP Error: USER request failed; 500 AUTH not understood.
Thanks to giacomo boffi <giacomo.boffi@polimi.it> on comp.emacs.xemacs:
tell your ftp client to not attempt AUTH authentication (or do not
use FTP servers that don't understand AUTH)
and notes that you need to add an element (often "-u") to
`efs-ftp-program-args'. Use M-x customize-variable, and verify the
needed flag with `man ftp' or other local documentation.
*** gnuserv is running, some clients can connect, but others cannot.
The code in gnuslib.c respects the value of TMPDIR. If the server and
the client have different values in their environment, you lose.
One program known to set TMPDIR and manifest this problem is exmh.
You can defeat the use of TMPDIR by unsetting USE_TMPDIR at the top of
gnuserv.h at build time.
*** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
though the system itself is capable of it. Try using a different
shell.
*** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
Emacs has traditionally used Control-H for help; unfortunately this
interferes with its use as Backspace on TTY's. As of XEmacs 21,
XEmacs looks at the "erase" setting of TTY structures and maps C-h to
backspace when erase is set to C-h. This is sort of a special hack,
but it makes it possible for you to use the standard:
stty erase ^H
to get your backspace key to erase characters. The erase setting is
recorded in the Lisp variable `tty-erase-char', which you can use to
tune the settings in your .emacs.
A major drawback of this is that when C-h becomes backspace, it no
longer invokes help. In that case, you need to use f1 for help, or
bind another key. An example of the latter is the following code,
which moves help to Meta-? (ESC ?):
(global-set-key "\M-?" 'help-command)
*** Mail agents (VM, Gnus, rmail) cannot get new mail
rmail and VM get new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using the
protocol defined by /bin/mail.
There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
`movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining, the
macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes. IF
YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR SYSTEM,
YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!
If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
`mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing
the make install.
chgrp mail movemail
chmod 2755 movemail
Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
/usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
directory copy is ineffective.
*** VM appears to hang in large folders.
This is normal (trust us) when upgrading to VM-6.22 from earlier
versions. Let VM finish what it is doing and all will be well.
*** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files. Then the
old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes will not be seen. To
fix this, do `M-x byte-recompile-directory' and specify the directory
that contains the Lisp files.
Note that you will get a warning when loading a .elc file that is
older than the corresponding .el file.
*** Things which should be bold or italic (such as the initial
copyright notice) are not.
The fonts of the "bold" and "italic" faces are generated from the font
of the "default" face; in this way, your bold and italic fonts will
have the appropriate size and family. However, emacs can only be
clever in this way if you have specified the default font using the
XLFD (X Logical Font Description) format, which looks like
*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*
if you use any of the other, less strict font name formats, some of
which look like:
lucidasanstypewriter-12
and fixed
and 9x13
then emacs won't be able to guess the names of the "bold" and "italic"
versions. All X fonts can be referred to via XLFD-style names, so you
should use those forms. See the man pages for X(1), xlsfonts(1), and
xfontsel(1).
*** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
Two causes have been seen for such problems.
1) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
value in the man page for a.out (5).
2) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
*** Reading and writing files is very very slow.
Try evaluating the form (setq lock-directory nil) and see if that helps.
There is a problem with file-locking on some systems (possibly related
to NFS) that I don't understand. Please send mail to the address
xemacs-beta@xemacs.org if you figure this one out.
*** When emacs starts up, I get lots of warnings about unknown keysyms.
If you are running the prebuilt binaries, the Motif library expects to find
certain thing in the XKeysymDB file. This file is normally in /usr/lib/X11/
or in /usr/openwin/lib/. If you keep yours in a different place, set the
environment variable $XKEYSYMDB to point to it before starting emacs. If
you still have the problem after doing that, perhaps your version of X is
too old. There is a copy of the MIT X11R5 XKeysymDB file in the emacs `etc'
directory. Try using that one.
*** My X resources used to work, and now some of them are being ignored.
Check the resources in .../etc/Emacs.ad (which is the same as the file
sample.Xdefaults). Perhaps some of the default resources built in to
emacs are now overriding your existing resources. Copy and edit the
resources in Emacs.ad as necessary.
*** I have focus problems when I use `M-o' to switch to another screen
without using the mouse.
The focus issues with a program like XEmacs, which has multiple
homogeneous top-level windows, are very complicated, and as a result,
most window managers don't implement them correctly.
The R4/R5 version of twm (and all of its descendants) had buggy focus
handling. Sufficiently recent versions of tvtwm have been fixed. In
addition, if you're using twm, make sure you have not specified
"NoTitleFocus" in your .tvtwmrc file. The very nature of this option
makes twm do some illegal focus tricks, even with the patch.
It is known that olwm and olvwm are buggy, and in different ways. If
you're using click-to-type mode, try using point-to-type, or vice
versa.
In older versions of NCDwm, one could not even type at XEmacs windows.
This has been fixed in newer versions (2.4.3, and possibly earlier).
(Many people suggest that XEmacs should warp the mouse when focusing
on another screen in point-to-type mode. This is not ICCCM-compliant
behavior. Implementing such policy is the responsibility of the
window manager itself, it is not legal for a client to do this.)
*** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
"no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
codes. You might as well try it.
If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
measures can make Emacs semi-work.
You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
control handling.)
If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
other control characters are already used by emacs.
IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
order to continue.
If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
`enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
automatically. Here is an example:
(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
manually.
I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
of inferior systems.
*** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
that wants to use flow control.
You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
flow control, as described in the preceding section.
If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
*** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net
connection.
Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
control on the local system.
One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
(the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
`stty start u stop u' will do this.
Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
`M-x enable-flow-control' at the beginning of your emacs session, or
if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
(enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
info.
*** TTY redisplay is slow.
XEmacs has fairly new TTY redisplay support (beginning from 19.12),
which doesn't include some basic TTY optimizations -- like using
scrolling regions to move around blocks of text. This is why
redisplay on the traditional terminals, or over slow lines can be very
slow.
If you are interested in fixing this, please let us know at
<xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>.
*** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that terminal
is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing the
combination of features specified for that terminal.
The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
(open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all terminal
output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do what makes the
screen update wrong, and look at the file and decode the characters
using the manual for the terminal. There are several possibilities:
1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect of the
terminal behavior not described in an obvious way by termcap.
This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for Emacs
to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior and other
terminals that behave subtly differently but are classified the same
by termcap; or else find an algorithm for Emacs to use that avoids the
difference. Such changes must be tested on many kinds of terminals.
3) The termcap entry is wrong.
See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes that are known to be
needed in commonly used termcap entries for certain terminals.
4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be right for
any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed in
termcap.c, terminfo.c, tparam.c, cm.c, redisplay-tty.c,
redisplay-output.c, or redisplay.c.
*** My buffers are full of \000 characters or otherwise corrupt.
Some compilers have trouble with gmalloc.c and ralloc.c; try recompiling
without optimization. If that doesn't work, try recompiling with
SYSTEM_MALLOC defined, and/or with REL_ALLOC undefined.
*** A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
UsePPosition "on" #allow clents to request a position
*** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice to do
incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
another escape character in kermit. One user did
set escape-character 17
in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
*** The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
the resource prevents the problem.
*** After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
configure script) that reads:
#define SYSTEM_MALLOC
This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
the kernel bug.
*** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
directly with an X server.
If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
have made the key binding correctly.
If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
default.
If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
modifier bit not otherwise used.
If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
commands show above to make them modifier keys.
Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
*** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
if ($?EMACS) then
if ($EMACS == "t") then
unset edit
stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
endif
endif
*** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
emacs*Cursor: black
(which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
that isn't a color.)
The fix is to correct your X resources.
*** Once you pull down a menu from the menubar, it won't go away.
It has been claimed that this is caused by a bug in certain very old
(1990?) versions of the twm window manager. It doesn't happen with
recent vintages, or with other window managers.
*** Emacs ignores the "help" key when running OLWM.
OLWM grabs the help key, and retransmits it to the appropriate client
using XSendEvent. Allowing emacs to react to synthetic events is a
security hole, so this is turned off by default. You can enable it by
setting the variable x-allow-sendevents to t. You can also cause fix
this by telling OLWM to not grab the help key, with the null binding
"OpenWindows.KeyboardCommand.Help:".
*** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
terminal type.
The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
emulates.
Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
it only if it is undefined.
if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
happen in a non-login shell.
*** The popup menu appears at the bottom/right of my screen.
You probably have something like the following in your ~/.Xdefaults
Emacs.geometry: 81x56--9--1
Use the following instead
Emacs*EmacsFrame.geometry: 81x56--9--1
** MacOS/X, Darwin
*** XEmacs crashes on MacOS within font-lock, or when dealing
with large compilation buffers, or in other regex applications.
The default stack size under MacOS/X is rather small (512k as opposed
to Solaris 8M), hosing the regexp code, which uses alloca()
extensively, overflowing the stack when complex regexps are used.
Workarounds:
1) Increase your stack size, using `ulimit -s 8192' or a (t)csh
equivalent;
2) Recompile regex.c with REGEX_MALLOC defined.
** AIX
*** Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal, using an AIXterm.
The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
*aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
*** On AIX 4, some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
with an error
