3 This file describes various problems that have been encountered
4 in compiling, installing and running XEmacs. It has been updated for
7 This file is rather large, but we have tried to sort the entries by
8 their respective relevance for XEmacs, but may have not succeeded
9 completely in that task. The file is divided into four parts:
11 - Problems with building XEmacs
12 - Problems with running XEmacs
13 - Compatibility problems
16 Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
17 `C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
18 info about the Outline mode.
20 Also, try finding the things you need using one of the search commands
21 XEmacs provides (e.g. `C-s').
25 WATCH OUT for your init file! (~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs) If
26 you observe strange problems, invoke XEmacs with the `-vanilla'
27 option and see if you can repeat the problem.
29 Note that most of the problems described here manifest at RUN
30 time, even those described as BUILD problems. It is quite unusual
31 for a released XEmacs to fail to build. So a "build problem"
32 requires you to tweak the build environment, then rebuild XEmacs.
33 A "runtime problem" is one that can be fixed by proper
34 configuration of the existing build. Compatibility problems and
35 Mule issues are generally runtime problems, but are treated
36 separately for convenience.
39 * Problems with building XEmacs
40 ===============================
43 Much general information is in INSTALL. If it's covered in
44 INSTALL, we don't repeat it here.
46 *** How does I configure to get the buffer tabs/progress bars?
48 These features depend on support for "native widgets". Use the
49 --with-widgets option to configure. Configuration of widgets is
50 automatic for "modern" toolkits (MS Windows, GTK, and Motif), but if
51 you are using Xt and the Athena widgets, you will probably want to
52 specify a "3d" widget set. See configure --usage, and don't forget to
53 install the corresponding development libraries.
55 *** I know I have libfoo installed, but configure doesn't find it.
57 Typical of Linux systems with package managers. To link with a shared
58 library, you only need the shared library. To compile objects that
59 link with it, you need the headers---and distros don't provide them with
60 the libraries. You need the additional "development" package, too.
62 *** Don't use -O2 with gcc 2.8.1 and egcs 1.0 under SPARC architectures
63 without also using `-fno-schedule-insns'.
65 gcc will generate incorrect code otherwise, typically resulting in
66 crashes in the function skip-syntax-backward.
70 There have been reports of egcs-1.1 not compiling XEmacs correctly on
71 Alpha Linux. There have also been reports that egcs-1.0.3a is O.K.
73 *** Don't use -O2 or -O3 with Cygwin 1.0, CodeFusion-99070 or gcc 2.7.2 on x86
74 without also using `-fno-strength-reduce'.
76 gcc will generate incorrect code otherwise. This bug is present in at
77 least 2.6.x and 2.7.[0-2]. This bug has been fixed in GCC 2.7.2.1 and
78 later. This bug is O/S independent, but is limited to x86 architectures.
80 This problem is known to be fixed in egcs (or pgcc) 1.0 or later.
82 Unfortunately, later releases of Cygnus-released compilers (not the
83 Net-released ones) have a bug with the same `problem signature'.
85 If you're lucky, you'll get an error while compiling that looks like:
87 event-stream.c:3189: internal error--unrecognizable insn:
88 (insn 256 14 15 (set (reg/v:SI 24)
89 (minus:SI (reg/v:SI 25)
90 (const_int 2))) -1 (insn_list 11 (nil))
94 If you're unlucky, your code will simply execute incorrectly.
96 *** Don't use gcc-2.95.2 with -mcpu=ultrasparc on Solaris 2.6.
98 gcc will assume a 64-bit operating system, even though you've
99 merely told it to assume a 64-bit instruction set.
101 *** Don't use -O2 with gcc 2.7.2 under Intel architectures without also
102 using `-fno-caller-saves'.
104 gcc will generate incorrect code otherwise. This bug is still
105 present in gcc 2.7.2.3. There have been no reports to indicate the
106 bug is present in egcs 1.0 (or pgcc 1.0) or later. This bug is O/S
107 independent, but limited to x86 architectures.
109 This problem is known to be fixed in egcs (or pgcc) 1.0 or later.
111 *** When using gcc, you get the error message "undefined symbol __fixunsdfsi".
112 When using gcc, you get the error message "undefined symbol __main".
114 This means that you need to link with the gcc library. It may be called
115 "gcc-gnulib" or "libgcc.a"; figure out where it is, and define LIB_GCC in
116 config.h to point to it.
118 It may also work to use the GCC version of `ld' instead of the standard one.
120 *** Excessive optimization with pgcc can break XEmacs
122 It has been reported on some systems that compiling with -O6 can lead
123 to XEmacs failures. The workaround is to use a lower optimization
124 level. -O2 and -O4 have been tested extensively.
126 All of this depends heavily on the version of pgcc and the version
127 of libc. Snapshots near the release of pgcc-1.0 have been tested
128 extensively and no sign of breakage has been seen on systems using
131 *** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
133 This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
134 had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.
136 *** When compiling with X11, you get "undefined symbol _XtStrings".
138 This means that you are trying to link emacs against the X11r4 version of
139 libXt.a, but you have compiled either Emacs or the code in the lwlib
140 subdirectory with the X11r5 header files. That doesn't work.
142 Remember, you can't compile lwlib for r4 and emacs for r5, or vice versa.
143 They must be in sync.
145 *** test-distrib says that the distribution has been clobbered
146 or, temacs prints "Command key out of range 0-127"
147 or, temacs runs and dumps xemacs, but xemacs totally fails to work.
148 or, temacs gets errors dumping xemacs
150 This can be because the .elc files have been garbled. Do not be
151 fooled by the fact that most of a .elc file is text: these are binary
152 files and can contain all 256 byte values.
154 In particular `shar' cannot be used for transmitting GNU Emacs. It
155 typically truncates "lines". (this does not apply to GNU shar, which
156 uses uuencode to encode binary files.)
158 If you have a copy of Emacs that has been damaged in its nonprinting
159 characters, you can fix them by running:
163 This will rebuild all the needed .elc files.
165 *** `compress' and `uncompress' not found and XFree86
167 XFree86 installs a very old version of libz.a by default ahead of where
168 more modern version of libz might be installed. This will cause problems
169 when attempting to link against libMagick. The fix is to remove the old
170 libz.a in the X11 binary directory.
174 *** On AIX 4.3, you must specify --with-dialogs=athena with configure
176 *** The libXt shipped with AIX 4.3 up to 4.3.2 is broken. This causes
177 xemacs -nw to fail in various ways. The official APAR is this:
179 APAR NUMBER: <IX89470> RESOLVED AS: PROGRAM ERROR
182 <IX89470>: LIBXT.A INCORRECT HANDLING OF EXCEPTIONS IN XTAPPADDINPUT
184 The solution is to install X11.base.lib at version >=4.3.2.5.
186 *** On AIX, you get this compiler error message:
188 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
189 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
191 This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
192 libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
195 *** On AIX 4.1.2, linker error messages such as
196 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
197 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
199 This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
200 these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
203 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
207 Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
210 *** Excessive optimization on AIX 4.2 can lead to compiler failure.
212 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu writes:
213 At least at the b34 level, and the latest-and-greatest IBM xlc
214 (3.1.4.4), there are problems with -O3. I haven't investigated
219 *** Crashes when using Motif libraries, especially with multiple frames.
221 Crashes that produce C-backtraces like this:
223 #0 0xfec9a118 in _libc_kill () from /usr/lib/libc.so.1
224 #1 0x77f48 in fatal_error_signal (sig=11)
225 at /codes/rpluim/xemacs-21.4/src/emacs.c:539
226 #2 <signal handler called>
227 #3 0xfee929f4 in XFindContext () from /usr/openwin/lib/libX11.so.4
228 #4 0xfee92930 in XFindContext () from /usr/openwin/lib/libX11.so.4
229 #5 0xff297e54 in DisplayDestroy () from /usr/dt/lib/libXm.so.4
230 #6 0xfefbece0 in XtCallCallbackList () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
231 #7 0xfefc486c in XtPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
232 #8 0xfefc45d0 in _XtDoPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
233 #9 0xfefc43b4 in XtDestroyWidget () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
234 #10 0x15cf9c in x_delete_device (d=0x523f00)
236 are caused by buggy Motif libraries. Installing the following patches
237 has been reported to solve the problem on Solaris 2.7:
241 For information (although they have not been confirmed to work), the
242 equivalent patches for Solaris 2.8 are:
246 *** Dumping error when using GNU binutils / GNU ld on a Sun.
248 Errors similar to the following:
250 Dumping under the name xemacs unexec():
251 dldump(/space/rpluim/xemacs-obj/src/xemacs): ld.so.1: ./temacs:
252 fatal: /space/rpluim/xemacs-obj/src/xemacs: unknown dynamic entry:
255 are caused by using GNU ld. There are several workarounds available:
257 In XEmacs 21.2 or later, configure using the new portable dumper
260 Alternatively, you can link using the Sun version of ld, which is
261 normally held in /usr/ccs/bin. This can be done by one of:
263 - building gcc with these configure flags:
264 configure --with-ld=/usr/ccs/bin/ld --with-as=/usr/ccs/bin/as
266 - adding -B/usr/ccs/bin/ to CFLAGS used to configure XEmacs
267 (Note: The trailing '/' there is significant.)
269 - uninstalling GNU ld.
271 - configuring XEmacs with these environment settings (suggested by
272 Goran Koruga <goran.koruga@hermes.si>):
273 LD=/usr/ccs/bin/ld AS=/usr/ccs/bin/as configure
275 The Solaris2 FAQ claims:
277 When you install gcc, don't make the mistake of installing
278 GNU binutils or GNU libc, they are not as capable as their
279 counterparts you get with Solaris 2.x.
281 *** Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
283 To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
285 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
287 and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
289 The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
290 cannot easily arrange to supply them.
292 *** Problems finding X11 libraries on Solaris with Openwindows
294 Some users have reported problems in this area. The reported solution
295 is to define the environment variable OPENWINHOME, even if you must set
296 it to `/usr/openwin'.
298 *** Sed problems on Solaris 2.5
300 There have been reports of Sun sed truncating very lines in the
301 Makefile during configuration. The workaround is to use GNU sed or,
302 even better, think of a better way to generate Makefile, and send us a
305 *** On Solaris 2 I get undefined symbols from libcurses.a.
307 You probably have /usr/ucblib/ on your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Do the link with
308 LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset. Generally, avoid using any ucb* stuff when
311 *** On Solaris 2 I cannot make alloc.o, glyphs.o or process.o.
313 The SparcWorks C compiler may have difficulty building those modules
314 with optimization level -xO4. Try using only "-fast" optimization
315 for just those modules. (Or use gcc).
317 *** Solaris 2.3 /bin/sh coredumps during configuration.
319 This only occurs if you have LANG != C. This is a known bug with
320 /bin/sh fixed by installing Patch-ID# 101613-01. Or, you can use
321 bash, as a workaround.
323 *** On SunOS, you get linker errors
325 _get_wmShellWidgetClass
326 _get_applicationShellWidgetClass
328 The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
329 or link libXmu statically.
331 *** On Sunos 4, you get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
333 This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
334 for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
335 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
337 *** Undefined symbols when linking on Sunos 4.1.
339 If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
340 _iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
341 -lXaw in the command that links temacs.
343 This problem seems to arise only when the international language
344 extensions to X11R5 are installed.
346 *** On a Sun running SunOS 4.1.1, you get this error message from GNU ld:
348 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
350 The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
352 The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
354 *** SunOS 4.1.2: undefined symbol _get_wmShellWidgetClass
356 Apparently the version of libXmu.so.a that Sun ships is hosed: it's missing
357 some stuff that is in libXmu.a (the static version). Sun has a patch for
358 this, but a workaround is to use the static version of libXmu, by changing
359 the link command from "-lXmu" to "-Bstatic -lXmu -Bdynamic". If you have
360 OpenWindows 3.0, ask Sun for these patches:
361 100512-02 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 libXt Jumbo patch
362 100573-03 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 undefined symbols with shared libXmu
364 *** Random other SunOS 4.1.[12] link errors.
366 The X headers and libraries that Sun ships in /usr/{include,lib}/X11 are
367 broken. Use the ones in /usr/openwin/{include,lib} instead.
370 *** Under Linux, you get "too many arguments to function `getpgrp'".
372 You have probably installed LessTiff under `/usr/local' and `libXm.so'
373 could not be found when linking `getpgrp()' test program, making XEmacs
374 think that `getpgrp()' takes an argument. Try adding `/usr/local/lib'
375 in `/etc/ld.so.conf' and run `ldconfig'. Then run XEmacs's `configure'
376 again. As with all problems of this type, reading the config.log file
377 generated from configure and seeing the log of how the test failed can
380 *** `Error: No ExtNode to pop!' on Linux systems with Lesstif.
382 This error message has been observed with lesstif-0.75a. It does not
383 appear to cause any harm.
385 *** xemacs: can't resolve symbol '__malloc_hook'
387 This is a Linux problem where you've compiled the XEmacs binary on a libc
388 5.4 with version higher than 5.4.19 and attempted to run the binary against
389 an earlier version. The solution is to upgrade your old library.
393 *** On Irix 6.5, the MIPSpro compiler gets an internal compiler error
395 The MIPSpro Compiler (at least version 7.2.1) can't seem to handle the
396 union type properly, and fails to compile src/glyphs.c. To avoid this
397 problem, always build ---use-union-type=no (but that's the default, so
398 you should only see this problem if you're an XEmacs maintainer).
400 *** Linking with -rpath on IRIX.
402 Darrell Kindred <dkindred@cmu.edu> writes:
403 There are a couple of problems [with use of -rpath with Irix ld], though:
405 1. The ld in IRIX 5.3 ignores all but the last -rpath
406 spec, so the patched configure spits out a warning
407 if --x-libraries or --site-runtime-libraries are
408 specified under irix 5.x, and it only adds -rpath
409 entries for the --site-runtime-libraries. This bug was
410 fixed sometime between 5.3 and 6.2.
412 2. IRIX gcc 2.7.2 doesn't accept -rpath directly, so
413 it would have to be prefixed by -Xlinker or "-Wl,".
414 This would be fine, except that configure compiles with
415 ${CC-cc} $CFLAGS $LDFLAGS ...
416 rather than quoting $LDFLAGS with prefix-args, like
417 src/Makefile does. So if you specify --x-libraries
418 or --site-runtime-libraries, you must use --use-gcc=no,
419 or configure will fail.
421 *** On Irix 6.3, the SGI ld quits with segmentation fault when linking temacs
423 This occurs if you use the SGI linker version 7.1. Installing the
424 patch SG0001872 fixes this problem.
426 *** On Irix 6.0, make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi
428 A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
429 in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
430 find that string, and take out the spaces.
432 Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
434 *** On Irix 5.2, unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
436 The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
437 Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
438 compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
439 workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
442 *** Coredumping in Irix 6.2
444 Pete Forman <gsez020@compo.bedford.waii.com> writes:
445 A problem noted by myself and others (I've lost the references) was
446 that XEmacs coredumped when the cut or copy toolbar buttons were
447 pressed. This has been fixed by loading the SGI patchset (Feb 98)
448 without having to recompile XEmacs.
450 My versions are XEmacs 20.3 (problem first noted in 19.15) and IRIX
451 6.2, compiled using -n32. I'd guess that the relevant individual
452 patch was "SG0002580: multiple fixes for X libraries". SGI recommends
453 that the complete patch set be installed rather than parts of it.
455 ** Digital UNIX/OSF/VMS
456 *** On Digital UNIX, the DEC C compiler might have a problem compiling
459 In particular, src/extents.c and src/faces.c might cause the DEC C
460 compiler to abort. When this happens: cd src, compile the files by
461 hand, cd .., and redo the "make" command. When recompiling the files by
462 hand, use the old C compiler for the following versions of Digital UNIX:
463 - V3.n: Remove "-migrate" from the compile command.
464 - V4.n: Add "-oldc" to the compile command.
466 A related compiler bug has been fixed by the DEC compiler team. The
467 new versions of the compiler should run fine.
469 *** Under some versions of OSF XEmacs runs fine if built without
470 optimization but will crash randomly if built with optimization.
472 Using 'cc -g' is not sufficient to eliminate all optimization. Try
475 *** Compilation errors on VMS.
477 Sorry, XEmacs does not work under VMS. You might consider working on
478 the port if you really want to have XEmacs work under VMS.
481 *** On HPUX, the HP C compiler might have a problem compiling some files
484 Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
486 Had to drop once again to level 2 optimization, at least to
487 compile lstream.c. Otherwise, I get a "variable is void: \if"
488 problem while dumping (this is a problem I already reported
489 with vanilla hpux 10.01 and 9.07, which went away after
490 applying patches for the C compiler). Trouble is I still
491 haven't found the same patch for hpux 10.10, and I don't
492 remember the patch numbers. I think potential XEmacs builders
493 on HP should be warned about this.
495 *** I don't have `xmkmf' and `imake' on my HP.
497 You can get these standard X tools by anonymous FTP to
498 hpcvaaz.cv.hp.com. Essentially all X programs need these.
500 *** On HP-UX, problems with make
502 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
504 Some releases of XEmacs (e.g. 20.4) require GNU make to build
505 successfully. You don't need GNU make when building 21.x.
507 *** On HP-UX 9.05 XEmacs won't compile or coredump during the build.
509 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
511 This might be a sed problem. For your own safety make sure to use
512 GNU sed while dumping XEmacs.
514 *** On HP-UX 11.0 XEmacs causes excessive X11 errors when running.
515 (also appears on AIX as reported in comp.emacs.xemacs)
517 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
519 Unfortunately, XEmacs releases prior to 21.0 don't work with
520 Motif2.1. It will compile but you will get excessive X11 errors like
522 xemacs: X Error of failed request: BadGC (invalid GC parameter)
524 and finally XEmacs gets killed. A workaround is to use the
525 Motif1.2_R6 libraries. You can the following line to your call to
528 --x-libraries="/usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6 -L/usr/lib/X11R6"
530 Make sure /usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/libXm.sl is a link to
531 /usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/libXm.3.
533 *** On HP-UX 11.0: Object "" does not have windowed ancestor
535 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
537 XEmacs dies without core file and reports:
539 Error: Object "" does not have windowed ancestor.
541 This is a bug. Please apply the patch PHSS_19964 (check if
542 superseded). The other alternative is to link with Motif1.2_R6 (see
547 *** Native cc on SCO OpenServer 5 is now OK. Icc may still throw you
548 a curve. Here is what Robert Lipe <robertl@arnet.com> says:
550 Unlike XEmacs 19.13, building with the native cc on SCO OpenServer 5
551 now produces a functional binary. I will typically build this
552 configuration for COFF with:
554 /path_to_xemacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
555 --site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
556 --with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas
558 This version now supports ELF builds. I highly recommend this to
559 reduce the in-core footprint of XEmacs. This is now how I compile
560 all my test releases. Build it like this:
562 /path_to_XEmacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
563 --site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
564 --with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas --dynamic
566 The compiler known as icc [ supplied with the OpenServer 5 Development
567 System ] generates a working binary, but it takes forever to generate
568 XEmacs. ICC also whines more about the code than /bin/cc does. I do
569 believe all its whining is legitimate, however. Note that you do
570 have to 'cd src ; make LD=icc' to avoid linker errors.
572 The way I handle the build procedure is:
574 /path_to_XEmacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
575 --site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
576 --with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas --dynamic --compiler="icc"
578 NOTE I have the xpm, xface, and audio libraries and includes in
579 /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/include. If you don't have these,
580 don't include the "--with-*" arguments in any of my examples.
582 In previous versions of XEmacs, you had to override the defaults while
583 compiling font-lock.o and extents.o when building with icc. This seems
584 to no longer be true, but I'm including this old information in case it
585 resurfaces. The process I used was:
588 [ procure pizza, beer, repeat ]
590 make CC="icc -W0,-mP1COPT_max_tree_size=3000" font-lock.o extents.o
593 If you want sound support, get the tls566 supplement from
594 ftp.sco.com:/TLS or any of its mirrors. It works just groovy
597 The M-x manual-entry is known not to work. If you know Lisp and would
598 like help in making it work, e-mail me at <robertl@dgii.com>.
599 (UNCHECKED for 19.15 -- it might work).
601 In earlier releases, gnuserv/gnuclient/gnudoit would open a frame
602 just fine, but the client would lock up and the server would
603 terminate when you used C-x # to close the frame. This is now
606 In etc/ there are two files of note. emacskeys.sco and emacsstrs.sco.
607 The comments at the top of emacskeys.sco describe its function, and
608 the emacstrs.sco is a suitable candidate for /usr/lib/keyboard/strings
609 to take advantage of the keyboard map in emacskeys.sco.
611 Note: Much of the above entry is probably not valid for XEmacs 21.0
616 *** In general use etc/check_cygwin_setup.sh to trap environment problems.
618 The script etc/check_cygwin_setup.sh will attempt to detect whether
619 you have a suitable environment for building. This script may not work
620 correctly if you are using ash instead of bash (see below).
622 *** Syntax errors running configure scripts, make failing with exit code 127
623 in inexplicable situations, etc.
625 This may be because you are using the default cygwin shell. The
626 default cygwin shell (/bin/sh.exe) is ash which appears to work in
627 most circumstances but has some weird failure modes. You need to
628 replace the symlink with bash.exe.
630 *** Lots of compile errors, esp. on lines containing macro definitions
631 terminated by backslashes.
633 Your partition holding the source files is mounted binary. It needs
634 to be mounted text. (This will not screw up any binary files because
635 the Cygwin utilities specify explicitly whether they want binary or
636 text mode when working with source vs. binary files, which overrides
637 the mount type.) To fix this, you just need to run the appropriate
638 mount command once -- afterwards, the settings are remembered in the
641 *** Errors from make like /c:not found.
643 make sure you set the environment variable MAKE_MODE to UNIX in your
644 .bashrc, Control Panel (Windows 2000/NT), or AUTOEXEC.BAT (Windows
647 *** X11 not detected.
649 This is usually because xmkmf is not in your path or because you are
650 using the default cygwin shell. The default cygwin shell (/bin/sh.exe)
651 is ash which appears to work in most circumstances but has some weird
652 failure modes. I recommend replacing sh.exe with bash.exe, this will
653 mean configure is slower but more reliable.
655 *** Subprocesses do not work.
657 You do not have "tty" in your CYGWIN environment variable. This must
658 be set in your autoexec.bat (win95) or the system properties (winnt)
659 as it must be read before the cygwin DLL initializes.
661 *** ^G does not work on hung subprocesses.
663 This is a known problem. It can be remedied with cygwin b20 or greater
664 by defining BROKEN_SIGIO in src/s/cygwin32.h, however this currently
665 leads to instability in XEmacs.
667 *** The info files will not build.
669 makeinfo that ships with cygwin (all versions) is a noop. You need to
670 obtain makeinfo from somewhere or build it yourself.
672 *** I have no graphics.
674 You need to obtain the various graphics libraries. Pre-built versions
675 of these and the X libraries are located on the XEmacs website in
676 ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/aux/cygwin/.
678 *** There are no images in the toolbar buttons.
680 You need version 4.71 of commctrl.dll which does not ship with windows
681 95. You can get this by installing IE 4.0 or downloading it from the
685 * Problems with running XEmacs
686 ==============================
688 *** Whenever I try to retrieve a remote file, I have problems.
690 A typical error: FTP Error: USER request failed; 500 AUTH not understood.
691 Thanks to giacomo boffi <giacomo.boffi@polimi.it> on comp.emacs.xemacs:
693 tell your ftp client to not attempt AUTH authentication (or do not
694 use FTP servers that don't understand AUTH)
696 and notes that you need to add an element (often "-u") to
697 `efs-ftp-program-args'. Use M-x customize-variable, and verify the
698 needed flag with `man ftp' or other local documentation.
700 *** gnuserv is running, some clients can connect, but others cannot.
702 The code in gnuslib.c respects the value of TMPDIR. If the server and
703 the client have different values in their environment, you lose.
704 One program known to set TMPDIR and manifest this problem is exmh.
705 You can defeat the use of TMPDIR by unsetting USE_TMPDIR at the top of
706 gnuserv.h at build time.
708 *** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
710 You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
711 though the system itself is capable of it. Try using a different
714 *** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
716 Emacs has traditionally used Control-H for help; unfortunately this
717 interferes with its use as Backspace on TTY's. As of XEmacs 21,
718 XEmacs looks at the "erase" setting of TTY structures and maps C-h to
719 backspace when erase is set to C-h. This is sort of a special hack,
720 but it makes it possible for you to use the standard:
724 to get your backspace key to erase characters. The erase setting is
725 recorded in the Lisp variable `tty-erase-char', which you can use to
726 tune the settings in your .emacs.
728 A major drawback of this is that when C-h becomes backspace, it no
729 longer invokes help. In that case, you need to use f1 for help, or
730 bind another key. An example of the latter is the following code,
731 which moves help to Meta-? (ESC ?):
733 (global-set-key "\M-?" 'help-command)
735 *** Mail agents (VM, Gnus, rmail) cannot get new mail
737 rmail and VM get new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
738 called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using the
739 protocol defined by /bin/mail.
741 There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
742 the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
743 `movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
744 this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining, the
745 macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes. IF
746 YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR SYSTEM,
749 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
750 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
751 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
752 `mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing
758 Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
759 installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
760 installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
761 /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
762 mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
763 directory copy is ineffective.
765 *** VM appears to hang in large folders.
767 This is normal (trust us) when upgrading to VM-6.22 from earlier
768 versions. Let VM finish what it is doing and all will be well.
770 *** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
772 You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files. Then the
773 old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes will not be seen. To
774 fix this, do `M-x byte-recompile-directory' and specify the directory
775 that contains the Lisp files.
777 Note that you will get a warning when loading a .elc file that is
778 older than the corresponding .el file.
780 *** Things which should be bold or italic (such as the initial
781 copyright notice) are not.
783 The fonts of the "bold" and "italic" faces are generated from the font
784 of the "default" face; in this way, your bold and italic fonts will
785 have the appropriate size and family. However, emacs can only be
786 clever in this way if you have specified the default font using the
787 XLFD (X Logical Font Description) format, which looks like
789 *-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*
791 if you use any of the other, less strict font name formats, some of
794 lucidasanstypewriter-12
798 then emacs won't be able to guess the names of the "bold" and "italic"
799 versions. All X fonts can be referred to via XLFD-style names, so you
800 should use those forms. See the man pages for X(1), xlsfonts(1), and
803 *** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
805 Two causes have been seen for such problems.
807 1) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
808 as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
809 it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
810 value in the man page for a.out (5).
812 2) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
813 initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
814 of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
815 not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
816 may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
818 *** Reading and writing files is very very slow.
820 Try evaluating the form (setq lock-directory nil) and see if that helps.
821 There is a problem with file-locking on some systems (possibly related
822 to NFS) that I don't understand. Please send mail to the address
823 xemacs-beta@xemacs.org if you figure this one out.
825 *** When emacs starts up, I get lots of warnings about unknown keysyms.
827 If you are running the prebuilt binaries, the Motif library expects to find
828 certain thing in the XKeysymDB file. This file is normally in /usr/lib/X11/
829 or in /usr/openwin/lib/. If you keep yours in a different place, set the
830 environment variable $XKEYSYMDB to point to it before starting emacs. If
831 you still have the problem after doing that, perhaps your version of X is
832 too old. There is a copy of the MIT X11R5 XKeysymDB file in the emacs `etc'
833 directory. Try using that one.
835 *** My X resources used to work, and now some of them are being ignored.
837 Check the resources in .../etc/Emacs.ad (which is the same as the file
838 sample.Xdefaults). Perhaps some of the default resources built in to
839 emacs are now overriding your existing resources. Copy and edit the
840 resources in Emacs.ad as necessary.
842 *** I have focus problems when I use `M-o' to switch to another screen
843 without using the mouse.
845 The focus issues with a program like XEmacs, which has multiple
846 homogeneous top-level windows, are very complicated, and as a result,
847 most window managers don't implement them correctly.
849 The R4/R5 version of twm (and all of its descendants) had buggy focus
850 handling. Sufficiently recent versions of tvtwm have been fixed. In
851 addition, if you're using twm, make sure you have not specified
852 "NoTitleFocus" in your .tvtwmrc file. The very nature of this option
853 makes twm do some illegal focus tricks, even with the patch.
855 It is known that olwm and olvwm are buggy, and in different ways. If
856 you're using click-to-type mode, try using point-to-type, or vice
859 In older versions of NCDwm, one could not even type at XEmacs windows.
860 This has been fixed in newer versions (2.4.3, and possibly earlier).
862 (Many people suggest that XEmacs should warp the mouse when focusing
863 on another screen in point-to-type mode. This is not ICCCM-compliant
864 behavior. Implementing such policy is the responsibility of the
865 window manager itself, it is not legal for a client to do this.)
867 *** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
869 This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
870 used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
871 away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
872 streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
873 user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
874 properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
875 input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
876 easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
878 There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
880 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
881 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
882 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
884 First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
885 they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
886 "no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
887 escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
888 and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
889 control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
891 Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
892 needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
893 by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
894 rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
895 your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
896 it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
897 the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
898 problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
899 to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
901 For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
902 giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
903 codes. You might as well try it.
905 If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
906 through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
907 computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
908 much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
909 control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
910 you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
911 replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
912 measures can make Emacs semi-work.
914 You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
915 handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
916 enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
917 now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
918 enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
921 If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
922 is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
923 other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
924 and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
925 other control characters are already used by emacs.
927 IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
928 Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
931 If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
932 certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
933 `enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
934 automatically. Here is an example:
936 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
938 If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
939 and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
942 I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
943 assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
944 control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
945 merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
946 widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
947 use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
948 will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
951 *** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
953 For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
954 control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
955 terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
956 that wants to use flow control.
958 You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
959 If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
960 flow control, as described in the preceding section.
962 If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
963 into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
964 shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
966 *** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net
969 Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
970 control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
971 On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
972 control on the local system.
974 One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
975 (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
976 stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
977 `stty start u stop u' will do this.
979 Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
980 around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
981 issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
983 If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
984 `M-x enable-flow-control' at the beginning of your emacs session, or
985 if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
986 following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
988 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
990 See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
993 *** TTY redisplay is slow.
995 XEmacs has fairly new TTY redisplay support (beginning from 19.12),
996 which doesn't include some basic TTY optimizations -- like using
997 scrolling regions to move around blocks of text. This is why
998 redisplay on the traditional terminals, or over slow lines can be very
1001 If you are interested in fixing this, please let us know at
1002 <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>.
1004 *** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
1006 This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that terminal
1007 is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing the
1008 combination of features specified for that terminal.
1010 The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1011 Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1012 (open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all terminal
1013 output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do what makes the
1014 screen update wrong, and look at the file and decode the characters
1015 using the manual for the terminal. There are several possibilities:
1017 1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
1019 In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1020 need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
1022 2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect of the
1023 terminal behavior not described in an obvious way by termcap.
1025 This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for Emacs
1026 to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior and other
1027 terminals that behave subtly differently but are classified the same
1028 by termcap; or else find an algorithm for Emacs to use that avoids the
1029 difference. Such changes must be tested on many kinds of terminals.
1031 3) The termcap entry is wrong.
1033 See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes that are known to be
1034 needed in commonly used termcap entries for certain terminals.
1036 4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be right for
1037 any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
1039 This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed in
1040 termcap.c, terminfo.c, tparam.c, cm.c, redisplay-tty.c,
1041 redisplay-output.c, or redisplay.c.
1043 *** My buffers are full of \000 characters or otherwise corrupt.
1045 Some compilers have trouble with gmalloc.c and ralloc.c; try recompiling
1046 without optimization. If that doesn't work, try recompiling with
1047 SYSTEM_MALLOC defined, and/or with REL_ALLOC undefined.
1049 *** A position you specified in .Xdefaults is ignored, using twm.
1051 twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
1052 You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
1054 UsePPosition "on" #allow clents to request a position
1056 *** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice to do
1057 incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
1059 This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
1060 with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
1061 another escape character in kermit. One user did
1063 set escape-character 17
1065 in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
1067 *** The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
1069 This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
1071 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
1073 That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1074 do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1075 explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1076 the resource prevents the problem.
1078 *** After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
1080 Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
1081 mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
1082 the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
1084 Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
1085 you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
1086 operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
1087 configure script) that reads:
1088 #define SYSTEM_MALLOC
1089 This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
1092 *** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
1093 directly with an X server.
1095 If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
1096 does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
1097 whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
1098 followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
1099 it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
1100 have made the key binding correctly.
1102 If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
1103 be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
1104 server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
1107 If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
1109 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1110 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
1112 If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1113 commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1114 are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1115 modifier bit not otherwise used.
1117 If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1118 keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1119 some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1120 commands show above to make them modifier keys.
1122 Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1123 into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
1125 *** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
1127 This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
1128 smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
1129 on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
1130 problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
1133 if ($EMACS == "t") then
1135 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
1139 *** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1140 parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
1142 This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1144 (which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1145 that isn't a color.)
1147 The fix is to correct your X resources.
1149 *** Once you pull down a menu from the menubar, it won't go away.
1151 It has been claimed that this is caused by a bug in certain very old
1152 (1990?) versions of the twm window manager. It doesn't happen with
1153 recent vintages, or with other window managers.
1155 *** Emacs ignores the "help" key when running OLWM.
1157 OLWM grabs the help key, and retransmits it to the appropriate client
1158 using XSendEvent. Allowing emacs to react to synthetic events is a
1159 security hole, so this is turned off by default. You can enable it by
1160 setting the variable x-allow-sendevents to t. You can also cause fix
1161 this by telling OLWM to not grab the help key, with the null binding
1162 "OpenWindows.KeyboardCommand.Help:".
1164 *** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
1167 The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
1168 environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
1169 provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
1172 Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
1173 in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
1174 it only if it is undefined.
1176 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
1178 Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
1179 happen in a non-login shell.
1181 *** The popup menu appears at the bottom/right of my screen.
1183 You probably have something like the following in your ~/.Xdefaults
1185 Emacs.geometry: 81x56--9--1
1187 Use the following instead
1189 Emacs*EmacsFrame.geometry: 81x56--9--1
1193 *** Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal, using an AIXterm.
1195 The solution is to include in your .Xdefaults the lines:
1197 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
1198 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
1200 This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
1202 *** On AIX 4, some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
1203 with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
1205 On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
1206 `unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
1207 Definitions" to make them defined.
1209 *** On AIX, you get this message when running Emacs:
1211 Could not load program emacs
1212 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
1213 Error was: Exec format error
1217 Could not load program .emacs
1218 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
1219 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
1220 Error was: Exec format error
1222 These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
1223 compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
1225 *** Trouble using ptys on AIX.
1227 People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
1228 Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
1232 *** The Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
1234 Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
1235 command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
1236 Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
1237 manager to use some other command. You can disable the
1238 shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
1240 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
1242 *** When Emacs tries to ring the bell, you get an error like
1244 audio: sst_open: SETQSIZE" Invalid argument
1245 audio: sst_close: SETREG MMR2, Invalid argument
1247 you have probably compiled using an ANSI C compiler, but with non-ANSI
1248 include files. In particular, on Suns, the file
1249 /usr/include/sun/audioio.h uses the _IOW macro to define the constant
1250 AUDIOSETQSIZE. _IOW in turn uses a K&R preprocessor feature that is
1251 now explicitly forbidden in ANSI preprocessors, namely substitution
1252 inside character constants. All ANSI C compilers must provide a
1253 workaround for this problem. Lucid's C compiler is shipped with a new
1254 set of system include files. If you are using GCC, there is a script
1255 called fixincludes that creates new versions of some system include
1256 files that use this obsolete feature.
1258 *** On Solaris 2.6, XEmacs dumps core when exiting.
1260 This happens if you're XEmacs is running on the same machine as the X
1261 server, and the optimized memory transport has been turned on by
1262 setting the environment variable XSUNTRANSPORT. The crash occurs
1263 during the call to XCloseDisplay.
1265 If this describes your situation, you need to undefine the
1266 XSUNTRANSPORT environment variable.
1268 *** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
1270 This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
1271 C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
1273 *** On Solaris 2.4, Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
1274 forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
1276 casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
1277 after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
1280 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
1285 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
1287 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
1291 Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
1292 (as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
1293 OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
1294 Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
1295 definition for your type of machine and system.
1297 Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
1298 the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
1299 Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
1301 For multithreaded X to work it necessary to install patch
1302 101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
1303 to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
1306 However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
1308 #define ThreadedX YES
1310 #define ThreadedX NO
1311 in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
1312 `-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
1313 typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
1315 *** On SunOS 4.1.3, Emacs unpredictably crashes in _yp_dobind_soft.
1317 This happens if you configure Emacs specifying just `sparc-sun-sunos4'
1318 on a system that is version 4.1.3. You must specify the precise
1319 version number (or let configure figure out the configuration, which
1320 it can do perfectly well for SunOS).
1322 *** Mail is lost when sent to local aliases.
1324 Many emacs mail user agents (VM and rmail, for instance) use the
1325 sendmail.el library. This library can arrange for mail to be
1326 delivered by passing messages to the /usr/lib/sendmail (usually)
1327 program . In doing so, it passes the '-t' flag to sendmail, which
1328 means that the name of the recipient of the message is not on the
1329 command line and, therefore, that sendmail must parse the message to
1330 obtain the destination address.
1332 There is a bug in the SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3 versions of sendmail.
1333 In short, when given the -t flag, the SunOS sendmail won't recognize
1334 non-local (i.e. NIS) aliases. It has been reported that the Solaris
1335 2.x versions of sendmail do not have this bug. For those using SunOS
1336 4.1, the best fix is to install sendmail V8 or IDA sendmail (which
1337 have other advantages over the regular sendmail as well). At the time
1338 of this writing, these official versions are available:
1340 Sendmail V8 on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/sendmail:
1341 sendmail.8.6.9.base.tar.Z (the base system source & documentation)
1342 sendmail.8.6.9.cf.tar.Z (configuration files)
1343 sendmail.8.6.9.misc.tar.Z (miscellaneous support programs)
1344 sendmail.8.6.9.xdoc.tar.Z (extended documentation, with postscript)
1346 IDA sendmail on vixen.cso.uiuc.edu in /pub:
1347 sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5.tar.gz
1349 *** Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
1350 the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
1351 Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
1352 Gnus can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
1354 This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
1355 libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
1356 shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
1357 similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
1359 The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
1360 the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
1362 The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
1363 installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
1365 On SunOS 4.1, simply define HAVE_RES_INIT.
1367 If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
1368 then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
1369 do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
1370 or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
1371 that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
1372 be careful not to lose the others.
1374 Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
1376 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
1378 Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
1379 the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
1382 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
1384 *** With process-connection-type set to t, each line of subprocess
1385 output is terminated with a ^M, making ange-ftp and GNUS not work.
1387 On SunOS systems, this problem has been seen to be a result of an
1388 incomplete installation of gcc 2.2 which allowed some non-ANSI
1389 compatible include files into the compilation. In particular this
1390 affected virtually all ioctl() calls.
1394 *** XEmacs crashes on startup, in make-frame.
1396 Typically the Lisp backtrace includes
1398 make-frame(nil #<x-device on ":0.0" 0x2558>)
1400 somewhere near the top. One problem is due to an improvement in GNU
1401 ld that sorts the ELF reloc sections in the executable, giving
1402 dramatic speedups in startup for large executables. It also confuses
1403 the traditional unexec code in XEmacs, leading to the core dump. The
1404 solution is to use either the `--ldflags="-z nocombreloc" or the
1405 "--pdump" option to configure. "--pdump" is recommended.
1407 Recent 21.4 and 21.5 versions of XEmacs autodetect this feature of ld
1408 in configure. Unfortunately, Red Hat and SuSE (at least) distributed
1409 prerelease versions of ld (numbered around 2.11.90.x.y, nicknamed
1410 "Hannibal Lecter" at XEmacs.ORG) where autodetection fails but the
1411 feature is enabled by default. The recommended procedure is to
1412 upgrade to binutils >= 2.12 and rerun configure. Otherwise you must
1413 apply the flags by hand.
1415 Andrew Jaffe reported a problem on Red Hat 7.3 with identical
1416 symptoms, except that ld was already being invoked with -z
1417 nocombreloc. Switching dialogs and widgets from Motif to Athena
1418 eliminated the problem. Both LessTif and OpenMotif were installed,
1419 and a bad interaction is suspected. This problem has not yet been
1423 **** XEmacs warns "Symbol `toggleClassRec' has different size in shared
1424 object, consider re-linking / Symbol `labelClassRec' has different
1425 size in shared object, consider re-linking / Warning: Representation
1426 size 4 must match superclass's to override value"
1428 Sometimes this results in segfaults when using the tab control widget
1429 or a progress bar widget.
1431 Some versions of Debian install 3D versions of the Athena widget
1432 library as /usr/X11R6/lib/libXaw.so. We have not yet solved the
1433 problem of identifying the actual library in use in ./configure, so it
1434 is possible for XEmacs to be compiled with reference to headers for
1435 "flat" Xaw but find a "3D" Xaw when loading.
1437 The straightforward solution is to rebuild XEmacs with additional
1438 configure options: --with-widgets=athena --with-athena=3d.
1440 There are several 3D Athena widget sets available; to see which ones
1441 are supported by XEmacs, use ./configure --usage.
1445 The Mandrake Linux distribution is attempting to comprehensively
1446 update the user interface, and make it consistent across
1447 applications. This is very difficult, and will occasionally cause
1448 conflicts with applications like Emacs with their own long-established
1449 interfaces. Known issues specific to Mandrake or especially common:
1451 Some versions of XEmacs (21.1.9 is known) distributed with Mandrake
1452 were patched to make the Meta and Alt keysyms synonymous. These
1453 normally work as expected in the Mandrake environment. However,
1454 custom-built XEmacsen (including all 21.2 betas) will "inexplicably"
1455 not respect the "Alt-invokes-Meta-commands" convention. See "I want
1456 XEmacs to use the Alt key" below.
1458 The color-gcc wrapper (see below) is in common use on the Mandrake
1461 *** XEmacs configured with ESD crashes with a segmentation violation
1463 This often occurs when a progress bar pops up.
1465 The problem is that the ESD sound daemon manipulates interrupts in a
1466 way that disagrees with XEmacs. The currently available workaround is
1467 not very satisfactory: remove ESD support. Rebuild after
1468 reconfiguring with the option --with-sound=none[,native][,nas]
1470 The funny syntax (requiring the initial "none") is for backward
1471 compatibility, and may change. Native sound and NAS do not cause the
1472 problem, so they may be added to the option to get some sound support.
1474 *** I want XEmacs to use the Alt key, not the XXX key, for Meta commands
1476 For historical reasons, XEmacs looks for a Meta key, then an Alt key.
1477 It binds Meta commands to the X11 modifier bit attached to the first
1478 of these it finds. On PCs, the Windows key is often assigned the Meta
1479 bit, but many desktop environments go to great lengths to get all apps
1480 to use the Alt key, and reserve the Windows key to (sensibly enough)
1483 One correct way to implement this was suggested on comp.emacs.xemacs
1484 (by Kilian Foth and in more detail by Michael Piotrowski): unmap the
1485 Meta modifier using xmodmap or xkb, and then map the Meta/Windows key
1486 to the Super or Hyper keysym and an appropriate mod bit. XEmacs will
1487 not find the Meta keysym, and default to using the Alt key for Meta
1488 keybindings. Typically few applications use the (X11) Meta modifier;
1489 it is tedious but not too much so to teach the ones you need to use
1490 Super instead of Meta. There may be further useful hints in the
1491 discussion of keymapping on non-Linux platforms.
1493 *** The color-gcc wrapper
1495 This wrapper colorizes the error messages from gcc. By default XEmacs
1496 does not interpret the escape sequences used to generate colors,
1497 resulting in a cluttered, hard-to-read buffer. You can remove the
1498 wrapper, or defeat the wrapper colorization in Emacs process buffers
1499 by editing the "nocolor" attribute in /etc/colorgccrc:
1501 $ diff -u /etc/colorgccrc.old /etc/colorgccrc
1502 --- /etc/colorgccrc.old Tue Dec 26 02:17:46 2000
1503 +++ /etc/colorgccrc Tue Dec 26 02:15:48 2000
1506 +nocolor: dumb emacs
1508 If you want colorization in your Emacs buffers, you may get good
1509 results from the ansi-color.el library:
1511 http://www.geocities.com/kensanata/color-emacs.html#ansicolors
1513 This is written for the mainline GNU Emacs but the author has made
1514 efforts to adapt it to XEmacs. YMMV.
1516 *** Slow startup on Linux.
1518 People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1519 startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'. There are two
1520 problems, one older, one newer.
1522 **** Old problem: IPv4 host lookup
1524 On older systems, this is because Emacs looks up the host name when it
1525 starts. Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due
1526 to improper system configuration. (Recent Linux distros usually have
1527 this configuration correct "out of the box".) This problem can occur
1528 for both networked and non-networked machines.
1530 Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
1532 ***** Networked Case
1534 First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1535 exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1536 (replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
1538 127.0.0.1 localhost HOSTNAME
1540 Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1546 Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1547 indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1548 database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1549 dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1551 ***** Non-Networked Case
1553 The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1554 However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1555 simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1556 `touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1557 file is not necessary with this approach.
1559 **** New problem: IPv6 CNAME lookup
1561 A newer problem is due to XEmacs changing to use the modern
1562 getaddrinfo() interface from the older gethostbyname() interface. The
1563 solution above is insufficient, because getaddrinfo() by default tries
1564 to get IPv6 information for localhost (including the local X server).
1565 This always involves a dns lookup to get the CNAME, and the strategies
1566 above don't work. It then falls back to IPv4 behavior.
1568 ***** Robust network case
1570 Configure your network so that there are no nameservers configured
1571 until the network is actually running. getaddrinfo() will not try to
1572 access a nameserver that isn't configured.
1574 ***** Flaky network case
1576 If you have a flaky modem or DSL connection that can be relied on only
1577 to go down whenever you want to bring XEmacs up, you need to force
1578 IPv4 behavior. Explicitly setting DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0 (or whatever
1579 is appropriate) works in most cases.
1581 If you cannot or do not want to do that, you can hard code IPv4
1582 behavior in src/process-unix.c. Add `--with-ipv6-cname=no" to your
1583 configure options and rebuild XEmacs.
1585 *** XEmacs disappears after several sound events in succession
1587 If esd is not running (e.g. you unchecked the run esd checkbox in the
1588 GNOME Configuration tool), every sound event will cause the esound
1589 client library to signal SIGUSR1. It is not that difficult (hold down
1590 PgUp or PgDn, for example) to cause XEmacs to generate additional
1591 SIGUSR1 signals before the first handler has a chance to reset, so the
1592 second SIGUSR1 causes the default behavior of ending the process.
1594 The solution is either to build XEmacs with -sound=native,noesd or to make sure
1595 that esd is in fact running.
1597 *** You get crashes in a non-C locale with Linux GNU Libc 2.0.
1599 Internationalization was not the top priority for GNU Libc 2.0.
1600 As of this writing (1998-12-28) you may get crashes while running
1601 XEmacs in a non-C locale. For example, `LC_ALL=en_US xemacs' crashes
1602 while `LC_ALL=C xemacs' runs fine. This happens for example with GNU
1603 libc 2.0.7. Installing libintl.a and libintl.h built from gettext
1604 0.10.35 and re-building XEmacs solves the crashes. Presumably soon
1605 everyone will upgrade to GNU Libc 2.1 and this problem will go away.
1607 *** `C-z', or `M-x suspend-emacs' hangs instead of suspending.
1609 If you build with `gpm' support on Linux, you cannot suspend XEmacs
1610 because gpm installs a buggy SIGTSTP handler. Either compile with
1611 `--with-gpm=no', or don't suspend XEmacs on the Linux console until
1614 *** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
1615 character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
1617 One user on a Linux system reported that this problem went away with
1618 installation of a new X server. The failing server was XFree86 3.1.1.
1619 XFree86 3.1.2 works.
1622 *** On Irix, I don't see the toolbar icons and I'm getting lots of
1623 entries in the warnings buffer.
1625 SGI ships a really old Xpm library in /usr/lib which does not work at
1626 all well with XEmacs. The solution is to install your own copy of the
1627 latest version of Xpm somewhere and then use the --site-includes and
1628 --site-libraries flags to tell configure where to find it.
1630 *** Trouble using ptys on IRIX, or running out of ptys.
1632 The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
1633 be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
1634 to allocate ptys reliably.
1636 *** Motif dialog boxes lose on Irix.
1638 Larry Auton <lda@control.att.com> writes:
1639 Beware of not specifying
1641 --with-dialogs=athena
1643 if it builds with the motif dialogs [boom!] you're a dead man.
1645 *** Beware of the default image & graphics library on Irix
1647 Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
1649 You *have* to compile your own jpeg lib. The one delivered with SGI
1650 systems is a C++ lib, which apparently XEmacs cannot cope with.
1653 ** Digital UNIX/OSF/VMS/Ultrix
1654 *** XEmacs crashes on Digital Unix within font-lock, or when dealing
1655 with large compilation buffers.
1657 The default stack size under Digital Unix is rather small (2M as
1658 opposed to Solaris 8M), hosing the regexp code, which uses alloca()
1659 extensively, overflowing the stack when complex regexps are used.
1662 1) Increase your stack size, using `ulimit -s 8192' or a (t)csh
1665 2) Recompile regex.c with REGEX_MALLOC defined.
1667 *** The `Alt' key doesn't behave as `Meta' when running DECwindows.
1669 The default DEC keyboard mapping has the Alt keys set up to generate the
1670 keysym `Multi_key', which has a meaning to xemacs which is distinct from that
1671 of the `Meta_L' and `Meta-R' keysyms. A second problem is that certain keys
1672 have the Mod2 modifier attached to them for no adequately explored reason.
1673 The correct fix is to pass this file to xmodmap upon starting X:
1676 keysym Multi_key = Alt_L
1680 *** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
1682 This shell command should fix it:
1684 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
1686 *** `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped
1689 On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
1690 in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
1691 expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
1692 in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
1694 The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
1695 anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
1697 I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
1698 going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
1699 Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
1700 in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
1704 *** I get complaints about the mapping of my HP keyboard at startup,
1705 but I haven't changed anything.
1707 The default HP keymap is set up to have Mod1 assigned to two different keys:
1708 Meta_L and Mode_switch (even though there is not actually a Mode_switch key on
1709 the keyboard -- it uses an "imaginary" keycode.) There actually is a reason
1710 for this, but it's not a good one. The correct fix is to execute this command
1713 xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch'
1715 *** On HP-UX, you get "poll: Interrupted system call" message in the
1716 window where XEmacs was launched.
1718 Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
1720 I get a very strange problem when linking libc.a dynamically: every
1721 event (mouse, keyboard, expose...) results in a "poll: Interrupted
1722 system call" message in the window where XEmacs was
1723 launched. Forcing a static link of libc.a alone by adding
1724 /usr/lib/libc.a at the end of the link line solves this. Note that
1725 my 9.07 build of 19.14b17 and my (old) build of 19.13 both exhibit
1726 the same behavior. I've tried various hpux patches to no avail. If
1727 this problem cannot be solved before the release date, binary kits
1728 for HP *must* be linked statically against libc, otherwise this
1729 problem will show up. (This is directed at whoever will volunteer
1730 for this kit, as I won't be available to do it, unless 19.14 gets
1731 delayed until mid-june ;-). I think this problem will be an FAQ soon
1732 after the release otherwise.
1734 Note: The above entry is probably not valid for XEmacs 21.0 and
1737 *** The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1738 other non-English HP keyboards too).
1740 This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1741 shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1742 configures the X server.
1744 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1745 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1746 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1751 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1753 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1754 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1758 *** XEmacs dumps core at startup when native audio is used. Native
1759 audio does not work with recent versions of HP-UX.
1761 Under HP-UX 10.20 and later (e.g., HP-UX 11.XX), with native audio
1762 enabled, the dumped XEmacs binary ("xemacs") core dumps at startup if
1763 recent versions of the libAlib.sl audio shared library is used. Note
1764 that "temacs" will run, but "xemacs" will dump core. This, of course,
1765 causes the XEmacs build to fail. If GNU malloc is enabled, a stack
1766 trace will show XEmacs to have crashed in the "first" call to malloc().
1768 This bug currently exists in all versions of XEmacs, when the undump
1769 mechanism is used. It is not known if using the experimental portable
1770 dumper will allow native audio to work.
1774 Recent versions of the HP-UX 10.20 (and later) audio shared library (in
1775 /opt/audio/lib), pulls in the libdce shared library, which pulls in a
1776 thread (libcma) library. This prevents the HP-UX undump() routine (in
1777 unexhp9k800.c) from properly working. What's happening is that some
1778 initialization routines are being called in the libcma library, *BEFORE*
1779 main() is called, and these initialization routines are calling
1780 malloc(). Unfortunately, in order for the undumper to work, XEmacs must
1781 adjust (move upwards) the sbrk() value *BEFORE* the first call to
1782 malloc(); if malloc() is called before XEmacs has properly adjusted sbrk
1783 (which is what is happening), dumped memory that is being used by
1784 XEmacs, is improperly re-allocated for use by malloc() and the dumped
1785 memory is corrupted. This causes XEmacs to die an horrible death.
1787 It is believed that versions of the audio library past December 1998
1788 will trigger this problem. Under HP-UX 10.20, you probably have to
1789 install audio library patches to encounter this. It's probable that
1790 recent "fresh, out-of-the-box" HP-UX 11.XX workstations also have this
1791 problem. For HP-UX 10.20, it's believed that audio patch PHSS_17121 (or
1792 a superceeding one, like PHSS_17554, PHSS_17971, PHSS_18777, PHSS_21481,
1793 or PHSS_21662, etc.) will trigger this.
1795 To check if your audio library will cause problems for XEmacs, run
1796 "chatr /opt/audio/lib/libAlib.sl". If "libdce" appears in the displayed
1797 shared library list, XEmacs will probably encounter problems if audio is
1802 Don't enable native audio. Re-run configure without native audio
1805 If your site supports it, try using NAS (Network Audio Support).
1807 Try using the experimental portable dumper. It may work, or it may
1811 *** `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'
1813 On HP-UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1814 file system. HP-UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1815 does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1816 value is just ten seconds.
1818 If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
1820 *** Shell mode on HP-UX gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
1822 christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
1824 The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1825 execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then tty
1826 will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places, but tty
1827 is giving it back 3.
1829 The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a
1832 if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
1834 should be changed to:
1836 if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
1838 Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1843 *** Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
1845 On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
1846 with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
1847 version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
1848 C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
1853 *** In general, the Windows code is less mature than the Unix code.
1855 The Windows code base is still changing quickly. If you are
1856 experiencing problems, try the latest beta version to see if the
1857 problem still exists. Also ask on xemacs-nt@xemacs.org.
1861 *** Subprocesses do not work.
1863 You do not have "tty" in your CYGWIN environment variable. This must
1864 be set in your autoexec.bat (win95) or the system properties (winnt)
1865 as it must be read before the cygwin DLL initializes.
1867 *** ^G does not work on hung subprocesses.
1869 This is a known problem. It can be remedied by defining BROKEN_SIGIO
1870 in src/s/cygwin.h, however this currently leads to instability in XEmacs.
1871 (#### is this still true?)
1873 *** Errors from make like `/c:not found' when running `M-x compile'.
1875 Make sure you set the environment variable MAKE_MODE to UNIX in your
1876 init file (.xemacs/init.el), Control Panel (Windows 2000/NT), or
1877 AUTOEXEC.BAT (Windows 98/95).
1879 *** There are no images in the toolbar buttons.
1881 You need version 4.71 of commctrl.dll which does not ship with windows
1882 95. You can get this by installing IE 4.0 or downloading it from the
1886 * Compatibility problems (with Emacs 18, GNU Emacs, or previous XEmacs/lemacs)
1887 ==============================================================================
1889 *** "Symbol's value as variable is void: unread-command-char".
1890 "Wrong type argument: arrayp, #<keymap 143 entries>"
1891 "Wrong type argument: stringp, [#<keypress-event return>]"
1893 There are a few incompatible changes in XEmacs, and these are the
1894 symptoms. Some of the emacs-lisp code you are running needs to be
1895 updated to be compatible with XEmacs.
1897 The code should not treat keymaps as arrays (use `define-key', etc.),
1898 should not use obsolete variables like `unread-command-char' (use
1899 `unread-command-events'). Many (most) of the new ways of doing things
1900 are compatible in GNU Emacs and XEmacs.
1902 Modern Emacs packages (Gnus, VM, W3, efs, etc) are written to support
1903 GNU Emacs and XEmacs. We have provided modified versions of several
1904 popular emacs packages (dired, etc) which are compatible with this
1905 version of emacs. Check to make sure you have not set your load-path
1906 so that your private copies of these packages are being found before
1907 the versions in the lisp directory.
1909 Make sure that your load-path and your $EMACSLOADPATH environment
1910 variable are not pointing at an Emacs18 lisp directory. This will
1913 ** Some packages that worked before now cause the error
1914 Wrong type argument: arrayp, #<face ... >
1916 Code which uses the `face' accessor functions must be recompiled with
1917 xemacs 19.9 or later. The functions whose callers must be recompiled
1918 are: face-font, face-foreground, face-background,
1919 face-background-pixmap, and face-underline-p. The .elc files
1920 generated by version 19.9 will work in 19.6 and 19.8, but older .elc
1921 files which contain calls to these functions will not work in 19.9.
1923 ** Signaling: (error "Byte code stack underflow (byte compiler bug), pc 38")
1925 This error is given when XEmacs 20 is compiled without MULE support
1926 but is attempting to load a .elc which requires MULE support. The fix
1927 is to rebytecompile the offending file.
1929 ** Signaling: (wrong-type-argument ...) when loading mail-abbrevs
1931 The is seen when installing the Insidious Big Brother Data Base (bbdb)
1932 which includes an outdated copy of mail-abbrevs.el. Remove the copy
1933 that comes with bbdb and use the one that comes with XEmacs.
1939 ** A reminder: XEmacs/Mule work does not currently receive *any*
1940 funding, and all work is done by volunteers. If you think you can
1941 help, please contact the XEmacs maintainers.
1943 ** XEmacs/Mule doesn't support TTY's satisfactorily.
1945 This is a major problem, which we plan to address in a future release
1946 of XEmacs. Basically, XEmacs should have primitives to be told
1947 whether the terminal can handle international output, and which
1948 locale. Also, it should be able to do approximations of characters to
1949 the nearest supported by the locale.
1951 ** Internationalized (Asian) Isearch doesn't work.
1953 Currently, Isearch doesn't directly support any of the input methods
1954 that are not XIM based (like egg, canna and quail) (and there are
1955 potential problems with XIM version too...). If you're using egg
1956 there is a workaround. Hitting <RET> right after C-s to invoke
1957 Isearch will put Isearch in string mode, where a complete string can
1958 be typed into the minibuffer and then processed by Isearch afterwards.
1959 Since egg is now supported in the minibuffer using string mode you can
1960 now use egg to input your Japanese, Korean or Chinese string, then hit
1961 return to send that to Isearch and then use standard Isearch commands
1964 ** Using egg and mousing around while in 'fence' mode screws up my
1967 Don't do this. The fence modes of egg and canna are currently very
1968 modal, and messing with where they expect point to be and what they
1969 think is the current buffer is just asking for trouble. If you're
1970 lucky they will realize that something is awry, and simply delete the
1971 fence, but worst case can trash other buffers too. We've tried to
1972 protect against this where we can, but there still are many ways to
1973 shoot yourself in the foot. So just finish what you are typing into
1974 the fence before reaching for the mouse.
1976 ** Not all languages in Quail are supported like Devanagari and Indian
1977 languages, Lao and Tibetan.
1979 Quail requires more work and testing. Although it has been ported to
1980 XEmacs, it works really well for Japanese and for the European
1983 ** Right-to-left mode is not yet implemented, so languages like
1984 Arabic, Hebrew and Thai don't work.
1986 Getting this right requires more work. It may be implemented in a
1987 future XEmacs version, but don't hold your breath. If you know
1988 someone who is ready to implement this, please let us know.
1990 ** We need more developers and native language testers. It's extremely
1991 difficult (and not particularly productive) to address languages that
1992 nobody is using and testing.
1994 ** The kWnn and cWnn support for Chinese and Korean needs developers
1995 and testers. It probably doesn't work.
1997 ** There are no `native XEmacs' TUTORIALs for any Asian languages,
1998 including Japanese. FSF Emacs and XEmacs tutorials are quite similar,
1999 so it should be sufficient to skim through the differences and apply
2000 them to the Japanese version.
2002 ** We only have localized menus translated for Japanese, and the
2003 Japanese menus are developing bitrot (the Mule menu appears in
2006 ** XIM is untested for any language other than Japanese.