GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 438977
Scrolling in gnome-terminal will occasionally not work
Last modified: 2007-05-16 22:06:11 UTC
I am not sure what is causing this bug to occur but sometimes gnome-terminal's scroll buffer will stop working. My buffer is set to 99998 lines. In my terminal I typically ssh into other computers, inside the ssh session I often run emacs. Sometimes when I get back I can't scroll with the mouse, scroll bar, or shift + pg up. No matter how much output I put to the terminal it will not work. If I open a new tab, that new tab works fine. Let me know if there is additional info I can give.
Do you happen to run 'screen'? Some application switch to the so-called alternate screen of the terminal that is a full-screen mode and has no scroll history. Most editors use this mode. That's why you don't get scroll/history while in emacs/vi for example. Is that what you are experiencing?
No I do not run screen. I should mention that once I `exit' the ssh session, the scroll buffer continues to not work. Is it possible that the full-screen mode of emacs doesn't revert to a normal terminal? Maybe this is an emacs bug....?
It just occured to me what I think is happening. I am in an ssh session using emacs. The ssh session closes unexpectedly therefore emacs never closes cleanly releasing the terminal from full-screen mode. The terminal eventually returns to my local computer and then I begin to use it again. It never successfully gets out of that fullscreen mode so I am stuck with no scroll buffer.
Makes sense. Does running 'reset' help? There's no general cure for this kind of problems. Processes dying while they have modified terminal state is a common problem. The only fix I know is reset.
Yes. running reset gives my scroll buffer back, thanks for the tip. I tested the theory some more, and using the method I described in comment 3 makes the bug reproducible.
Ok. I can't think of any way that this can be improved in vte/gnome-terminal.