GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 379993
Setting terminal title from shell causes refresh to slow down
Last modified: 2006-11-28 18:47:46 UTC
Please describe the problem: I first noticed that pasting into most windows was slow, like several characters per second were updated. Thought it was Yet Another Annoying Feature and didn't worry about it. Essentially, what it turns out is happening, is that my PS1 variable is setting the window title, and having set the window title causes the screen updates to be visibly slow. You can even see when typing, as the cursor bounces back and forth along the line. This happens on several different machines, using different architectures and distros. The common thing is that my .bash_profile is identical, and they have all been updated with reasonably new versions of GNOME Steps to reproduce: 1. Open a new terminal with bash. Don't use screen (screen seems to clear it) 2. PS1="\[\033]0;\u@\h\007\033[1;36m\]\u@\h:\[\033[32m\]\w/\[\e[0m\]\$ " 3. Select some text and try pasting it. Actual results: A paste should be seen happening very slowly. Expected results: It happens instantly, as far as you can see. Does this happen every time? Generally, unless screen is running in that terminal. Other information:
I most certainly cannot reproduce this, and I spent my day working on terminals with elaborate PS1s ;-) So: what you are seeing is that when you paste some text (does it depend on how much text it is? on its encoding? on where you cut it from?) into a terminal, you see it slowing be input into it, just as if (or even slower) that if you were typing it?
(In reply to comment #1) > I most certainly cannot reproduce this, and I spent my day working on terminals > with elaborate PS1s ;-) Weird. It happens to me on four different machines, three of which are Ubuntu Edgy and one of which is Debian Etch, and before I filed the bug I had a friend check to see if it reproduces it for him. I wonder if I'm missing a step. > So: what you are seeing is that when you paste some text (does it depend on how > much text it is? on its encoding? on where you cut it from?) into a terminal, > you see it slowing be input into it, just as if (or even slower) that if you > were typing it? Yes. It takes one or two full seconds to past a full 80-character line of text. Longer for more, though sometimes it jumps to the end after a hundred or two characters. This is accompanied by the cursor blinking in the window being slow, and when the cursor blinks, you can see it jump to the beginning of the line sometimes, as if you were watching it redraw in slow motion. I might poke around and see if there's something additional I'm doing that triggers this, but I did have a couple more people try it and they reproduced it simply by entering the PS1 line above.
Hmm. It doesn't seem very consistent. Here's what I know: - I wasn't able to reproduce the problem in another shell (zsh). - It also didn't happen in the same shell (bash) on other terminals (rxvt, xterm, eterm, aterm) - When pasting several lines, the problem seems to clear up for a while, then come back, usually at some point when a new shell prompt appears. A friend also told me it happens to him until he alters his profile. In this case he set his window background to white and it went away, only to return a prompt or two later. Still prodding around for answers...
I believe this is a dupe of Bug 346554 that I can reproduce too. Please move the discussion over. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 346554 ***