Debian Bug report logs - #1057541
[ncurses-base] nload and possibly more, broken when launched over ssh (old issue reappears)

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Package: ncurses-base; Maintainer for ncurses-base is Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>; Source for ncurses-base is src:ncurses (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:00:02 UTC

Severity: normal

Found in version ncurses/6.4-4

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Report forwarded to [email protected], Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#1057541; Package ncurses-base. (Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ncurses-base] nload and possibly more, broken when launched over ssh (old issue reappears)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2023 02:57:56 +0500
Package: ncurses-base
Version: 6.4-4
Severity: normal

Hello,

As discussed in:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=905247
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=933053
I now see the exact same issue again after a bullseye -> bookworm upgrade.

What happened there?

-- 
With respect,
Roman



Information forwarded to [email protected], Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#1057541; Package ncurses-base. (Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:27:02 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:27:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ncurses-base] nload and possibly more, broken when launched over ssh (old issue reappears)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2023 03:17:23 +0500
Hello,

Downgrading to ncurses-base 6.2 (along with libncurses6 and libtinfo6) from
bullseye, solves it.

-- 
With respect,
Roman



Information forwarded to [email protected], Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#1057541; Package ncurses-base. (Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:45:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Sven Joachim <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:45:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #15 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sven Joachim <[email protected]>
To: Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#1057541: [ncurses-base] nload and possibly more, broken when launched over ssh (old issue reappears)
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 18:40:07 +0100
On 2023-12-06 03:17 +0500, Roman Mamedov wrote:

> Downgrading to ncurses-base 6.2 (along with libncurses6 and libtinfo6) from
> bullseye, solves it.

You may want to upgrade the libncurses6 and libtinfo6 packages again,
downgrading them was neither necessary nor useful.

Cheers,
       Sven



Information forwarded to [email protected], Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#1057541; Package ncurses-base. (Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:45:06 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Sven Joachim <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Ncurses Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:45:06 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #20 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sven Joachim <[email protected]>
To: Roman Mamedov <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#1057541: [ncurses-base] nload and possibly more, broken when launched over ssh (old issue reappears)
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 18:42:05 +0100
On 2023-12-06 02:57 +0500, Roman Mamedov wrote:

> Package: ncurses-base
> Version: 6.4-4
> Severity: normal
>
> Hello,
>
> As discussed in:
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=905247
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=933053
> I now see the exact same issue again after a bullseye -> bookworm upgrade.
>
> What happened there?

Basically an oversight.  In early 2021, upstream made changes to the
xterm* terminfo entries which rendered our workaround for #933053
useless.  Unfortunately I failed notice that, and nobody complained
during the 20+ months of bookworm development where this was the case.

Only a few weeks ago I became aware that the patch for #933053 had
actually been non-functional for two years, and dropped it
completely[1].

It seems that you are still running some rather old terminal emulator
from the Debian 9 era that does not implement the "repeat character"
feature.  Or maybe you are using mosh, which still fails in this
regard[2].

In any case, reintroducing the workaround into a stable Debian release
seems much harder to justify now than it was in 2019.  Basically all
popular terminal emulators that set $TERM to xterm or xterm-256color
have been fixed as of Debian 11 (most should be fixed in Debian 10).

If for some reason you cannot upgrade, there are a few workarounds.

- Set $TERM to something else than xterm(-256color).  What exactly is
  appropriate depends on your terminal emulator.

- Downgrade ncurses-base to the bullseye version - it seems you already
  did that.

- Install your own version of the xterm/xterm-256color terminfo entries
  without the "rep" capability.  Here is how you can do that:

  infocmp -x xterm | sed '$a\ rep@,' | tic -x -
  infocmp -x xterm-256color | sed '$a\ rep@,' | tic -x -

If you run these commands as root, they install the modified terminfo
entries into /etc/terminfo, otherwise into ${HOME}/.terminfo.  Both take
precedence over the system files under /lib/terminfo.

Good luck and sorry for the inconvenience.

Cheers,
       Sven


1. https://salsa.debian.org/debian/ncurses/-/commit/a63daf108bfdbaa05d7403e85ae34a5f7fb3fe70
2. https://bugs.debian.org/930037



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