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Article View: gnu.epoch.misc
Article #64

Painful epoch-4.0p0 bugs

#64
From: Peter A Fletcher
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1992 23:47
55 lines
3077 bytes
Hello!

    Epoch 4.0 has several painful bugs in it which make using it
almost painful enough to go back to epoch-3.2.  I have built epoch-4
for both the Suns and the Decstations at my site, but I only use the
Decstation version.

    The first two bugs are easy to duplicate.  When running as usual
in minibuffer-per-window mode (with -nm flag) with at least two epoch
screens, do the following:

   - begin a command such as find-file-other-screen, leaving the prompt in the minibuffer.

   - Move the mouse to another screen, and the minibuffer prompt will follow it into this screen.  

   - Move the mouse again back to the original screen, and click to put the cursor into it
     (the prompt doesn't follow automatically, which is a small bug in itself)

   - Use C-x o to return to the minibuffer

   - Complete the find-file-other-screen command

    The find-file-other-screen works fine, but the focusing is now
stuffed; if you move the mouse to another screen, the cursor simply
moves into the minibuffer of the previous screen.  It is possible to
click in screens to move the cursor to them, but the only way to
return to a reasonable state of affairs is by killing epoch and
starting again.  This combination of circumstances may sound extremely
rare, but it happens to me about once a day, even when I'm trying to
remember not to cause it.

    A still nastier bug lies in store if you have lots of windows open
and decide to soldier on; eventually in unpredictable circumstances
(quitting a file and closing a screen is one example), epoch will
start to ring the bell continuously, making it near impossible to kill
on the Decstation because X comes to almost a complete halt.

    A completely unrelated bug also makes life hard.  I'm the only
person using my workstation, so I leave it logged in all the time with
epoch running.  I usually have four epochs running at once for various
reasons, and when I come in in the morning there is usually one that
has locked up; refreshing works, the cursor fills and empties when the
mouse enters and leaves the window, but everything else is frozen; the
time is stuck on 2:15 am, none of the keys work, the mouse does not
click.

    Sorry I can't be more specific about where epoch dies, because
gdb won't let me attach on a Decstation.

-peter.
--
Peter Fletcher,            Internet : peterf@csis.dit.csiro.au
PhD Student                Physical : CSIRO Division of Information Technology,
Phone    : +61-6-2750914              ANU, Acton, Canberra ACT AUSTRALIA
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Newsgroups: gnu.epoch.misc
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!manuel!csis!caroli!peterf
From: peterf@olivine.csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter A Fletcher)
Subject: Painful epoch-4.0p0 bugs
Message-ID: <PETERF.92Apr8094717@olivine.csis.dit.csiro.au>
Sender: news@csis.dit.csiro.au
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Organization: /users/peterf/.organization
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 23:47:17 GMT
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