byobu-prompt color prompt corrupts long command lines

[Daniel D.]

The default byobu-prompt color prompt results in command line corruption when editing lines which exceed one line (including prompt). It's especially bad when trying to use the 'cursor-up' to get an old command line and edit it (or even see it properly), but also affects new commands lines.

For command history a workaround is to use fc -r <history_position> instead. For new lines there is no workaround with byobo-prompt sourced.

The best workaround is to comment out sourcing of byobu-prompt in ''/home/<user>/.byobu/prompt''. This gets the default .bashrc color prompt (i.e. non-byobu) which does not exhibit the same issues. The problem most likely has to do with the escape sequences used to 'prettily' colorize the prompt when the BYOBU_PROMPT is an Ubuntu derivative (i.e. the 'Use Googley colors' part) rather than Ubuntu itself.

If that is a downstream addition please let me know and I will report there (actually going to do that anyway since picking up a change to byobu will probably have to filter through byobu upstream -> ubuntu -> Pop! OS otherwise).

[Daniel D. (cshoredaniel-deactivatedaccount)]

Here's a screenshot of the corruption happening.

[owenman (owen-solberg)]

I was going to open a report for the same thing and then found this one. Same problem I am sure.

I would just add that although I initially thought the problem happened only on multi-line bash history, a more careful examination shows that it happens anytime the history contains more than 33 characters.

Another oddity: cursor-up, followed by repeated cursor-left seems to work okay, but cursor-up, followed by control-a does not.

I'm using
byobu version 5.127
tmux 2.8
CentOS Linux release 7.6.1810

[Daniel D. (cshoredaniel-deactivatedaccount)]

So I was able to verify that if ~/.byobu/prompt contains

export BYOBU_DISTRO=Ubuntu
[ -r /usr/share/byobu/profiles/bashrc ] && . /usr/share/byobu/profiles/bashrc #byobu-prompt#

Then the problem goes ways. The issues appears to be in /usr/share/byobu/profiles/bashrc, specifically:

The "Googley Colours" terminal sequences obviously have some kind of issue solved by the more complicated Ubuntu definitions.

case "$BYOBU_DISTRO" in
   "Ubuntu")
    # Use Ubuntu colors (grey / orange / aubergine)
    PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[38;5;202m\]\$(byobu_prompt_status)\[\e[38;5;245m\]\u\[\e[00m\]@\[\e[38;5;172m\]\h\[\e[00m\]:\[\e[38;5;5m\]\w\[\e[00m\]\$(byobu_prompt_symbol) "
    export GREP_COLORS="ms=01;38;5;202:mc=01;31:sl=:cx=:fn=01;38;5;132:ln=32:bn=32:se=00;38;5;242"
    export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$(printf '\e[01;31m') # enter blinking mode – red
    export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$(printf '\e[01;38;5;180m') # enter double-bright mode – bold light orange
    export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$(printf '\e[0m') # turn off all appearance modes (mb, md, so, us)
    export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$(printf '\e[0m') # leave standout mode
    export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$(printf '\e[03;38;5;202m') # enter standout mode – orange background highlight (or italics)
    export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$(printf '\e[0m') # leave underline mode
    export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$(printf '\e[04;38;5;139m') # enter underline mode – underline aubergine
    # Use Ubuntu themed dircolors
    if [ -e "${BYOBU_PREFIX}/share/byobu/profiles/dircolors" ]; then
     dircolors "${BYOBU_PREFIX}/share/byobu/profiles/dircolors" > "$BYOBU_RUN_DIR/dircolors"
     . "$BYOBU_RUN_DIR/dircolors"
    fi
   ;;
   *)
    # Use Googley colors (blue / red / yellow / blue / green / red )
                                PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[31m\]\$(byobu_prompt_status)\[\e[38;5;69m\]\u\[\e[38;5;214m\]@\[\e[38;5;167m\]\h\[\e[38;5;214m\]:\[\e[38;5;71m\]\w\[\e[38;5;214m\]\$(byobu_prompt_symbol)\e[00m\] "
   ;;
  esac
 fi

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

So in Ubuntu it doesn't happen? When I start byobu in bionic, my shell gets BYOBU_DISTRO set to Ubuntu:
andreas@nsnx:~$ byobu
andreas@nsnx:~$ echo $BYOBU_DISTRO
Ubuntu

My prompt (PS1) is "boring", though, no extra colors.

[David Parrish (daveparrish)]

The Byobu prompt works fine for me in Ubuntu. I see the issues described above in Arch Linux.

[Daniel D. (cshoredaniel-deactivatedaccount)]

I haven't tested from Ubuntu proper -- I didn't realize at first about the difference in code paths for Ubuntu derivatives. Since 'pretending' to be Ubuntu for byobu purposes, and when I reported for System76 they didn't see the issue on Ubuntu, I'd say that it probably doesn't happen on Ubuntu proper.

[David Parrish (daveparrish)]

I implemented a fix and then noticed someone else also found a fix on Github. https://github.com/dustinkirkland/byobu/pull/30

Patch attached.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "non_ubuntu_color_fix.patch" seems to be a patch. If it isn't, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are a member of the ~ubuntu-reviewers, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issues please contact him.]

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi David,
summarizing what was found so far.

1. in Ubuntu this doesn't occurs since we use a less colorful PS1
   -> marking the Ubuntu task as invalid
2. There already is an upstream PR to fix it in the byobu project
   https://github.com/dustinkirkland/byobu/pull/30
   (yet unhanlded)

I agree that handling that PR would be the right way to fix it eventually.

@Kirkland - are you still maintaining byobu upstream? If so ,do you do that on github or launchpad or where exactly would you want PRs/Bugs to be directed to?

[Gunnar Thielebein (lorem-ipsum)]

I can experience the same issue with byobu in Fedora 30.

Is there a chance for a new release including that patch?

[Gunnar Thielebein (lorem-ipsum)]

Sorry for the noise.
Just recognise that 5.128 is out but Fedora30 still ships 5.127.