Cursor problems on Scientific Linux 6

[EdLesMann]

I just successfully built an RPM of terminator_0.95 on Scientific Linux 6 (see my previous bug report on the spec file for more details #770465 ). After install most everything seems to work properly except the cursor.

At first it appeared that there was no cursor at all. I change Preferences->Profiles->Cursor color to red and discovered that there is no block cursor being shown. Moving the cursor through text will make the character blink red, but the block cursor doesn't highlight the character. If there is a space or if at the end of the line when typing then there is no highlighting, no blinking, nor any other indication of the cursor is shown.

Changing the cursor type to Underline or I-block removes all traces of the cursor (nothing seems to be highlighted and nothing blinks).

Changing foreground/background colors, palettes, or background images does not appear to make a difference (I didn't try every combination but I did toy with changing multiple settings with no success).

I toyed with other terminal programs from the SL6 repos and they all have cursors shown. I read the bug reports for other cursor related problems with terminator but nothing seemed to help. I am at a loss as to what to try next.

Thanks.

[Dominic Hopf (dmaphy)]

The Fedora packagers are working on a package for EPEL 6 which most likely already fixed this issue. You may like to have a look at the concerning package already: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=239560

[EdLesMann (edlesmann)]

While this issue was supposedly addressed in the vte-color-workaround.patch, I have been unable to get any patch or fix to work for me on Scientific Linux 6. I have spent quite a bit of time on this with no luck so far and I have done everything from installing RPMs from others to compiling my own RPMs with various patches applied. At this time, I do not have a proper cursor and it is quite annoying. I would like to leave this bug open until a proper fix is applied.

Thank you very much for pointing me to that project as I did find a lot of good information.

Thanks.

[Maninder Batth (batth-maninder)]

I am having the same problem as EdlesMann. I tried all different configuration options on terminator, but could not make it work. Its sad that my favorite editor is unavailable on scientifclinux 6.0.
I am running x86_64 version of scientificlinux 6.0.

[EdLesMann (edlesmann)]

My co-worker found something that works. We are now on the x86_64 version of Scientific Linux 6.1 using Terminator 0.95-2.el6 from the EPEL repos.

When you first open Terminator, you will not have a cursor. Right click -> Preferences. Go to the Profiles tab. Unselect "Custom Cursor Color". Close. Then close Terminator and re-open it. You should now have a cursor again!

Horray!

No matter what color scheme we created or what we did, if this is enabled (which it is by default) then terminator will not have a cursor.

Just wanted to let others know.

[Chris Jones (cmsj)]

This may well be fixed in the latest trunk (what will become 0.96). I've just merged a branch from Tony Baker which fixes at least one cursor colour issue.

[Stephen Boddy (stephen-j-boddy)]

Hi Bug subscribers, this is the maintainer (Steve Boddy) of Terminator, who took over from Chris.

In case you were not aware there has been a new release 0.98 of Terminator in the last few days which has many changes, fixes and updates. We also have an ongoing GTK3 port which uses a much more up-to-date libvte.

Even with the ~50 issues closed by that release, and discounting the ~90 outstanding wishlist items, we still have an unwieldy 95 bugs. With the oldest approaching it's 6th birthday and some that haven't seen any updates in nearly 5, it is time for a purge.

My intention is to try and get this list down to a minimum, and for that I need your help.

First I'm going to work through, oldest to newest, setting bugs to Incomplete, pending confirmation that they are still an issue. If after a month there is no feedback, the issue will get closed as Invalid. Here's where you come in. I can't always reproduce, or setting up (i.e. other distros) to even test takes a long time, so I'm going to try crowdsourcing this.

1. Get the latest release. Is it still an issue? If yes, set the confirmed-0.98 tag. For bonus points follow the guide http://gnometerminator.blogspot.com/2015/09/so-you-want-to-try-terminator-gtk3.html and see if the GTK3 branch has same issue, and set the confirmed-gtk3 or notaffected-gtk3 tag.

2. Can you reproduce with an empty/default config file? You can pass "-g temp_config" to do this without affecting your existing config. If you already have Terminator running, you'll need to pass -u as well to disable the DBus.

3. If able to, can you reproduce with another user/guest account?

4. If the issue does not already have clear, precise instructions to reproduce with minimal setup/steps, add them.

5. Put as much info about what you are running.
   * Software/library versions (libvte, gtk, pango, cairo, distro, desktop environment, language)
   * Screens (single or multi)
   * Any unusual / custom packages or configs that might be interacting.

6. If possible attach the config file, unless the issue also happens with an empty one, but mention that.

7. Attach the "-d" debug output from 0.98.

Some common things that cause incidents.

* Strange sizing issues or rapidly shrinking windows - Try turning off Window geometry hints.
* Input (esp. broadcasting duplicate chars etc) problems - Try killing IBus.
* Hand editing of the config file can cause various issues - Due to misunderstanding, incorrect structure or typos.
* Some issues are actually in libvte - This is why testing GTK3 is so important.
* segfaults - Unfortunately these are dying inside the C libraries, and it is usually beyond me to fix those.

Many thanks for your assistance, and hopefully this will get us closer to a bug-free Terminator.

[EdLesMann (edlesmann)]

Hello!

This bug is no longer an issue when running Scientific Linux 6.7 with terminator-0.95-2.el6.noarch from EPEL.

I don't know what fixed it but it has been resolved. I don't know how you want to close the ticket.

Sorry for keeping the bug ticket open so long. :-[

Thanks!

[Stephen Boddy (stephen-j-boddy)]

Thanks for the feedback. Marking as invalid, as no code needed to be fixed.