I have TERM set to 'xterm-256color'.

I started emacs with `/mnt/emacs-25/src/emacs -Q`

I confirmed that 256 colors "worked" by doing M-x list-colors-display

RET, and noting that there were about 256 lines of output, with plenty

of different colors.

I typed M-x server-start RET.

In another terminal on the same machine, I typed `TERM=xterm

/mnt/emacs-25/lib-src/emacsclient -c`.  That displayed a *scratch*

buffer, as I'd expected.

In that new frame, I typed `M-x list-colors-display RET`.  I noticed

that now there were only eight lines of output.

I did C-x 5 0 to delete the new frame, then back in the original frame

again typed `M-x list-colors-display RET`, and noted that there were

still only eight lines of output.

I don't directly care about the number of output lines from the

list-colors-display command, but I do directly care that, for example,

the face "brightyellow" looks different from the default; that's the

case when 256 colors are "working", but not when they're not.  It was 

In GNU Emacs 25.0.50.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)

 of 2015-12-10

Repository revision: a1e076240c71373954de0579bf4b026891df8a98

Configured using:

 'configure --enable-checking --config-cache 'CFLAGS=-O0 -g3''

Configured features:

SOUND NOTIFY LIBSELINUX LIBXML2 ZLIB

Important settings:

  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8

  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Help

Minor modes in effect:

  tooltip-mode: t

  global-eldoc-mode: t

  electric-indent-mode: t

  menu-bar-mode: t

  file-name-shadow-mode: t

  global-font-lock-mode: t

  font-lock-mode: t

  auto-composition-mode: t

  auto-encryption-mode: t

  auto-compression-mode: t

  buffer-read-only: t

  line-number-mode: t

  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent messages:

Unable to load color "color-27" [2 times]

Unable to load color "color-28" [2 times]

Unable to load color "color-29" [2 times]

Unable to load color "color-30" [2 times]

Unable to load color "color-31" [2 times]

Unable to load color "color-32" [2 times]

Unable to load color "color-33" [2 times]

When done with this frame, type C-x 5 0

Type C-x 1 to delete the help window.

Load-path shadows:

None found.

Features:

(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message dired format-spec

rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231

mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail regexp-opt rfc2047 rfc2045

ietf-drums mm-util help-fns mail-prsvr mail-utils color server

term/xterm xterm byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cl-extra help-mode

easymenu cl-loaddefs pcase cl-lib cconv time-date mule-util tooltip

eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type

tabulated-list newcomment elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page

menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax

facemenu font-core frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang

vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932

hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic

chinese charscript case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev

minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp

files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule

custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote inotify multi-tty

make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:

((conses 16 120356 5071)

 (symbols 48 27849 0)

 (miscs 40 36 100)

 (strings 32 31989 4591)

 (string-bytes 1 581177)

 (vectors 16 10614)

 (vector-slots 8 389733 2151)

 (floats 8 267 501)

 (intervals 56 231 96)

 (buffers 976 13)

 (heap 1024 21302 815))