M-x shell not working

M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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Hi all,
We have recently migrated to emacs 21.4 from emacs 20.7 in our environment.
In emacs-21.4, I get this error when I do M-x shell.
Warning: no access to tty (Bad file descriptor).
Thus no job control in this shell.
stty: standard input: Invalid argument
exit

Process shell finished

We use clearcase for source control and this is happening inside a clearcase
view. Outside a view, there is no problem. We had no problem at all in
emacs-20.7, even inside a clearcase view. In emacs-21.4, it is working some
times but most of the times it is not. Looks like pty is not being
allocated.
I did some debugging and found the following information. In emacs-21.4, in
the rare case when M-x shell works, tty allocated is like '/view/dev/ttyp7'
. '/view' is due to clearcase, may be some virtual path. The actual path
starts from '/dev/...' ie. Removing '/view' would give the path of the tty
in our system. In emacs-20.7, the tty allocated is like '/view/43'. It is
always of the form '/view/' followed by a number. This indicates that the
tty allocation system is changed in emacs-21.4. In emacs-20.7, looks like it
is doing some virtual allocation as it is just a number. But in emacs-21.4,
it is allocating from /dev. We have sufficient number of ttys too.
% ls /dev/tty* | wc -l
905
Emacs is not able to pick up a free one? Also I noticed that, in emacs-21.4,
when M-x shell works, it works for some time before it stops working and
goes back to its usual state. During this time, it is able to allocate ptys
in serial order without any problem, when we invoke shell from different
emacs sessions. I suspect that when it is able to capture some tty in a
specific range, it is able to obtain the remaining without any problem. I
ruled out the possibility that ttys are really exhausted because, while I
could open shell from emacs-21.4, other users could'nt do it on the same
machine during the same time.
OS is linux. I have verified that process-connection-type is set to t. So
this is not the same problem as Mac users have reported. Also, I started
emacs with -q option. So there is nothing in my .emacs file which could have
caused this problem.
I hope this infomation which I collected from my debugging would be of help.
I could not proceed further. Can someone help?

Sunil

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 18.10.2005 um 08:34 schrieb Sunil Yeddu:

> Warning: no access to tty (Bad file descriptor).
> Thus no job control in this shell.
> stty: standard input: Invalid argument		<<<<<<<<<<<
> exit
>
> Process shell finished

This is very familiar for me on Mac OS X. Here it's found that using 
ttys is not reliable. (setq process-connection-type t) in .emacs 
'corrects' this.

Your problem is that some shell rc file writes something into /dev/tty 
or such without first checking whether it's allowed or useful. So check 
the code in your shell's rc file(s), for example make the shell 
verbosely list what it's doing during its initialisation while working 
on the rc file(s)!

--
Greetings

   Pete

“One cannot live by television, video games, top ten CDs, and dumb 
movies alone”
       (Amiri Baraka 1999)

Re: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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Hi,
There was a 'stty sane' line in my .cshrc which is causing the Invalid
argument message. I removed it and that erorr message has gone away. Thanks,
Pete.
I also noticed that setting TERM env to any value is causing shell to exit.
I removed the line which sets TERM env from my cshrc and I was able to
access shell !!! But the warning message is still there.

Warning: no access to tty (Bad file descriptor).
Thus no job control in this shell.

And setting TERM env in it is causing the shell to exit immediately. I guess
this is because of tty not being allocated. From the shell in emacs when I
type tty, I see...
$ tty
not a tty

So there is no solution to the original problem yet, as removing the line
which sets TERM env cannot be a permanent solution.

Sunil

On 10/18/05, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@web.de> wrote:
>
>
> Am 18.10.2005 um 08:34 schrieb Sunil Yeddu:
>
> > Warning: no access to tty (Bad file descriptor).
> > Thus no job control in this shell.
> > stty: standard input: Invalid argument <<<<<<<<<<<
> > exit
> >
> > Process shell finished
>
> This is very familiar for me on Mac OS X. Here it's found that using
> ttys is not reliable. (setq process-connection-type t) in .emacs
> 'corrects' this.
>
> Your problem is that some shell rc file writes something into /dev/tty
> or such without first checking whether it's allowed or useful. So check
> the code in your shell's rc file(s), for example make the shell
> verbosely list what it's doing during its initialisation while working
> on the rc file(s)!
>
> --
> Greetings
>
> Pete
>
> "One cannot live by television, video games, top ten CDs, and dumb
> movies alone"
> (Amiri Baraka 1999)
>
>

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Kevin Rodgers]

Sunil Yeddu wrote:
 >     I also noticed that setting TERM env to any value is causing shell
 > to exit. I removed the line which sets TERM env from my cshrc and I was
 > able to access shell !!! But the warning message is still there.
 >
 >  Warning: no access to tty (Bad file descriptor).
 >  Thus no job control in this shell.
 >
 >       And setting TERM env in it is causing the shell to exit
 > immediately. I guess this is because of tty not being allocated. From
 > the shell in emacs when I type tty, I see...
 > $ tty
 > not a tty
 >
 >       So there is no solution to the original problem yet, as removing
 > the line which sets TERM env cannot be a permanent solution.

But moving it to your .login file where it belongs is a solution.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers

Re: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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>
>
> > So there is no solution to the original problem yet, as removing
> > the line which sets TERM env cannot be a permanent solution.
>
> But moving it to your .login file where it belongs is a solution.


Kevin, as you suggested I tried moving 'setenv TERM vt100' to .login file.
But .login file is read only once. And everytime we open a new shell using
xterm it is not getting the TERM variable.
Also we have all the settings in a common cshrc file which we 'source' from
our ~/.cshrc. And setting TERM is done in that common file. Making changes
to that file will not be a good solution to get emacs shell working as it
will have wider implications. Also I feel, fiddling around with TERM
variable is just a workaround. The problem of tty is still there. I still
get warning message when I enter shell in emacs with 'setenv TERM ..'
commented out.
Since it is working in emacs-20.7, there is some change done in emacs-21.4.
If that is identified then may be we can find a solution.

Sunil

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 19.10.2005 um 08:36 schrieb Sunil Yeddu:

> And everytime we open a new shell using xterm it is not getting the 
> TERM variable.

So make it in xterm a login shell! xterm -ls ...

>      Also we have all the settings in a common cshrc file which we 
> 'source' from our ~/.cshrc. And setting TERM is done in that common 
> file.

Why do you want to set TERM in Emacs' shell? GNU Emacs is clever enough 
to set it itself (to dumb). My previous hint with checking whether TERM 
exists is valuable: only if not set source that group-wide .cshrc file! 
The missing pieces from this file can be put into .emacs_csh to 
initialise Emacs *shell* buffer.

> Also I feel, fiddling around with TERM variable is just a workaround. 
> The problem of tty is still there. I still get warning message when I 
> enter shell in emacs with 'setenv TERM ..' commented out.
>      Since it is working in emacs-20.7, there is some change done in 
> emacs-21.4. If that is identified then may be we can find a solution.

You should be a bit more specific in which OS this happens. And check 
GNU Emacs' eshell too! This one is more kind of a terminal emulation. 
*shell* is just a buffer in which a UNIX shell interpreter runs which 
does not need much code from a shell rc file.

--
Greetings

   Pete

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by" 
(Douglas Adams)

Re: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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> Why do you want to set TERM in Emacs' shell? GNU Emacs is clever enough
> to set it itself (to dumb). My previous hint with checking whether TERM
> exists is valuable: only if not set source that group-wide .cshrc file!
> The missing pieces from this file can be put into .emacs_csh to
> initialise Emacs *shell* buffer.

.cshrc will be executed before .emacs_csh. Where should I put the line 'if
term is not set source the group-wide cshrc' ? TERM is also being set in
that common cshrc file. The goal is: it should not be set only for emacs
shell.
I found that emacs shell sets an environment variable EMACS to 't'. So only
if that is set, I can set TERM env in common cshrc file. So this is working
now. But this warning message is still there.

Warning: no access to tty (Bad file descriptor).
Thus no job control in this shell.
Although almost everything is fine, there are some problems because it
does'nt have a tty. For example, ftp is not working. I can't see anything on
the screen although ftp commands are working, because there is no tty.

You should be a bit more specific in which OS this happens. And check
> GNU Emacs' eshell too! This one is more kind of a terminal emulation.
> *shell* is just a buffer in which a UNIX shell interpreter runs which
> does not need much code from a shell rc file.


This is happening only in linux OS as I mentioned in my first mail. On
Solaris it is ok.

Our scenario is like this. We have common cshrc and aliasrc files which are
source controlled. These files, which set up our environment, must be
sourced by every member in a large team. Recently we upgraded emacs and
since then we are having this problem. I tried eshell too. But eshell
does'nt take .cshrc. Sourcing the file explicitly if causing some errors as
eshell is unable to understand some shell programming constructs like
'foreach'. As cshrc is failing to load completely, our environment is not
being set in eshell.
Trying to get emacs working and allocate appropriate tty seems to be the
best way for me. As I said, emacs-21.4 is able to allocate it sometimes. May
be the code which does tty allocation needs a fix.

Thanks,
Sunil

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 19.10.2005 um 11:00 schrieb Peter Dyballa:

> And check GNU Emacs' eshell too!

Sunil,

I'm sorry: I mentioned the wrong tool yesterday. It's not eshell, the 
shell in Elisp, that I wanted to recommend, but terminal! M-x term RET 
will create a *terminal* buffer that behaves better as a terminal 
emulation. Please try whether terminal behaves more like shell before!

Most of its features are described in a description of term-mode (C-h f 
term RET, position cursor on 'term-mode' and press enter -- I don't 
know whether there is better way to access this information). In info 
you'll find in the Emacs department a node 'Term mode' -- quite short.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Got Mole problems?
Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23

Fwd: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sunil Yeddu <ysunilraja@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 20, 2005 3:09 AM
Subject: Re: M-x shell not working
To: Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@web.de>

emulation. Please try whether terminal behaves more like shell before!
>
M-x Term is not working when emacs is opened from a clearcase view. Outside
a view it is fine. I guess it is the same problem as with M-x shell. Since a
tty is not being allocated, there is no display on screen.

Sunil

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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Hi Pete,
Clearcase is a source control system. Like CVS. This whole problem is
happening only inside a clearcase view. I explained this in my first mail.
There is no change to our linux system. We only upgraded our emacs. Old
Emacs-20.7 works fine.
We had been using emacs-20.7 for quite some time. It was always fine for us.
Even now, M-x shell works in emacs-20.7. Only in emacs-21.4 it is not
working. This fact points out that there is some change in emacs-21.4.

Thanks,
Sunil

On 10/20/05, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@web.de> wrote:
>
>
> Am 20.10.2005 um 12:09 schrieb Sunil Yeddu:
>
> > clearcase view
>
> What is this? Some software? Did this change too? Or did your Linux
> change also? Linux changes happen quite offen since the companies or
> distributors have a system to distribute new packages and patches to
> the Linux workstations. (On Solaris you probably still have to fetch a
> patches cluster.)
>
> Actually I ever refused to work with GNU Emacs 20.x (since I work on
> Mac OS X I have to use Emacs-On-Aqua, which is coming from
> OPENstep/GNUstep and is 20.7 based) -- for me they never worked right,
> I just jumped from 19.x to 21.x.
>
> --
> Greetings
>
> Pete
>
> The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
> lists of "Ten Best".
> -- H. Allen Smith
>
>

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:03:54 -0700
> From: Sunil Yeddu <ysunilraja@gmail.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> 
> Clearcase is a source control system. Like CVS. This whole problem is
> happening only inside a clearcase view.

No, ClearCase is _not_ just another source control system, and it
surely isn't like CVS.  To support dynamic views, ClearCase defines
virtual filesystems, which AFAIK no other VC system does.  It also
does other virulent changes to the normal Unix environment; in
particular, setting a view spawns a new shell.

> This fact points out that there is some change in emacs-21.4.

There were gazillions of changes between Emacs 20.7 and 21.4.  Some of
them somehow interact badly with the shell used by ClearCase and with
your shell startup files.  There's no way that we could help you
unless you debug the problem(s) on your system and pinpoint the
line(s) in your shell startup files that cause these error messages.
When you post that information, it is reasonable to expect someone to
come up with an idea how to fix the problem.

Re: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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I think the problem is with pt_chown on our system.

$ ls -l /usr/libexec/pt_chown
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5236 Nov 7 2003 /usr/libexec/pt_chown
There is no execute permission !! It was removed due to some other reason. I
will get the permissions set correctly and then verify if the problem goes
away.

Thanks,
Sunil

On 10/20/05, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:03:54 -0700
> > From: Sunil Yeddu <ysunilraja@gmail.com>
> > Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> >
> > Clearcase is a source control system. Like CVS. This whole problem is
> > happening only inside a clearcase view.
>
> No, ClearCase is _not_ just another source control system, and it
> surely isn't like CVS. To support dynamic views, ClearCase defines
> virtual filesystems, which AFAIK no other VC system does. It also
> does other virulent changes to the normal Unix environment; in
> particular, setting a view spawns a new shell.
>
> > This fact points out that there is some change in emacs-21.4.
>
> There were gazillions of changes between Emacs 20.7 and 21.4. Some of
> them somehow interact badly with the shell used by ClearCase and with
> your shell startup files. There's no way that we could help you
> unless you debug the problem(s) on your system and pinpoint the
> line(s) in your shell startup files that cause these error messages.
> When you post that information, it is reasonable to expect someone to
> come up with an idea how to fix the problem.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Help-gnu-emacs mailing list
> Help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs
>

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Re: M-x shell not working

[Sunil Yeddu]

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Hi,
Identified the issue !!. The problem is in getpt() function. By removing the
following line in src/config.h and recompiling emacs, it works.
 #define HAVE_GETPT 1
This is a bug in clearcase and clearcase support informed that it is a know
issue. Thanks folks, for lending your help.

Sunil

On 10/21/05, Sunil Yeddu <ysunilraja@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think the problem is with pt_chown on our system.
>
> $ ls -l /usr/libexec/pt_chown
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5236 Nov 7 2003 /usr/libexec/pt_chown
> There is no execute permission !! It was removed due to some other reason.
> I will get the permissions set correctly and then verify if the problem goes
> away.
>
> Thanks,
> Sunil
>
> On 10/20/05, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:03:54 -0700
> > > From: Sunil Yeddu <ysunilraja@gmail.com>
> > > Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> > >
> > > Clearcase is a source control system. Like CVS. This whole problem is
> > > happening only inside a clearcase view.
> >
> > No, ClearCase is _not_ just another source control system, and it
> > surely isn't like CVS. To support dynamic views, ClearCase defines
> > virtual filesystems, which AFAIK no other VC system does. It also
> > does other virulent changes to the normal Unix environment; in
> > particular, setting a view spawns a new shell.
> >
> > > This fact points out that there is some change in emacs-21.4.
> >
> > There were gazillions of changes between Emacs 20.7 and 21.4. Some of
> > them somehow interact badly with the shell used by ClearCase and with
> > your shell startup files. There's no way that we could help you
> > unless you debug the problem(s) on your system and pinpoint the
> > line(s) in your shell startup files that cause these error messages.
> > When you post that information, it is reasonable to expect someone to
> > come up with an idea how to fix the problem.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Help-gnu-emacs mailing list
> > Help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs
> >
>
>

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