Pasting X selection fails

[Ian Zimmerman <itz@speakeasy.org>]

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In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-debian-linux-gnu, X toolkit)
 of 2002-12-17 on kronstadt, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  i386-debian-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes --with-x=yes --with-x-toolkit=athena --without-toolkit-scroll-bars --without-gif'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

Sometimes when I select a piece of text in another program (xterm or tkman
or mozilla are examples, but it seems it can happen with any program) I am
unable to paste the selection into emacs.  Instead, doing the "yank"
command in emacs always pastes emacs' last "kill".  When I do
"Alt-: (x-get-selection-internal 'PRIMARY 'STRING)" the result is also
emacs' last kill, even though I just selected something in xterm a second
before that.

What is interesting is that when I do C-w (killing the yanked kill
again) and then reselect the text in the other X program, it works.

Some environment data that might be useful: 

- emacs is compiled with Athena toolkit
- XFree86 4.1.0
- sawfish 1.0.1.20020116
- no desktop environment

This happens in Emacs 20.7 as well: see

http://bugs.debian.org/157227

for my original report.

Recent input:
C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s <return> C-s C-s C-s 
<return> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<menu-bar> <files> <kill-buffer> C-h i m e m a c s 
<return> <next> <next> <help-echo> <down-mouse-2> <mouse-2> 
<help-echo> <down-mouse-2> <mouse-2> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<down-mouse-2> <mouse-2> <next> n <next> n <next> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<menu-bar> <tools> <gnus> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
C-u <return> <return> M-> M-> C-r z i m m e r C-r C-r 
<return> <return> C-x o M-> M-< C-x o <help-echo> <down-mouse-2> 
<mouse-2> <help-echo> h q q M-x r e p o r t <tab> 
<return>

Recent messages:
Fetching headers for gnu.emacs.help...done
Scoring...done
Mark set [2 times]
Mark saved where search started
Mark set [2 times]
Loading browse-url...done
Saving /home/itz/.newsrc.eld...
Wrote /home/itz/.newsrc.eld
Saving /home/itz/.newsrc.eld...done
Loading emacsbug...done

-- 
Ian Zimmerman, Oakland, California, U.S.A. 
if (sizeof(signed) > sizeof(unsigned) + 4) { delete this; }
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