Nixpkgs: ncurses apps get displayed incorrectly

[matthiasbeyer]

Issue description

Since my latest update, unstable: 01c3847b9c -> 1b1fc65505 curses apps get displayed incorrectly. This affects mutt, bmon, ranger but (strangely) not tig.

I could provide screenshots if required.

Steps to reproduce

I don't know. Maybe it is enough to use these apps on 1b1fc65505

Technical details

• System: 18.03pre115166.1b1fc65505 (Impala)
• Nix version: nix-env (Nix) 1.11.14
• Nixpkgs version: "18.03pre115166.1b1fc65505"
• Sandboxing enabled: build-use-sandbox = true

[mguentner]

Can confirm.

[matthiasbeyer]

I'm trying to build mutt with the ncurses version rolled back right now... still building though. Not sure whether xfce4-terminal (what I use) causes this or whether it is caused by ncurses... I can at least see the same issues in xterm with bmon

---

Cannot build mutt (without building forever) because of what I reported in https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/29368

[mguentner]

It seems like that the issues I experience stem from the terminal used, I have no issues with xterm but with alacritty everything is distorted. Also running bmon and atop together with the terminal at the same revision (nix-shell -p xterm atop) presents no visual errors. Strange.

[matthiasbeyer]

You have no issues with xterm? Because I have, although not so much as with xfce4-terminal, though.

[rnhmjoj]

I don't see anything strange. Can you elaborate?

[vcunat]

I just noticed, some parts of the UI are shown on (slightly) bad places, in various ncurses apps (inside KDE konsole).

[vcunat]

Note: even the old versions of apps that used to work do this for me now (when ran from nix store directly).

[rnhmjoj]

I noticed transmission-remote-cli crashes when resizing the terminal (making the window smaller):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/nix/store/0wzm7bz95r7l2h6sgri06cm8flm1bzzj-transmission-remote-cli-1.7.1/bin/.transmission-remote-cli-wrapped", line 3767, in <module>
    Interface()
  File "/nix/store/0wzm7bz95r7l2h6sgri06cm8flm1bzzj-transmission-remote-cli-1.7.1/bin/.transmission-remote-cli-wrapped", line 1000, in __init__
    self.run()
  File "/nix/store/0wzm7bz95r7l2h6sgri06cm8flm1bzzj-transmission-remote-cli-1.7.1/bin/.transmission-remote-cli-wrapped", line 1107, in run
    self.draw_title_bar()  # show shortcuts and stuff
  File "/nix/store/0wzm7bz95r7l2h6sgri06cm8flm1bzzj-transmission-remote-cli-1.7.1/bin/.transmission-remote-cli-wrapped", line 2761, in draw_title_bar
    self.draw_quick_help()
  File "/nix/store/0wzm7bz95r7l2h6sgri06cm8flm1bzzj-transmission-remote-cli-1.7.1/bin/.transmission-remote-cli-wrapped", line 2792, in draw_quick_help
    self.screen.insstr(0, self.width-len(line), line, curses.A_REVERSE)
_curses.error: insstr() returned ERR

[matthiasbeyer]

I'm not sure what causes this, but from what we know it could be

• ncurses
• terminal
  
  
  
  • xfce4-terminal (@matthiasbeyer)
  
  
  • konsole (@vcunat)
  
  
  • alacritty (@mguenter)
  
  

or something else which is related to

• bmon
• mutt
• ncmpcpp
• htop
• ranger
• tig (just saw some misbehavings there despite my initial msg)

[vcunat]

We did some ncurses bumps to unreleased versions recently, so I'd expect that to be related, but some terminals are OK with it (e.g. xterm).

[matthiasbeyer]

I tried to rebuild mutt without that bump in version but as reported in https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/29368 it causes systemd and such things to be rebuild... and I really don't like that! :smile:

[aanderse]

I get this as well with the pass program which uses ncurses to prompt for a password over an ssh connection. I'm connecting to my NixOS box from a Windows program called MobaXterm over ssh.

Running current NixOS 17.09 beta.

[matthiasbeyer]

By the way: In my applications, when printing a ">" I get ">" printed in the terminal...
Maybe that's related to this issue and helps us debugging or locating this error?

[matthiasbeyer]

Fixed (as in cannot reproduce) as of

• System: 18.03pre115705.c8e7aab0c8 (Impala)
• Nix version: nix-env (Nix) 1.11.15
• Nixpkgs version: "18.03pre115705.c8e7aab0c8"
• Sandboxing enabled: build-use-sandbox = true

[rnhmjoj]

So we still don't what it was. I tried bisecting multiple times but got inconclusive results.

[matthiasbeyer]

I would guess it was ncurses, which got updated in the last batch AFAIK.

[fpletz]

It was an ncurses update that contained a broken terminfo file for xterm. Another ncurses bump fixed this issue and is currently on staging for 17.09.

[Infinisil]

I'm not sure if this is related, but I've had some weird glitches with ncmpcpp and cli-visualizer. What worked for me is doing export TERM=xterm-termite, which prevents glitches in both of those.