# Changed behavior in rxvt-unicode between 9.30 and 9.31



## scottro (Thursday at 12:41 AM)

Firstly, I don't know enough about making packages to know what changed, when looking at http://dist.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/Changes
Anyway, generally, I use dwm in tiling mode. When I open a urxvt terminal which will take up a full screen if it's the first thing I open after starting X, the PS1 prompt has always appeared at the top of the terminal, where I would expect it to be. However, after upgrading to urxvt (rxvt-unicode)-9.31, if I open a new terminal, the prompt appears in the lower third of the terminal. Testing with other terminals and renaming .Xdefaults indicate that it's specific to urxvt. Looking at the man page under FILES just shows /usr/local/lib/perl and says it's just for colours, though there are several files in /usr/local/lib/perl, but they seem like extensions.

If I use openbox, or dwm's floating mode, I don't have this issue. Even in dwm tiled mode, where I have the problem, doing ctl+l to clear the terminal puts the prompt back at the top where expected. Once I make a main window, taking up about half of the screen, any windows I create after that have the prompt in the right place. (As a tiling manager, dwm gives you one master window and new windows are tiled, being a smaller size). In tmux the prompt appears in the right place.

On my main FreeBSD workstation, I just went back to 9.30 which doesn't have the problem. Testing on VoidLinux, it seems to be an issue with 9.31, as I see the same issue when I run dwm in VoidLinux. 

It's a very minor issue, instantaneously fixed by doing ctl+l but it's a bit annoying, I am wondering if anyone has any idea what file to edit to bring it back to its former behavior.  I realize it will only show for people who have recently upgraded urxvt (I use latest, so it might not be in quarterly) and who use tiling window managers. (For all I know, it's only in dwm, as that's the only tiling manager I use, but I figure it might show up in any window manager that opens a termina full screen. I did that in openbox and found that the issue showed up there too, if i opened the terminal full screen.)

I freely admit it's a very minor complaint, but it does seem that there should be a way to change it back.


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## scottro (Yesterday at 7:13 AM)

I'm not marking this solved because it's not really fixed, but a bit of web searching indicates that they are aware of the issue upstream. A temporary fix is to put a fixed geometry in .Xdefaults. For example, following an example brought up with a web search I put in my $HOME/.Xdefaults

```
URxvt.geometry: 400x400
```
(size was more or less chosen randomly, in dwm it automatically resizes to tile on the page).
This puts the prompt back where it should be


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## meine (Yesterday at 9:46 AM)

I can vaguely recall a similar issue, although I don't know if it was with x11/rxvt-unicode or some other terminal emulator. Tried on my x11-wm/cwm, but as this is a stacking/floating WM all displays right.

The issue could be triggered when a new window is opened and 'stretched' direct after to fit in the tiling layout (full screen as being the only window). This doesn't happen in floating mode, as the set/default window geometry can be used, no 'on the fly' change of geometry is needed.

You could try what happens if you have several other windows open and then open a new one with urxvt. That geometry should be smaller than full screen -- less 'stretching'. Just to test. Other test can be to define a full screen geometry as default, that will shrink as soon as new windows are opened and re-tiled.

Rests that indeed it is remarkable that urxvt seems the only one doing so, but on some things this emulator seems to do things in a somewhat different manner.


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## scottro (Yesterday at 12:50 PM)

This was brought about by some other changes, apparently. Let me see if I can find the link. 
Ah, here it is, it was for alpine Linux, but the problem is for anything that uses urxvt.








						Problem with rxvt-unicode after upgrade to 9.31-r0 (#14525) · Issues · alpine / aports · GitLab
					

After upgrading rxvt-unicode to 9.31-r0, several empty lines are now present at the top when opening a new terminal:




					gitlab.alpinelinux.org
				






 In cwm, you'd probably see it if you open a full screen terminal.  In openbox, if I maximize a terminal window, I see it, so I would guess you'd see it in cwm, too.  In dwm, it will show a new terminal I open, which takes, in the main window, the screen, top to bottom. If I open a new terminal, that takes top to bottom, the previous term is switched to the right, and once it doesn't take full top to bottom, say, on the third terminal open, the prompt is normal. As I've said, the geometry entry in .Xdefaults fixes it, but if t then switch to open box, I get  full screen term instead of the usual 80x24.  As I almost always use dwm, this isn't really  an issue--if I switch to openbox, I can comment out the Urxvt.geometry line in .Xdefaults. If I switched a lot, I'd probably script it.  It only occurs if the terminal takes the full height (not necessarily width) of the screen.


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## meine (Yesterday at 1:29 PM)

scottro said:


> This was brought about by some other changes, apparently. Let me see if I can find the link.
> Ah, here it is, it was for alpine Linux, but the problem is for anything that uses urxvt.
> 
> 
> ...



The link you gave from the alpine site describes the same. I have x11/rxvt-unicode version 9.30, and indeed no issues. The behaviour of 9.31 seems to be reported, so it will be solved. Just wait.


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## gotnull (Yesterday at 1:47 PM)

Hi,

I am in the same situation, using i3wm and urxvt as terminal, I faced this bug since the last big update that came few days ago (I am on 13.1 quarterly) and then yesterday I found this thread on the mailing list , so someone already reported the issue.
This won't help us directly but at least the author will be aware of it and that's what matters.
I'll try your workaround, thank you.

EDIT:
workaround approved


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## scottro (Yesterday at 9:08 PM)

meine,  Yes, the change is definitely in 9.31. gotnull, glad the workaround er, worked for you.  Thanks for the link to the thread.


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## Minbari (Yesterday at 10:12 PM)

I have set geometry (240x84) in my .Xresources a few years back and the prompt is where is supposed to be, nevertheless now if I scroll with mouse on an empty terminal the prompt go down to the middle of the terminal. This behavior appeared after upgrade to 9.31.


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