# mc (Midnight Commander) failing at launch



## willbprog127 (Feb 17, 2017)

Greetings all.

After a recent update, I've seen that `mc` no longer works correctly when launched from a non-root account.  I get this error:


```
$ mc
No protocol specified
common.c: unimplemented subshell type 1
read (subshell_pty...): No error: 0 (0)
```

When I use `mc --nosubshell` it does starts up without the error.

This is on a system that's been running fine for months, and also on a fresh install just to confirm this issue.

Any guidance on this recent issue before I file a PR?


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## willbprog127 (Feb 17, 2017)

Never mind.  I didn't see it before, but PR 208391 already addresses this, and it appears upstream is stalled.  I'll just use `--nosubshell` when necessary.


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## ShelLuser (Feb 17, 2017)

Quite frankly I have my doubts that this PR is involved, check it's date: it's a bit old.

Thing is: I'm also a vivid mc user and I can't reproduce this issue so far. I'm running FreeBSD 10.3 with the latest mc and even if I switch my shell from my normal ksh to sh then things continue to work.

How did you install mc? Using the ports or using binary packages?


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## blackhaz (Dec 9, 2017)

Just installed mc binary on FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE-p11. Getting the same issue.


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## MarcoB (Dec 9, 2017)

Looks like misc/mc doesn't support `/bin/sh` (yet). You can build the port with the SUBSHELL option turned off.


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