OS X Terminal lines don't go into scrollback

Posted by Steve Madsen on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Steve Madsen
Published on 2010-03-15T15:34:16Z Indexed on 2010/03/15 15:40 UTC
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Filed under:

xterm

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terminal

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shell

I have a problem that crops up when using Mac OS X's Terminal (TERM=xterm): sometimes it gets itself into a state where lines that scroll off the top are not added to the scrollback buffer. I'm not using screen or similar; this is a plain bash shell inside a Terminal tab.

It doesn't do this immediately after opening a new tab. I believe it is a side-effect of something I've run in the problem tab. My guess is that it has something to do with the xterm emulation, possibly the scroll region.

What hasn't worked:

Soft and hard reset via the Shell menu
Running reset in the tab

Is there a reliable way to reset Terminal and/or the xterm state?

Can anyone provide a explanation for what's happening, even if the only fix is to close the tab and open a new one?

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