lynx/PROBLEMS

Lynx PROBLEMS file.

Ideally you would never have to read this, but inevitably problems
do arise.  As implementation and installation problems become known
they will be outlined in this file.

---------

    The install script will attempt to preserve your current settings in the
    lynx.cfg file.  You should review these (at the end of lynx.cfg) after
    install.  For instance references to lynx.browser.org for a startfile can
    be removed, since that site is no longer maintained.

---------

    Some customized installs of OpenSSL are not detected by the configure
    script.  For example, with Redhat9, we did this to work around:

	#!/bin/sh
	KRB=/usr/kerberos
	export LIBS="-L$KRB/lib -lssl -lcrypto -lgssapi_krb5 -lkrb5 -lk5crypto -lcom_err"
	export CPPFLAGS="-I$KRB/include -I/usr/include/openssl"
	export CFLAGS="-O -g $CPPFLAGS"
	./configure --with-ssl $*

---------

    The configure script check for IPv6 (--enable-ipv6) assumes that your build
    machine can listen for IPv6 connections.  It cannot determine if you want
    to use it only for outgoing connections.  If the configure script is
    otherwise successful, it will warn about a nonfunctioning getaddrinfo()
    function, and does not define these symbols needed to successfully compile
    IPv6 support.  You can work around this by by editing lynx_cfg.h:

	HAVE_GAI_STRERROR
	HAVE_GETADDRINFO

---------

    Control-Z on Unix can cause aberrant behavior.  If you encounter
    problems, use -restrictions=suspend to disable it, and only '!'
    for escapes to shell (on VMS control-Z is unconditional 'Q'uit,
    with no attempt to suspend the Lynx process only temporarily).
    Control-Z on Unix often works better with slang.

---------

    Screen resizing can be a bit funny.  If you resize the screen,
    documents that have been cached will be out of whack.  Any further
    documents will look fine.  You can reload documents to the current
    window size with CTRL-R

---------

    If the configure script dies when it discovers that gcc is broken,
    despite the fact there is a perfectly good ANSI cc in the PATH,
    try setting the CC environment variable to your working cc compiler
    before running configure: e.g.

      setenv CC cc   (or   set CC=cc; export CC  , depending on the shell)
      ./configure

---------

    If you run into a problem compiling GridText.c, try omitting -O from the
    compiler flags; it is a very big file and may not compile successfully
    if you include optimization.

---------

    On a Sun system, the message:
	"Alert!:  Unable to connect to remote host"
    will be displayed every time an attempt is made to access a host
    other than localhost if Lynx has been built without the resolv
    library and needed it, or with it and shouldn't have been.
    Unfortunately, there's no way to check in the Makefile whether
    -lresolv should be included in the LIBS="" list.  What's necessary
    depends on how that Sun is configured.  To get the build right for
    your SUN 3 or 4 OS, if you didn't have RESOLVLIB defined in the
    Makefile define it and build Lynx again, or vice versa.  Also, if
    you have upgraded to the bind-8.1 or later library, you should try
    changing -lresolv to -lbind.

---------

    On Sun systems when accessing sites that use multiple IPs for one URL,
    you may experience a core dump.  It's a bug in the resolver library,
    which can be fixed by downloading & installing Sun's jumbo patch:
    search Sun support information, e.g., Solaris newsgroups,
    or see the following Lynx Archive items:

      http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/lynx-dev/9606/0422.html
      http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month0497/msg01018.html
      http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month0497/msg01064.html

    The Sun `shelltool' and `cmdtool' terminals are stupid by default.
    In order to get bold text to appear differently than inverse video,
    the user should put this line in ~/.Xdefaults:

	Term*boldStyle:		Offset_X

    From the `shelltool' man page, it seems that an analogous line
    in ~/.defaults

	/Tty/Bold_style "Offset_X"

    ought to work just as well, but you may not get the desired
    behavior until you modify your .Xdefaults file (and run `xrdb
    ~/.Xdefaults').  Note also that there are other supported values
    for the boldStyle resource/Bold_style default, all of which begin
    with "Offset_". (helpful hint from kevin@traffic.den.mmc.com)

---------

    Directory browsing has been implemented for VMS, but there are no
    plans to port additional DIRED support, because Lynx must handle files
    as streams, and this precludes "serious" Directory/File Management on
    VMS.  Use a jumps file link to CSwing (sources or executables are
    available from ftp://narnia.memst.edu), or define CSWING_PATH in
    userdefs.h or lynx.cfg to invoke CSwing via the DIRED_MENU command.

---------

    If one switches between K)eypad "Numbers act as arrows" versus "Links
    are numbered" in the 'o'ptions menu when the current document is a
    DIRED menu in which links have been tagged, the tagging can be trashed
    (so don't switch at such times 8-).

---------

    When "Links are numbered" is on, if a line is split on an anchor (to
    obey right margin restrictions), and there is no space in the bolded
    string such that the entire "[#]string" must be moved down, the "[#]"
    becomes bolded, instead on only "string".

---------

    The Mosaic v2.5 hostlist uses HTML similar to that of Lynx's bookmark
    file, but with </UL></HTML> at the bottom, such that it is not fully
    compatible with Lynx's file.  If you try to use the Mosaic file as if
    it were a Lynx bookmark file, the </UL></HTML> will not be taken into
    account and new links will be added below rather than above those end
    tags.  Instead, add a link to the Mosaic file in your Lynx file, and
    to the Lynx file in your Mosaic file, so that you can access both files
    with both clients.

---------

    SOCKSification and the -socks switch have not yet been integrated with
    the slang library support.

---------

    There is an apparently broken version of select() in libcurses.a
    of HP/UX 10.10.  It also breaks tn3270, ncftp, emacs, and xemacs.
    Using:
    		LIBS="-lc -lcurses -ltermcap \
		      ^^^
    (i.e, adding -lc *before* the -lcurses) in the snake3 and snake3-slang
    targets of the top level Makefile yields a usable image, but with
    inappropriate video attributes on the Lynx displays (reverse video and
    underscores on everything).  Using "-lc -lHcurses" instead fixes the
                                            ^^^^^^^^^
    video attributes but then the arrow keys are messed up. - Donald S.
    Teiser (dsteis01@homer.louisville.edu)
    NOTE: If HP fixes the problem or you come up with a better workaround,
          notify the lynx-dev@nongnu.org list.
    Updated NOTE (1996-09-02):  A patch reportedly is available from HP to
          fix the select() problem, so that "-lc" is no longer needed, but
	  the curses glitch is not yet fixed, and you should still include
	  "-lHcurses".
    Updated NOTE (1997-02-03): The problems reportedly are fixed with
	  patches PHCO_8086 and PHCO_8947 from HP.
    Updated NOTE (1997-12-15): PHCO_8086 & PHCO_8947 are very old and are
	  no longer available.  The current patch to install if running
	  under HP-UX 10.20 is PHCO_11342.

---------

    Lynx juggles variable abilities of curses packages or emulations to
    display bolding and underlining simultaneously.  This may fail if
    Lynx thinks that your terminal, in connection with the curses package,
    supports a capability which the terminal hardware or emulation does not
    in fact support.  Setting the right TERM environment variable, tweaking
    terminfo or termcap files, or compiling with a newer version of ncurses
    or slang may solve problems with missing highlighting or strange
    characters appearing on the screen.  Also, for a mono terminal,
    make sure "show color" is not set to ON in the Options Menu.

    The Wyse 50 and older TeleVideo terminals, among others, are
    "magic cookie" terminals.  This means that display attributes like
    reverse, blink, underline, etc. work in a bizarre way that makes them
    difficult to program.  You may see extra spaces scattered around your
    screen (separating different sorts of highlight); or sections of the
    screen may be unexpectedly highlighted.
    There is a workaround which works by restricting the terminal to a
    single standout attribute (e.g., normal and reverse, but no others).
    Implementing the workaround is specific to your curses implementation.
    Most versions of curses use one of two terminal databases, called
    "termcap" and "terminfo".  Updating these databases is system-specific.
    New databases should be available from the vendor or other sources.
    For the Wyse 50, try
       <URL: http://www.wyse.com/text/custserv/faq/wy50faq.htm>;
    extract the "wy50" (NOT "wy50-mc") entry and use that in place of the
    existing one.  See `terminfo', `infocmp', `tic' etc. man pages if
    necessary.
    Alternatively, compiling Lynx with the slang library may avoid problems
    with theses terminals.

    The Sun console driver (aka wscons(7)) implements "reverse" and "bold"
    as "reverse", causing confusion where Lynx uses the distinction between
    the two to convey information. Lynx tries to detect this automatically,
    but if it fails (for instance, you are running under "screen"), try
    setting the -noreverse commandline option.

---------

    On VMS, Lynx, and other TCP-IP software, have been experiencing chronic
    problems of incompatibilities between DECC and MultiNet headers whenever
    new versions of either DECC or MultiNet are released.  The Lynx build
    procedure for VMS and a maze of spaghetti #ifdef-ing in tcp.h of the
    libwww-FM had previously been successful in dealing with this problem
    across all versions of MultiNet and of DECC, VAXC, and Pat Rankin's
    VMS port of GNUC, but are now not 100% successful.  If you get compiler
    messages about "struct timeval timeout" having no linkage, add that
    declaration immediately below the inclusion of ioctl.h for MultiNet in
    tcp.h (by deleting the "#ifdef NOT_DEFINED" and "#endif /* NOT_DEFINED */"
    lines):
    [...]
    #include "multinet_root:[multinet.include.sys]ioctl.h"
    struct timeval {
        long tv_sec;		/* seconds since Jan. 1, 1970 */
        long tv_usec;		/* microseconds */
    };
    [...]
    If you get compiler warnings about incompatible multinet_foo()
    declarations, delete those where indicated in tcp.h.  For the most
    current versions of MultiNet, you can modify tcp.h to use the DECC
    socket and related headers.

    On VMS, the ftp function does not work with SOCKETSHR 0.9D and NETLIB
    2 (NETLIB 1 may work).  This is because the functions getsockname()
    and getpeername() within SOCKETSHR make incorrect calls to the NETLIB
    functions.  This results in zeroes being returned for part of the local
    IP address.  Since ftp sends this IP address to the remote end, the
    remote server ends up sending a file back to a non-existent address.
    Andy Harper (A.HARPER@kcl.ac.uk) has fixed these problems in the
    SOCKETSHR 0.9D sources and offers the fixes as:
       http://alder.cc.kcl.ac.uk/fileserv/zip/socketshr_src_09d-2.zip
       ftp://ftp2.kcl.ac.uk/zip/socketshr_src_09d-2.zip

---------

    On VMS, to build an SSL-capable version, lynx and the ssl library
    e.g., OpenSSL, must be built using the same network library.  If you
    build OpenSSL without specifying the network library (the 5th parameter
    of the makevms.com script), it will guess, possibly not the one you
    intended.  We have tested only the UCX configuration -TD (2002/9/15).