That's probably https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=803405
On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 01:34:25PM +0200, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote: > control: reassign -1 mutt > > On lun., 2016-05-23 at 12:47 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote: > > > My terminal colour configuration is black on white. > > > After using mutt, the terminal colours are changed to grey on > > > black. Workaround: type "reset" afterwards. > > > Btw. neither xterm nor gnome-terminal mess with the colours, so > > > I suspect, that the error is in xfce4-terminal, not mutt. > > > This behaviour was not present in wheezy. > > > > This applies to all vte-based terminals (lxterminal, etc). > > > > As for the behaviour change, it is in mutt or one of libraries it uses, not > > in xfce4-terminal or vte. Let's, from an unstable system (including the > > terminal) log in to a jessie server, and compare. With stable mutt, you get > > default fg on default bg, with unstable mutt, grey on black. > > > > So let's diff the output: > > > > \e[43d # go to column 1 line 43 (1-based) > > Mailbox is unchanged.\n # write a string > > \e[39;49m # fg=default, bg=default > > +\e[37m # fg=grey > > +\e[40m # bg=black > > \r # go to column 1 > > \e[K # clear line to the right > > \e[43;1H # go to column 1 line 43 (redundant...) > > \e[?1049l # restore cursor position, switch to primary > > screen > > \r # go to column 1 > > \e[?1l # switch grey arrow keys to "normal" mode > > \e> # switch keypad arrow keys to "normal" mode > > Mailbox is unchanged.\n # write a string > > > > As you can see, new mutt explicitely sets the colors to grey/black > > immediately after setting them to default/default. This is the cause of the > > bug you see. > > > > And why xterm and gnome-terminal don't exhibit it? It's because of > > \e[?1049l > > which is an xterm extension. Many terminals don't implement it in the first > > place -- this results in mutt not restoring the screen, which is okay, and > > even if they do, the documentation is really unclear. Thomas Dickey's > > ctlseqs.txt refers to DECRC, which says just "Restore Cursor". If you look > > elsewhere for guidance, you'll usually find "restore cursor position". > > I'd say the correct thing is to follow granddaddy vt100 which restored > > colors/boldness/etc as well, but it'd undebatable that confusion exists. > > > > But let's assume that xterm's interpretation is correct, and we immediately > > change all terminals in Debian unstable to restore colors on DECRC. The > > problem is, a good part, perhaps even majority, of mutt users don't execute > > it locally but ssh to a mail server elsewhere. Thus, very often the > > terminal will run Debian stable or oldstable, some derivative (like, say, > > maemo which is EOL thus won't ever change this), some other distribution or > > even a completely non-Linux OS whose terminals we don't have any control on. > > > > Thus, let's ponder the purpose of mutt's change: it forces grey-on-black > > just to immediately restore it. That's utterly pointless, regardless of > > whether the restore is expected to work or not. > > > > My conclusion: whoever we blame, this bug is 100% a mutt regression, and > > needs to be fixed there (or in a library mutt uses). > > Thanks for the in-depth analysis. I'm reassigning to the mutt package and > adding the maintainer to recipients (hopefully), copying the full text so they > don't get a cryptic mail about this. > > Regards, > -- > Yves-Alexis

