Terminal output scrolling is gone (Headless 11.10 Server, Upgraded from 10.10)

Question

I recently upgraded a 10.10 server (headless, EC2) to 11.04 and then to 11.10. Both upgrades seem to have worked, but now my terminal acts differently, particularly concerning output scrolling. I am accessing this server via Terminal on a 11.10 Desktop (GNOME fallback).

10.10 Behavior:

A scroll bar is displayed on the right side of my Terminal, allowing me to scroll back to older output
Turning the mouse wheel scrolls back to older output

11.10 Behavior:

No scroll bar is visible
Turning the mouse wheel cycles the current line through my command history (same as UP key)

This is a difficult issue to describe succinctly and I've had no luck finding any information about this. But I've performed the same upgrade several times (10.10->11.10) and the result is always the same concerning Terminal scrolling. Output scrolling is very important to me and something I take for granted - I'm concerned I'll be unable to work effectively on this server until I resolve this.

Update - Problem magically gone after logout/login Well, as I said I've done the same upgrade several times and encountered the same problem. However, in the previous tries I was scared away and gave up. This time I was more determined to finish the upgrade and by simply logging out and back in to the server via SSH the problem has corrected itself.

score 160 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 19 '12 at 01:10

160

The behaviour you describe sounds like your terminal was stuck in the full screen "cursor addressing" mode used by tools like less and vi.

The mode can become stuck if those programs do not exit cleanly. For instance, if you kill -9 them, or are running them through an ssh session that disconnects. You can exit this terminal mode by running the following command:

tput rmcup

Or just try browsing a file with less and quit as normal. You should then have access to your scrollback and the contents of the screen when cursor addressing mode was entered.

answered Apr 19 '12 at 01:10

James Henstridge

41,136

16

tput rmcup didn't make any visible change, but tput reset did the trick. – wallyk Feb 11 '14 at 18:11
12

In Ubuntu 14.04 this problem occurs for me if an SSH session within the Terminal is broken. Just viewing a file with less and quitting works perfectly - easier to remember than the tput commands. – Eborbob Nov 29 '15 at 20:15
4

Looks like tput reset did the trick for me. – Willa O Ng'wana Sep 26 '16 at 14:37
another possible culprit for this effect is imwheel running (not a default in Ubuntu 16.04, but readily available) – Frank N Nov 17 '16 at 12:00
Neither the less trick nor tput is not working for me on 14.04. – mitchus Dec 02 '16 at 13:20
less trick worked for me – Mugoma J. Okomba May 12 '17 at 17:00
same issue for me and tput rmcup worked. – Jesse Pepper Sep 04 '17 at 03:36
starting and quitting less worked, but now my entire scrollback is gone (what was displayed before and what I wanted more of). Thanks for nothing. – Mark Jeronimus Oct 26 '18 at 10:20
reset will not get any of the output back, rmcup does. So I prefer it anyday as long as it does the work. – 0xc0de May 21 '21 at 10:12

score 21 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 07 '19 at 14:01

21

If tput rmcup does not work, try

tput reset

instead.

edited Aug 07 '19 at 14:01

Melebius

11,431
9
52
78

answered Aug 07 '17 at 21:33

tacaswell

103

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 07 '19 at 13:52

5

Just reset alone worked for me.

edited Aug 07 '19 at 13:52

Melebius

11,431
9
52
78

answered Aug 07 '19 at 13:32

guest_on_ask_ubu

51

Worked for me on linux alpine – axell-brendow May 23 '21 at 05:56

Terminal output scrolling is gone (Headless 11.10 Server, Upgraded from 10.10)

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