Subject: bug#15891: 24.3; Can't type accented characters anymore: <dead-acute> is undefined:

From: Damien Cassou <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:37:04 +0100

On Ubuntu, I can't type accented characters through dead-keys anymore.

$ emacs -Q
<in a scratch buffer>
type right-control quote

You get a "<dead-acute> is undefined".

This works fine with "emacs -Q -nw" and in all other applications. I
found 2 workarounds on the web:

$ XMODIFIERS='' emacs

and

typing C-x 8 RET RET once

Then, typing "right-control quote e" creates the correct é.

Many people report the same issue (just search "XMODIFIERS emacs" in
any search engine.

This is like that for both emacs24 and emacs-snapshot on at least Ubuntu
14.04 (but some users have experienced this for years). Some related
reports:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183796
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/emacs23/+bug/493766
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/emacs23/+bug/575084
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1472204

In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.8.2)
 of 2013-07-27 on roseapple, modified by Debian
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11403000
System Description:    Ubuntu 13.10

Configured using:
 `configure '--build' 'x86_64-linux-gnu' '--build' 'x86_64-linux-gnu'
 '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib'
 '--localstatedir=/var/lib' '--infodir=/usr/share/info'
 '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes'
 '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs24:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/24.3/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/24.3/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp'
 '--with-crt-dir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu' '--with-x=yes'
 '--with-x-toolkit=gtk3' '--with-toolkit-scroll-bars'
 'build_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-g -O2 -fstack-protector
 --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wall'
 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro'
 'CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_MONETARY: fr_FR.UTF-8
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: fr_FR.UTF-8
  value of $LC_TIME: fr_FR.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
M-x e m a c s - r e p o <tab> <M-backspace> <M-backspace>
r e p o r <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Scanning for dabbrevs...done
user-error: No dynamic expansion for `<dead-acute' found

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr dabbrev emacsbug message format-spec
rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse
rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils time-date tooltip ediff-hook
vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image
regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode register page
menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock
syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew greek
romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer loaddefs
button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5
base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote make-network-process dbusbind dynamic-setting
system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x
multi-tty emacs)