Subject: bug#22154: 25.0.50; emacsclient -c "breaks" 256-color display in server

From: Eric Hanchrow <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2015 21:49:10 +0000

I have TERM set to 'xterm-256color'.

I started emacs with `/mnt/emacs-25/src/emacs -Q`

I confirmed that 256 colors "worked" by doing M-x list-colors-display
RET, and noting that there were about 256 lines of output, with plenty
of different colors.

I typed M-x server-start RET.

In another terminal on the same machine, I typed `TERM=xterm
/mnt/emacs-25/lib-src/emacsclient -c`.  That displayed a *scratch*
buffer, as I'd expected.

In that new frame, I typed `M-x list-colors-display RET`.  I noticed
that now there were only eight lines of output.

I did C-x 5 0 to delete the new frame, then back in the original frame
again typed `M-x list-colors-display RET`, and noted that there were
still only eight lines of output.

I don't directly care about the number of output lines from the
list-colors-display command, but I do directly care that, for example,
the face "brightyellow" looks different from the default; that's the
case when 256 colors are "working", but not when they're not.  It was

In GNU Emacs 25.0.50.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)
 of 2015-12-10
Repository revision: a1e076240c71373954de0579bf4b026891df8a98
Configured using:
 'configure --enable-checking --config-cache 'CFLAGS=-O0 -g3''

Configured features:
SOUND NOTIFY LIBSELINUX LIBXML2 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Help

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent messages:
Unable to load color "color-27" [2 times]
Unable to load color "color-28" [2 times]
Unable to load color "color-29" [2 times]
Unable to load color "color-30" [2 times]
Unable to load color "color-31" [2 times]
Unable to load color "color-32" [2 times]
Unable to load color "color-33" [2 times]
When done with this frame, type C-x 5 0
Type C-x 1 to delete the help window.

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message dired format-spec
rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231
mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail regexp-opt rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util help-fns mail-prsvr mail-utils color server
term/xterm xterm byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cl-extra help-mode
easymenu cl-loaddefs pcase cl-lib cconv time-date mule-util tooltip
eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
tabulated-list newcomment elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page
menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax
facemenu font-core frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932
hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic
chinese charscript case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp
files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote inotify multi-tty
make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 120356 5071)
 (symbols 48 27849 0)
 (miscs 40 36 100)
 (strings 32 31989 4591)
 (string-bytes 1 581177)
 (vectors 16 10614)
 (vector-slots 8 389733 2151)
 (floats 8 267 501)
 (intervals 56 231 96)
 (buffers 976 13)
 (heap 1024 21302 815))