#216 Guidance what to do with vte copy paste regression
Closed: Fixed 3 years ago by catanzaro. Opened 3 years ago by kalev.

See https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/63TTXFSQHNV5YBITFV5E2GXMIBFJHE73/ for summary, except that it also affects F33.

The F33 update in question is vte291-0.62.2-1.fc33 that is in updates-testing (https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2021-8656548c9b). Please advise what to do:

1) Push the update to stable as is
2) Revert back to vte 0.62.1 for F33
3) Revert the change in question in 0.62.2

I don't have a strong opinion myself.

CC @rishi


IMO we should downgrade to 0.60 to avoid https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vte/-/issues/316 which is another very serious clipboard bug.

Let's not muddy this request with other bugs. Downgrading to 0.60 is a whole different matter that would require also downgrading gnome-terminal and cause a whole lot of mess because the library ABI would change (0.62 additions would be gone).

I don't see how crashing is better than failing to copy. I suggest the most productive way to deal with this is to work on fixing the underlying problem that is causing the crashes with large selections

keep in mind that terminal is a single service, so all your terminal windows disappear when it crashes

I agree, but that doesn't help me decide with what to do with that update.

Michael, I'd recommend against downgrading to version 0.60 too, for the reasons Kalev mentioned.
I agree with you, Matthias - best would be to get the underlying problem solved as soon as possible.

As I was the one who brought up the "Select all" issue, it's okay for me if you push it to stable, Kalev.
But we need a solution quickly, because not being able to copy/paste longer text parts is distracting.

If I thought people were crashing as often than they are making large selections, I'd agree. But what is a large selection and how often are people crashing?

I've got scrollback limited to 100000 lines, and can select all, copy+paste without crashing. I select-all copy/paste all day long and maybe Terminal has crashed 2-3 times in a year? I'm not even sure it's due to this bug. Maybe that's why I've got a scrollback limit set.

One crash in a month might make me giggle. Select-all not working is making me peel myself off the ceiling multiple times per day.

So I wonder about just setting a reasonable scrollback limit, and reverting the select-all change?

If I thought people were crashing more often than they are making large selections, I'd agree. But what is a large selection and how often are people crashing?

I've got scrollback limited to 100000 lines, and can select all, copy+paste without crashing. I select-all copy/paste all day long and maybe Terminal has crashed 2-3 times in a year? I'm not even sure it's due to this bug. Maybe that's why I've got a scrollback limit set.

One crash in a month might make me giggle. Select-all not working is making me peel myself off the ceiling multiple times per day.

So I wonder about just setting a reasonable scrollback limit, and reverting the select-all change?

Good idea, Chris - but wouldn't that have to be decided and done upstream in the first place ?
Unfortunately it seems we won't see the revert soon : "It's not a priority for me, so it may be a
while." -> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-terminal/-/issues/288#note_1027783 ... :(

Metadata Update from @kalev:
- Issue tagged with: meeting-request

3 years ago

Metadata Update from @catanzaro:
- Issue untagged with: meeting-request
- Issue tagged with: meeting

3 years ago

IMO we should downgrade to 0.60 to avoid https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vte/-/issues/316 which is another very serious clipboard bug.

Sorry, that's the wrong vte clipboard bug. That bug will totally break the clipboard in F34, but does not affect F33.

The bug I was thinking of was https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1469, which has apparently been moved to mutter.

Workstation WG requests that this change be reverted (+8,1,-0).

Metadata Update from @catanzaro:
- Issue untagged with: meeting
- Issue close_status updated to: Fixed
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

3 years ago

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