Problem with GNU Screen when using Emacs C-x C-s (save-buffer)

Question

When I am using emacs under GNU Screen, if I call C-x C-s screen hangs and does not respond to any keyboard input.

I can't reproduce this, but at least one time per day I have to kill my screen session and restart it.

How can I solve this?

Thanks

Answer 1

^S is the "Pause transmission" (XOFF) flow control character. Usually it's handled by the tty driver, or in this case Screen.

When you launch Emacs, it normally takes over most of the special characters (not just flow control, but also the usual ^C "Interrupt", for example).

• Use C-a :flow off to disable flow-control for this Screen window.

  Confirm with C-a :info (look for -flow in the pop-up).

• If it doesn't help, try stty -ixon or stty stop undef.

  (You can do it from a separate window using stty -f /dev/tty1 or stty </dev/tty1.)

On my system (Linux), Screen does notice when flow control is disabled for the tty. Your OS might have some limitations, though.