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

11.10command linemouse scrollscrollbar

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.

Best Answer

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.

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