By setting:
export TERM=xterm-256color
you're telling htop (and every other visual terminal application that uses the termcap or terminfo database) that your terminal is a 256 colour xterm and not a Linux virtual console.
htop will query the terminfo database to know what sequence of characters is sent upon F1, F2... but will get those for xterm.
xterm sends different sequences than the Linux virtual console for those keys which you can verify by querying the terminfo database by hand with infocmp for instance:
$ infocmp -L1 xterm-256color | grep 'key_f[1-5]='
key_f1=\EOP,
key_f2=\EOQ,
key_f3=\EOR,
key_f4=\EOS,
key_f5=\E[15~,
$ infocmp -L1 linux | grep 'key_f[1-5]='
key_f1=\E[[A,
key_f2=\E[[B,
key_f3=\E[[C,
key_f4=\E[[D,
key_f5=\E[[E,
So htop will not recognise \E[[A as a F1, it will expect \EOP for that.
Here, you don't want to assign values to $TERM in ~/.bashrc. $TERM should be set by the terminal emulators (xterm, terminator) themselves, and by getty for Linux virtual consoles (should be linux there).
If you're not happy with the value that a particular terminal emulator picks for $TERM, that's the configuration of that terminal emulators you should update.
Go to setup and change your 'Display' options:
F2 > Display options
Do not hide kernel threads and show custom thread names:
[ ] Hide kernel threads
[x] Show custom thread names
Save:
F10
Best Answer
You can use F3
Searchkey to go to next occurrence of the search item. This works regardless of whether you initiate the search with / or F3. Just be sure to avoid pressing Return or else F3 will start a new search instead of continuing the previous one.