What does the dashed line on a `screen` multiplexed terminal

gnu-screenterminal

I'm using screen terminal multiplexer.

For some reason a dashed line appears on the 10th row.

...
[ec2-user@ip-172-31-1-24 var]$ ls
account  db     games     lib    lock  mail  opt       run    tmp  yp
cache    empty  kerberos  local  log   nis   preserve  spool  www
[ec2-user@ip-172-31-1-24 var]$
----------------------------------------------------------------------------




...

My available work area was limited to a few lines.

What does this means, and how can I recover the entire workspace?

Best Answer

I'd like to present another answer that might help other users who come across this:

On GNU Screen by default, the dashed line means something else than what @slm said. His answer was covering tmux. For screen splitting (CTRL + A + S) in screen, the line is made out of solid full block characters. (█)

The dashed line on screen is being used to show the window borders of the display/terminal which first attached the screen session. I'll give an example:

You have a 1280x1024px monitor on which you start a screen session on a fullscreen terminal. Now on another machine, with a 1920x1200px monitor and a fullscreen terminal, you execute screen -x <session>, entering multi-display mode. On that terminal you will now see dashed-lines the size of your first terminal, and you won't be able to use more space until you detach (-d) the screen from the other terminal. This is to ensure that every attached terminal always sees all the contents.

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