Troubleshooting FAQ

Terminal

My terminal is unresponsive?

If the terminal is unresponsive (i.e., appears to “hang”), try one or more of the following:

  • Do what you would normally do in a Unix terminal, type Control-C to interrupt the currently running program. You can also use the command/interrupt menu option instead.
  • If you are in the fullscreen graphics mode (e.g., using gframe), you may need to click on the top of the terminal portion of the window to get the input focus out of the embedded frame and then type Control-C. You can also try the command/parent interrupt menu option to interrupt the currently running program in the parent window.
  • Are you in the notebook mode? If so, the notebook name will appear on the top, with the prefix “NB”. To exit the notebook mode, use the notebook-quit menu option, or type Control-C and then type Control-D to exit the python interpreter. (Remember to save the notebook before exiting, if necessary.)
  • Use the terminal/reload menu option or the browser’s reload button to reload the web page. Copy/paste any displayed code in notebook cells before reloading, as you may lose it.
  • As a last resort, you can try the terminal/reconnect option, which takes over 15 seconds to reconnect the terminal. This may help when updating configuration changes etc.

I get the error message “bash: ... gls: Permission denied” on the terminal?

The sudo easy_install ... command does not set the execute permission for commands like gls. You need to execute the command sudo gterm_setup after installation to set the permissions. (The python setup.py install command automatically sets permissions.)

I get the error message “bash: gls: No such file or directory” on the terminal?

The environment variable GTERM_DIR contains the directory where gls and other commands are located. GraphTerm tries to set the PATH variable to automatically include this directory. But sometimes this may fail, in which case you would need to modify you shell initialization files to include $GTERM_DIR in $PATH. (The menu command terminal/export environment may also help in this situation.)

When I log into another computer using SSH from my GraphTerm window, why do many features no longer work?

This is normal behavior. Other than inline images and the notebook mode, most graphical features only work on the computer that the gtermserver (or gtermhost) program is running on. However, you can use the terminal/export environment menu command to set shell environment variables on a trusted remote computer to restore some, but not all, of GraphTerm features. (For more details and a discussion of the security implications, see the Remote access and SSH section.)

The terminal does not display long lines properly; they are either wrapped too short or they overflow the window?

Try one or more of the following commands to resize the terminal:

  • the menu option view/resize
  • the Unix command resize

(You will need control of the terminal for the resizing commands to work properly.)

How do I paste text?

For certain browsers (e.g., desktop Chrome/Firefox), the usual Command-V or Control-V key sequence should directly paste text from the clipboard. Alternatively, for some browsers, you can click on the cursor before beginning the paste operation and then paste the text directly. This second technique may not always work well for text copied from non-plain text sources, such as a web page. A workaround for this case is to paste the text into a temporary location as plain text (such as in a plain text editor), and then copy/paste it from there to GraphTerm.

If the above do not work, you can use the keyboard shortcut Control-O to open a popup window, paste the text into the popup window using the browser’s paste menu command or a keyboard shortcut, such as Command/Control-V, and then type Control-O again to insert the text at the GraphTerm cursor location. (The popup paste window can also be accessed using the terminal/paste special menu item.)

Inline graphics and notebook mode

My inline graphics plot does not appear?

If using gpylab.py, try adding a show(False) function call to display a new image or show() to overwrite a previous image. You can also use display(fig) to display a figure.

How do I specify the format for saving a notebook?

The notebook save file format is determined by the filename extension, i.e., use .ipynb for compatibility with IPython Notebook or .py.gnb.md for Markdown compatibility.

Session sharing

Others cannot see or access my terminal for sharing?

Disable the share/private option to share your terminal.

Server

I’m running the GraphTerm server on a remote computer, but I’m unable to access it using my browser?

Ensure that you have included the port number in the URL, e.g., http//example.com:8900 Also, ensure that any firewall on the server allows incoming connections to the default port 8900 .

Can I run the GraphTerm server on port 80 (or 443)?

You would need run the server as the root user, which is not recommended at this stage of GraphTerm development. A better way to achieve this is to redirect traffic from port 80 to port 8900. On a Linux server, this can be achieved by executing a single command (as root):

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to 8900

How do I get Google Authentication to work?

Follow the instructions at the URL http://server_domain_name/_gauth

Does GraphTerm work with Python3?

The GraphTerm server requires Python 2.6+, but the toolchain commands in the terminal work with both Python2 and Python3. Therefore, you can use the terminal features, including the notebook mode, in a Python3 environment.

Using GraphTerm on Windows

Does GraphTerm work on Windows?

The GraphTerm client should work on a Windows browser that supports Websockets, like the latest versions of Chrome/Firefox/Safari or IE10. The GraphTerm server is currently not supported on Windows. (Although the server is written in pure python, it needs access to the pseudo-terminal device that is only supported on Unix/Linux.)

GraphTerm fails to load properly on Windows?

Ensure that you are using a browser that supports Websockets, like the latest versions of Chrome/Firefox/Safari or IE10. Some Anti-virus programs block Websockets on the browser. You may need to turn them off, or allow access to the domain where the GraphTerm server is running.

Using GraphTerm on tablets

How do I access the virtual keyboard on iPad/Android?

GraphTerm can be used on touch devices (phones/tablets), with some limitations. Use the view/footer menu to enter keyboard input, send special characters, access arrow keys etc. Tap the Kbrd in the footer to display the keyboard.

Note: You should turn off the Autocapitalize and Autocorrect features in the language/keyboard settings if you want to do a lot of typing on touch devices.