R help - Feb 2009 - Rterm.exe stops responding to keyboard input

I've been trying to use Rterm.exe, mainly because of Rgui.exe's lack of
support for incremental history searching. But on my system (Win XP, SP3),
it (rterm from R-2.8.1) frequently just stops responding to keyboard input.
This happens often (enough to make it unusable), and generally after a
switch to another window. It doesn't seem to hang exactly, as if I leave it
a while (minutes) it sometimes starts responding again. It isn't using any
CPU to speak of whilst being mute.

Anyone else know of this?

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Hi,

this sounds awfully similar to what I reported in r-help thread '[R]
Windows Vista, Rterm & LeftAlt + Tab issue' on Aug 21, 2008, cf.

  https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-August/171548.html

At least we are not alone ;)  ...and I though it was an issue with
Windows Vista only, because I didn't notice any problem with Windows
XP Pro I had before.  It might have been that I only had SP 2 (I
think), so it may be related to post-SP 2 updates that are also
included in Vista.

In Windows, you can shift between applications using either
LeftAlt+TAB or RightAlt+TAB, but I discovered that the freezing
problem only occurred with LeftAlt+TAB, which is the combination I use
most frequently.  I ended up remapping the physical left-most Alt key
(on a US keyboard) to signal Right Alt (and vice versa for the
right-most Alt key).  I used KeyTweak
[http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/] do this.  Since then I've
forgot about the issue, so I guess it works to circumvent the problem.

Let us know if this solves your problem

Henrik


On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:54 AM, CB <cb.lists at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I've been trying to use Rterm.exe, mainly because of Rgui.exe's
lack of
> support for incremental history searching. But on my system (Win XP, SP3),
> it (rterm from R-2.8.1) frequently just stops responding to keyboard input.
> This happens often (enough to make it unusable), and generally after a
> switch to another window. It doesn't seem to hang exactly, as if I
leave it
> a while (minutes) it sometimes starts responding again. It isn't using
any
> CPU to speak of whilst being mute.
>
> Anyone else know of this?
>
>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

Henrik,

Ah, I did briefly search the list archive, but hadn't come across your
earlier post, sorry.

I can confirm the conditions you outlined back then (ie. it's L-ALT+TAB, and
only that, that causes the problem, that on return to rterm I can use ctrl-C
to interrupt a running R call but then no further keyboard input).

Rather than remapping the key (just being lazy) I've found another
workaround -- a couple of taps on the left-ALT key whilst focus is on the
Rterm window seems to revive Rterm for me.

Thanks for the left-ALT tip. I hadn't noticed that the problem was specific
to this means of switching windows.

Cheers,

CB.

2009/2/11 Crispin Bennett <crispin@cb-ss.net>
> Henrik,
>
> Ah, I did briefly search the list archive, but hadn't come across your
> earlier post, sorry.
>
> I can confirm the conditions you outlined back then (ie. it's
L-ALT+TAB,
> and only that, that causes the problem, that on return to rterm I can use
> ctrl-C to interrupt a running R call but then no further keyboard input).
>
> Rather than remapping the key (just being lazy) I've found another
> workaround -- a couple of taps on the left-ALT key whilst focus is on the
> Rterm window seems to revive Rterm for me.
>
> Thanks for the left-ALT tip. I hadn't noticed that the problem was
specific
> to this means of switching windows.
>
> Cheers,
>
> CB.
>
> 2009/2/11 Henrik Bengtsson <hb@stat.berkeley.edu>
>
> Hi,
>>
>> this sounds awfully similar to what I reported in r-help thread
'[R]
>> Windows Vista, Rterm & LeftAlt + Tab issue' on Aug 21, 2008,
cf.
>>
>>  https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-August/171548.html
>>
>> At least we are not alone ;)  ...and I though it was an issue with
>> Windows Vista only, because I didn't notice any problem with
Windows
>> XP Pro I had before.  It might have been that I only had SP 2 (I
>> think), so it may be related to post-SP 2 updates that are also
>> included in Vista.
>>
>> In Windows, you can shift between applications using either
>> LeftAlt+TAB or RightAlt+TAB, but I discovered that the freezing
>> problem only occurred with LeftAlt+TAB, which is the combination I use
>> most frequently.  I ended up remapping the physical left-most Alt key
>> (on a US keyboard) to signal Right Alt (and vice versa for the
>> right-most Alt key).  I used KeyTweak
>> [http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/] do this.  Since then I've
>> forgot about the issue, so I guess it works to circumvent the problem.
>>
>> Let us know if this solves your problem
>>
>> Henrik
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:54 AM, CB <cb.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I've been trying to use Rterm.exe, mainly because of
Rgui.exe's lack of
>> > support for incremental history searching. But on my system (Win
XP,
>> SP3),
>> > it (rterm from R-2.8.1) frequently just stops responding to
keyboard
>> input.
>> > This happens often (enough to make it unusable), and generally
after a
>> > switch to another window. It doesn't seem to hang exactly, as
if I leave
>> it
>> > a while (minutes) it sometimes starts responding again. It
isn't using
>> any
>> > CPU to speak of whilst being mute.
>> >
>> > Anyone else know of this?
>> >
>> >        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>> >
>> > ______________________________________________
>> > R-help@r-project.org mailing list
>> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>> >
>>
>
>
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