refresh problems, see blank lines until terminal window is moved to another location

When I run mrxvt, especially with Xft set to true, I can execute commands but 
the screen doesn't appear to refresh properly.  For example, if I run these 
simple commands:

  # clear
  # ll ~

I don't see a directory listing.  Rather, I see blank lines (equaling the 
number of entries I would expect to see in the output) and then the cursor 
blinking at the bottom of the terminal window.  The interesting thing is: when 
I click on the titlebar and *move* the window somewhere else with my mouse, I 
see the directory listing!  This is why I my first take was maybe a refresh 
problem.

At first I thought it might be an Xft problem, but when I even run with 
completely blank slate, I can still reproduce the issue.  But with Xft enabled 
it manifests itself immediately.  Without Xft, I can run "ll" a few times, or 
"man man", with proper output, but eventually (ie - after a few more tries) the 
problem surfaces.

Either of these manifests the problem:

  # mrxvt -cf /dev/null

  # mrxvt -cf /dev/null -tn xterm -bg black -fg white \
     -sl 2000 -sb -hb -stt -fg green -xft -xftaa -xftsz 9 \
     -xftfn "DejaVu Sans Mono"

I try the same thing with xterm, and I have *NO* problems:

  # xterm -fa "DejaVu Sans Mono" -fs 9 -fg green

Other information:

- I'm running lubuntu 12 as a VMware guest.  VMware 9 Workstation on Windows 7 
64.

perseus-lubuntu[~]% uname -a
Linux perseus-lubuntu 3.2.0-31-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 7 16:16:45 UTC 
2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

perseus-lubuntu[~]% dpkg -l | grep "mrxvt|xft|freetype"
ii  libfreetype6      2.4.8-1ubuntu2                          
ii  libxft2           2.2.0-3ubuntu2                          
ii  mrxvt             0.5.4-1ubuntu1                          
ii  mrxvt-common      0.5.4-1ubuntu1        

perseus-lubuntu[~]% echo $TERM
rxvt

perseus-lubuntu[~]% echo $SHELL
/usr/bin/zsh

I've also tried this is bash... same results.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by tcpa...@gmail.com on 28 Sep 2012 at 2:17

bjbarcla / mrxvt

refresh problems, see blank lines until terminal window is moved to another location #10