General FIX "Error opening terminal: xterm-256color" for Terminal Commands (e.g., "top") iOS7

[thelatinist]

As many of you may know, the CLI tool "top" is a very useful tool that lists open processes in order of the resources they are using. The tool is available from Saurik's Cydia/Telesphoreo repo and has long been a staple in troubleshooting battery and memory issues on jail broken phones.

But if you've tried to run "top" in iOS 7, you have probably seen an error like this:

Error opening terminal: xterm-256color

After much frustration, I found a simple solution to this problem in reddit, and thought I'd put it here for anyone else who's got the same problem.

The issue is caused by the fact that iOS 7 has moved the terminal profiles. A simple symbolic link fixes the problem.

1. Login as root either through SSH or in MobileTerminal.

2. At the prompt, enter the following commands:

ln -s x /usr/share/terminfo/78
export TERM=xterm-color

The first command creates a symbolic link between /usr/share/terminfo/78, where "top" expects to find the xterm terminal profiles, and their actual location at /usr/share/terminfo/x. The second command changes your terminal setting from xterm-256color to xterm-color for better compatibility.

That's it. You can now run "top."

 

[dasx]

Thanks! Will come in handy when I decide to install MobileTerminal. I've been waiting for it to get "officially" updated to iOS7...

 

[thelatinist]

Thanks! Will come in handy when I decide to install MobileTerminal. I've been waiting for it to get "officially" updated to iOS7...

Why? It works fine on iOS 7. It's not a very active project, and in my experience they are unlikely to release an update unless something is broken.

 

[vasili0s]

awesome, now i can finally run screen and irssi

 

[thelatinist]

awesome, now i can finally run screen and irssi

Glad it was helpful. There are a number of Unix tools which have this issue, and and it had been driving me nuts.

 

[dasx]

Why? It works fine on iOS 7. It's not a very active project, and in my experience they are unlikely to release an update unless something is broken.

I don't know... I backed off because it says through Compatible with iOS 3.2+ to 6.
Where do I get top btw?

EDIT: If it was fully compatible I guess they would've added iOS7, wouldn't they?

 

[Magnus.LPA]

Thank you.

I created an account just to thank you man.

Thanks for finding this solution and more importantly, thanks for sharing it! 😀 That was driving me nuuuuuuuts!

Great job 🙂

 

[thelatinist]

I don't know... I backed off because it says through Compatible with iOS 3.2+ to 6.
Where do I get top btw?

EDIT: If it was fully compatible I guess they would've added iOS7, wouldn't they?

As I said, it's not a particularly active project. The same version has been working for years, and only one point version update has been made in the past three years. I wouldn't expect them to update the package unless there is something broken. And BigBoss probably won't do it on his own, either.

Don't get me wrong: you're welcome to wait if it makes you more comfortable. But don't be surprised if iOS 8 comes out and they still haven't updated that message.

And "top" is in the default repo (Cydia/Telesphoreo). You can just search. If it doesn't show up, then I imagine you have selected "User" instead of "Hacker" (or "Developer") in Cydia's settings. That setting hides command line tools. You can change it under Manage > Settings in Cydia.

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I created an account just to thank you man.

Thanks for finding this solution and more importantly, thanks for sharing it! 😀 That was driving me nuuuuuuuts!

Great job 🙂

You're very welcome.

 

[dasx]

As I said, it's not a particularly active project. The same version has been working for years, and only one point version update has been made in the past three years. I wouldn't expect them to update the package unless there is something broken. And BigBoss probably won't do it on his own, either.

Don't get me wrong: you're welcome to wait if it makes you more comfortable. But don't be surprised if iOS 8 comes out and they still haven't updated that message.

And "top" is in the default repo (Cydia/Telesphoreo). You can just search. If it doesn't show up, then I imagine you have selected "User" instead of "Hacker" (or "Developer") in Cydia's settings. That setting hides command line tools. You can change it under Manage > Settings in Cydia.

Thanks man!

 

[thelatinist]

I created an account just to thank you man.

Thanks for finding this solution and more importantly, thanks for sharing it! 😀 That was driving me nuuuuuuuts!

Great job 🙂

Glad it helped. It was driving me nuts, too.