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Fixing 'Error opening terminal: screen-256color.'

 |  100 words — 1 minute  |  Linux tmux screen

If you’re using tmux or screen as a wrapper for your terminal sessions (such as when using the Text Triumvirate), chances are that you are presented with the following error when you invoke a command that uses 256 color mode (such as multitail or htop):

Error opening terminal: screen-256color.

I don’t know if this is the recommended solution, but it’s a pretty quick fix and seems to work on multiple distributions:

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cd /usr/share/terminfo/
cp x/xterm-256color s/screen-256color