Task Troubleshooting Guide

Here you will find tips and suggestions for making task behave properly, and bug workarounds.

Segmentation Fault for certain commands

Upgrading task to version 1.1.0, 1.2.0 and 1.3.0 can cause segmentation faults. This is mostly occurring for Ubuntu users, although there is no reason for it to be limited to Ubuntu.

Task 1.3.1 fixes this bug, but there is a workaround for users of earlier versions. Add the following line to your ~/.taskrc file:

dateformat=m/d/Y

The "dateformat" setting is supported in task 1.1.0 and later.

How to get rid of the "Age" column

The "Age" column that shows up on several reports is proving to be unpopular. In task 1.2.0 and later, here is how to remove it from the reports - make sure you have the line:

showage=no

in your ~/.taskrc file. Note that the "task long" report does not obey this setting in versions prior to 1.3.1.

The "showage" setting is supported in task 1.2.0 or later.
The "task long" report supports this setting in versions 1.3.1 or later.

How do I build task under Cygwin?

Task is built the same way everywhere. But under Cygwin, you'll need to make sure you have the following packages available first:

gcc
make
libncurses-devel
libncurses8

The gcc and make packages allow you to compile the code, and are therefore required, but the ncurses packages are optional. Ncurses will allow task to determine the width of the window, and therefore use the whole width and wrap text accordingly, for a more aesthetically pleasing display.