Lost console log after running any app that takes over the screen (but not on SSH)

Question

I am experiencing a very annoying issue and I don't know where to look for the reason. I would really appreciate some advice.

I am using Raspbian Wheezy without GUI. I work mainly through SSH and it works fine, but sometimes I need to connect screen and keyboard and that's when things go weird.

When I exit any app that takes over the screen (e.g. Vim, man, raspi-config), the screen output scrolls two lines so that I can see bash command entry line: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ...but all the previous console log is lost. I can scroll up only to the top of previously ran app output.

What's the reason? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You haven't lost console log - the screen has been cleared, which is normal (and desirable).

If you don't want this to happen just start a new session.

Answer 2

This isn't really a direct answer unless you consider this an XY problem (please do not take that the wrong way).

I don't believe there's any solution to the issue you describe (curses based apps will do this by nature) but: It doesn't matter. Anything that makes it to the console on Raspbian either also passes through, or has already passed through, the system logger,¹ and everything that goes through there using the default configuration also ends up in /var/log/syslog, so if you want to check system messages, check that file.

A more irritating and significant issue is when console messages bust through into curses based apps while they are running, but it doesn't sound like that is your complaint.

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^{1. On Jessie this is sort of complexified by systemd, which uses its own thing (journald) as the primary logger. However, it is not incompatible with (r)syslog and on Raspbian the system is default configured to use both and everything still ends up in /var/log/syslog.}