PuTTY bug unix-bell-overload-timing-scale

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There was a bug affecting the storage of settings for the 'bell overload' feature in Unix versions of PuTTY and pterm. (The Windows version is not affected.)

In versions 0.77 and 0.78 of PuTTY, the storage format for the two time-related settings was off by a factor of 1000, causing settings written by older versions to be misinterpreted. The fix for this could in turn cause settings saved with 0.77/0.78 to be misinterpreted by later versions, so you may want to review any sessions or Default Settings that may have been touched by these versions.

More specifically:

• On the affected versions (0.77 and 0.78): settings in sessions saved with previous versions of PuTTY (0.76 and prior) would have been interpreted as 1000× too large – for instance, the defaults would be interpreted as 2000/5000 seconds rather than the intended 2/5 seconds – possibly leading to fewer bells than expected.
• On fixed versions (after 0.78):
  • Sessions saved with the buggy versions are likely to have bell-overload timings that are 1000× too small (e.g., 0.002 seconds / 0.005 seconds), which is likely to effectively disable the bell-overload feature. (However, if those sessions were saved in the presence of pre-0.77 Default Settings, they will probably have inherited correctly-scaled timings and be fine.)
  • If 'Default Settings' had been saved for the first time with 0.77 or 0.78, the erroneous settings are likely to persist into any new sessions created even with fixed versions of PuTTY.