Comment 19 for bug 29787

Just because it's a config issue, does not mean it's not a bug. The bug (as explained in the original description) is that changing it away from autodetect is required.

Tracked down the source of the problem: vte will send whatever the terminal's erase character is, even when it's undefined (that is, '\0'); screen unsets erase and other keys. Vte ought to fall back on a reasonable value, rather than issue the obviously-wrong ^@. ^? seems like a good candidate...

Screen should probably leave the value alone as well. Will investigate why this is done, in the Savannah bug whose link was posted earlier.