i cannot get it working. i did the steps in your description with the following result:

- if i call on the remote machine “screen -r” to access irssi: i cannot READ special characters written by others, others cannot READ my special characters, the prompt in irssi displays my special characters correctly

- if i call on the remote machine “screen -rU” to access irssi: i can READ special characters written by others but if i write (in the irssi prompt) special characters they are just crazy symbols.

how could i debug this problem?
- both local mac and remote linux machine use zsh shell
- you linked the bash guide which has some additional steps. i didn’t apply those. your description is complete, isn’t it?

thanks a lot for helping.