Comment 1 for bug 1499416

This sounds like a problem with the application rather than xterm.
For instance, there are a few applications which have hardcoded
escape sequences for Linux console's nonstandard color palettes.
XTerm has a workaround for that (the brokenLinuxOSC resource setting).

Some other applications do... interesting things because they do not
know about 8-bit controls. Again, xterm has a workaround for those
(the allowC1Printable resource setting).

Finally, there are others which (again relying upon some misfeatures
in Linux console) can be worked around using brokenStringTerm.

These are all in the manpage - http://invisible-island.net/xterm/manpage/xterm.html