AutoBump™.

Some more information to just nail this thing that's been here forever.

1.  This has been an issue in Python since at least 2001.
2.  It is a duplicate of the item 441129 which was closed as won't fix.
3.  It is bug in curses implementations.
4.  This occurs whenever the lower-right character of a screen or window is written.  The writing, via addch() or addstr(), causes the cursor to advance outside the window and triggers the error.  It triggers the same error as attempting to write beyond the edge of the screen, window, or pad.   
5.  This occurs with the main windows, sub windows, and pads.
6.  There are two work-arounds for users:
    a.   Don't do that.  Make your window bigger.
    b.   Catch and ignore the error.  The library does the right thing but 
    is trying to be too smart about raising errors.
7.  There are two good resolutions to the problem:
    a.  Document it.  Add a note to addch() and addstr() to the effect:
        "Writing outside the pad, window, or subwindow will cause a curses.error Exception.  Also, attempting to write the lower right corner of a pad, window, or sub window will cause an exception to be raised after the character is printed.  You may safely ignore the error in this case."
    b.  Document it as above and add an example.
    c.  Wrap it so it works on Python if no other curses implementation.  Many long discussions can be arguments before agreeing why this a bad idea.
                 
This is an annoying, obscure bug that deserves a couple lines in the documentation.  If you need sample code, I can provide.

FTR, the previous issue is Issue441429.  A documentation patch would be welcomed.

My typo.  Documentation verbiage was included in the bug report.
Submitting a patch to the documentation is a harder than just
rewriting the library.  I speak English, MarkDown, HTML, JavaScript,
and even RST.  I don't speak Sphinx, DocBook, or TeX.

On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 12:32 PM, Ned Deily <report@bugs.python.org> wrote:
>
> Ned Deily added the comment:
>
> FTR, the previous issue is Issue441429.  A documentation patch would be welcomed.
>
> ----------
> assignee:  -> docs@python
> components: +Documentation
> keywords: +easy
> nosy: +docs@python, ned.deily
> stage:  -> needs patch
> versions: +Python 3.5 -Python 3.2, Python 3.3
>
> _______________________________________
> Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8243>
> _______________________________________

Knowledge of RST should be more than enough; there is not much Sphinx-specific markup, and even that you won't pick up easily while looking at the file.

you WILL pick up, of course.

See also Issue27693 which documents a similar issue using curses.textpad.

I can create a documentation patch and PR if this still needs doing.

Submitted a PR for this issue, awaiting review.

New changeset ef5ce884a41c8553a7eff66ebace908c1dcc1f89 by Ned Deily (Jay Crotts) in branch 'master':
bpo-8243: Doc patch for curses.window.addstr and curses.window.addch (GH-5179)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/ef5ce884a41c8553a7eff66ebace908c1dcc1f89

New changeset 98e8ac8d82202aae32961f10b1014641ae1fffbf by Ned Deily (Miss Islington (bot)) in branch '3.7':
[3.7] bpo-8243: Doc patch for curses.window.addstr and curses.window.addch (GH-5179) (GH-6404)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/98e8ac8d82202aae32961f10b1014641ae1fffbf

New changeset 70c44465475c41ab3aa832858b250ede6f170aac by Ned Deily (Miss Islington (bot)) in branch '3.6':
[3.6] bpo-8243: Doc patch for curses.window.addstr and curses.window.addch (GH-5179) (GH-6406)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/70c44465475c41ab3aa832858b250ede6f170aac

New changeset 77f0a41d72886513f5e9277e5587455745c29ac1 by Ned Deily (Miss Islington (bot)) in branch '2.7':
[2.7] bpo-8243: Doc patch for curses.window.addstr and curses.window.addch (GH-5179) (GH-6405)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/77f0a41d72886513f5e9277e5587455745c29ac1

Thank you for producing the PR, Jay!

In case it helps someone else, `insstr` seems to not have this limitation