Vim Stuck In Insert Mode

I've been using Vim for several months now via my web host (they allow putty access). All of a sudden, the escape key has become unresponsive. I cannot exist insert or any other mode by simply hitting escape. I have to hit F1 which brings up the help in vim and kicks me into command mode.

I'm most certain that my escape key on my keyboard is functioning fine since all of my windows shortcuts that use the escape key operate normally.

I know this is a ridiculous question and I'm certain there's a lot more to look into regarding a solution. What I really need is a solid lead as to where to start looking.

Things that might help:

I'm using vim via putty
I'm logging in using jailshell
I'm not root

Levi Hackwith

Posted 2010-04-11T21:24:32.747

Reputation: 613

what are your terminal settings? ie what exactly is the TERM environment variable set to (in the remote shell)? – quack quixote – 2010-04-11T21:28:29.680

$TERM is set to 'xterm' – Levi Hackwith – 2010-04-11T21:33:20.667

Does Ctrl-[ work? What do you get if you press Ctrl-v then escape? It should show as ^[. – Paused until further notice. – 2010-04-11T21:35:52.707

The Ctrl-[ worked. Rock on! This saves me a lot of frustration. Is there any chance you can explain why esc no longer works? Also, please post your comment as an answer so I can accept it. – Levi Hackwith – 2010-04-11T21:42:08.057

My first thought when reading this: "Oh he broke his 'Get me the heck out of here' button" – Daniel – 2016-11-10T17:41:44.377

this just happened to me after a fresh install of gvim: turns out I was in gvim-easy … which is not so easy if you expect it to behave like vim. – ricardo – 2018-07-03T13:04:44.010

Today I was stuck in insert mode then I realized that mistakenly configured a shortcut on my konsole profile for ESC key... – selmansamet – 2019-08-03T16:00:50.480

Answers

Try using Ctrl-[ instead of Esc.

What is the result of:

python -c "print ord(raw_input('char '))"

when you press Esc and Enter? It should be "27". What is the result of pressing Ctrl-V then Esc?

Have you checked all the settings in PuTTY to see if they're reasonable?

Are you using Bash on the remote system? Look at the output of

bind -p | grep -i '\\e' | less

and see if you see anything unusual. Do you have a file called ~/.inputrc? Look at its contents to see if anything is unusual.

Look at your ~/.vimrc and see if everything's OK, too.

Paused until further notice.

Posted 2010-04-11T21:24:32.747

Reputation: 86 075

ctrl+[ worked for me for whatever reason, no idea what i did to get my vim stuck. – Derek Adair – 2015-12-10T22:09:42.703

Ctrl-c should end insert-mode as well (the '[' is sometime a bit tricky to get on some keyboards) – akira – 2010-06-24T09:42:10.033

1I ran the python script and it came back as an empty string. How do I fix this? I'm using putty. – Keith – 2012-04-26T17:05:47.460

@Keith: Did you try any of the other diagnostic suggestions? – Paused until further notice. – 2012-04-26T17:25:18.590

151

I had mistakenly hit Ctrl + s, and got stuck in the insert mode. To get out of it use Ctrl + q.

bhaskar

Posted 2010-04-11T21:24:32.747

Reputation: 1 511

That's not insert mode that's XOFF. You can disable software flow control by doing stty -ixon (add it to your ~/.bashrc). Then that keystroke will be available to be bound to something else. By default in Bash it's bound to forward-search-history (the opposite of Ctrl-r). Ctrl-q (Bash quoted-insert) will also be available.

– Paused until further notice. – 2012-07-02T14:18:44.233

@DennisWilliamson Wouldn't .bash_profile be a better place? There's no need to turn it off in non-interactive shell, is it? – Piotr Dobrogost – 2014-03-04T22:14:19.553

@PiotrDobrogost: "When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, Bash reads and executes commands from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists." .bash_profile is only executed when Bash is a login shell. "So, typically, your ~/.bash_profile contains the line if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc; fi"

– Paused until further notice. – 2014-03-04T22:22:54.863

@DennisWilliamson You are right. What I meant to say is that there's probably sense to disable software flow control only in interactive shells. If this is true then subsequently it would make sense to find a way to tell if a shell is interactive and disable software flow control only in this case. – Piotr Dobrogost – 2014-03-05T20:01:49.440

@PiotrDobrogost: See my answer to "How can I check in bash if a shell is running in interactive mode?"

– Paused until further notice. – 2014-03-05T20:19:20.840

Maybe you are using the insert mode.

'insertmode' 'im' 'noinsertmode' 'noim'
boolean (default off)
Makes Vim work in a way that Insert mode is the default mode. Useful if you want to use Vim as a modeless editor. Used for |evim|.
[...]
- Use CTRL-O to execute one Normal mode command |i_CTRL-O|). When this is a mapping, it is executed as if 'insertmode' was off. Normal mode remains active until the mapping is finished. - Use CTRL-L to execute a number of Normal mode commands, then use Esc to get back to Insert mode. Note that CTRL-L moves the cursor left, like does when 'insertmode' isn't set. |i_CTRL-L|

I suggest editing ~/.vimrc to add the following line:

set noinsertmode         "disable insert mode

SandRock

Posted 2010-04-11T21:24:32.747

Reputation: 473

1In my case it stuck in insert mode because i had accidentally used -y in commandline As said in manual:

   -y          Start Vim in easy mode, just like the executable was called "evim" or "eview".  Makes Vim behave like a click-and-type editor.

To exit this "ease mode" just use <kbd>CTRL</kbd> + <kbd>l</kbd> (L lowercase) as said by +SandRock – ton – 2018-01-22T13:06:33.617

I had this problem, but realized it was from accidentally changing the SCIM input mode to "Other - RAW CODE". I changed it back to English/Keyboard and did not have any more problems.

vim_user

Posted 2010-04-11T21:24:32.747

Reputation: 1