Backspace producing space on command line

[scottgrayson]

I am using tmux zsh with some plugins and iterm 2. I am having problems in command line but not in vim. My backspace key and zsh vi-mode are broken on command line when i use tmux. Let know if my zshrc (at the bottom) is incorrect or if there are incompatible plugins or keybinds listed.

I searched for issues with backspace key and i tried checking and unchecking iterm's "delete key sends ^H" option but it did not change backspace behavior.

i have not put anything in my tmux.conf yet. When i start tmux i get:

/Users/Scott/.zshrc:bindkey:78: cannot bind to an empty key sequence
/Users/Scott/.zshrc:bindkey:79: cannot bind to an empty key sequence

which relates to these lines:

bindkey "$terminfo[kcuu1]" history-substring-search-up
bindkey "$terminfo[kcud1]" history-substring-search-down

commenting out the above two lines removes the tmux startup errors but does not solve backspace or zsh-vi-mode errors

here is the rest of my zshrc:

export ZSH=/Users/Scott/.oh-my-zsh
ZSH_THEME="avit"

plugins=(
git
composer
brew
web-search
vagrant
npm
laravel
colorize
colored-man-pages
theme
vi-mode
history-substring-search
)

# User configuration

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/sbin"
export PATH="$PATH:~/.composer/vendor/bin"
export PATH="$PATH:/Users/Scott/Code/spark-installer"
# export MANPATH="/usr/local/man:$MANPATH"

source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

# bind UP and DOWN arrow keys
zmodload zsh/terminfo
bindkey "$terminfo[kcuu1]" history-substring-search-up
bindkey "$terminfo[kcud1]" history-substring-search-down

# bind UP and DOWN arrow keys (compatibility fallback
# for Ubuntu 12.04, Fedora 21, and MacOSX 10.9 users)
bindkey '^[[A' history-substring-search-up
bindkey '^[[B' history-substring-search-down

# bind k and j for VI mode
bindkey -M vicmd 'k' history-substring-search-up
bindkey -M vicmd 'j' history-substring-search-down

# Preferred editor for local and remote sessions
if [[ -n $SSH_CONNECTION ]]; then
    export EDITOR='vim'
else
    export EDITOR='nvim'
fi

# aliases
alias vim="nvim"
alias vi="nvim"
alias cl="clear"

alias git="hub"

alias v="vagrant"
alias homestead="cd ~/Code/Homestead && vagrant up && vagrant ssh"
alias chrome="open -a 'Google Chrome'"

[ -f ~/.fzf.zsh ] && source ~/.fzf.zsh

[nicm]

Looks like GitHub lost my reply to this, but in any case, this is not the place to ask about zsh configs.

[nicm]

I don't use zsh or vim or know anything about them, you would be better to ask the zsh developers.

[scottgrayson]

I understand. I just asked to see if anyone had experienced something similar

[scottgrayson]

After giving up the first time, I've tried again. The problem did not have to do with zsh:

The solution was putting

set -g default-terminal "xterm-256color"

in my tmux.conf

[ThomasAdam]

@scottgrayson - that's nonsense. OUTSIDE of tmux, TERM should match the terminal you're using. INSIDE tmux, you need to be using screen or screen-256color or tmux. See the FAQ on the website.

[scottgrayson]

@ThomasAdam all of those values cause my keys to function incorrectly. Is there something else i need to change to get those to work? I'll check the FAQ

EDIT: Sorry for my nonsense. It does work with screen and screen-256color but not tmux

[nicm]

tmux will generate the keys described by the "screen" or "tmux" terminfo entry. If they don't work then your application is probably interpreting them incorrectly.

tmux always generates ^? for backspace.

If it works with "screen" but not "tmux", my guess would be that the application has some hardcoded behaviour when TERM=screen (this is not good practice, but is often unavoidable; most likely it will just need to do the same for "tmux" as it does for "screen")

[reddigari]

@scottgrayson Did you ever resolve this? I'm having the same issues in multiple terminal emulators.

[scottgrayson]

@reddigari sorry. I haven't been using tmux

[niklaas]

I don't know whether this is still relevant for anybody out there. I have

$ echo $TERM
tmux-256color

and could solve the issue by installing ncurses-term on Debian. The termininfo was missing.

[luminousmen]

Try adding the following to your .zshrc:

TERM=xterm

[Frederick888]

Had this issue in OpenWRT.

So basically in tmux, you should make sure that $TERM info file exists in /usr/share/terminfo. For example I've got

$ opkg list-installed | grep terminfo
terminfo - 6.1-1
$ echo $TERM
screen-256color
$ find /usr/share/terminfo/ -type f -name "$TERM"
# not found

...so what I had to do was to copy the file from my laptop.

[libinvarghese]

I had the same issue on my MacOS. tmux-256color definitions was not found.

$ echo $TERM
tmux-256color
$ infocmp tmux-256color
infocmp: couldn't open terminfo file (null).

I used the solution provided in comment to install tmux-256color

[lock]

This thread has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.