Fix arrow keys that display A B C D on remote shell

I wonder how many of you are annoyed with the arrow key behavior during insert mode in Vim.

Leave all the key mappings default, do not change your TERM environment. Here's a simple tip,

:set term=cons25

It was tested with Vim 5.8 and 6.1 editions on; FreeBSD 4.X-STABLE; xterm(-color),VT100 remote terminals; (t)csh shells.

Contents 1 Comments 1.1 additional solution 1 1.2 additional solution 2 1.3 additional solution 3 1.4 additional solution 4 1.5 additional solution 5 1.6 additional solution 6 1.7 Additional Solution 7 1.8 Additional Solution 8 1.9 Additional Solution 9 1.10 Additional Solution 10 1.11 Additional Solution 11

Comments Edit

additional solution 1 Edit

try this mapping, worked on gvim v7.2

imap ^[OA <ESC>ki
imap ^[OB <ESC>ji
imap ^[OC <ESC>li
imap ^[OD <ESC>hi

Note: ^[ is one symbol, try to enter it using <Ctrl-V>ESC or <Ctrl-V><Ctrl-[>

additional solution 2 Edit

This doesn't really work very well for me on SunOS -- I have the same problem but :set term=cons25 just gives me OC everywhere before each character until I redraw. Weird.

But, :set term=ansi works great, and the arrow keys work.

A better solution is to, while in vi, type in insert mode [ctrl-v][arrow up] and see what you get.
Then, in your .vimrc, add the lines

set t_ku=[ctrl-v][esc]OA # or whatever you saw

so it ends up looking something like

set t_ku=^[OA
set t_kd=^[OB
set t_kr=^[OC
set t_kl=^[OD

(though you want real escape chars instead of "^[".)

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And in addition, set term=ansi makes syntax color off in vim (afair FreeBSD with color xterm).

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additional solution 3 Edit

So are we to be left with no good freebsd / bash solution?

set t_ku=^[OA
set t_kd=^[OB
set t_kr=^[OC
set t_kl=^[OD

did nothing for me... and the no environment option is not a good one.

set mouse=a at least allows me to move in insert mode.

additional solution 4 Edit

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I had the same problem a few days ago. I figured out that i didnt have the ~.vimrc file. So, i went to /usr/local/share/vim/vim58 and copied the vimrc_example.vim to ~.vimrc. Problem solved!

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I can confirm that the arrow-key problem (under freebsd) disappeared as soon as I introduced .vimrc

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additional solution 5 Edit

After experiencing this issue on FreeBSD 6 and 7 I found the clue as to why arrow keys would display A B C D when in insert mode - buried within :help nocompatible is this nugget:

By default this option is on and the Vi defaults are used for the options. This default was chosen for those people who want to use Vim just like Vi, and don't even (want to) know about the 'compatible' option.

When a vimrc or gvimrc file is found while Vim is starting up, this option is switched off, and all options that have not been modified will be set to the Vim defaults. Effectively, this means that when a vimrc or gvimrc file exists, Vim will use the Vim defaults, otherwise it will use the Vi defaults.

So rather than mucking around with termcap settings create an empty .vimrc file first and see if the issue is resolved. Or, copy the default vimrc_example.vim to ~/.vimrc If not, try the termcap suggestions.

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Do this:

$ vim ~/.vimrc
set t_ku= (now type Ctrl-V and press cursor up)
set t_kd= (now type Ctrl-V and press cursor down)
set t_kr= (now type Ctrl-V and press cursor right)
set t_kr= (now type Ctrl-V and press cursor left)

You should get something that looks like

set t_ku=^[OA
set t_kd=^[OB
set t_kr=^[OC
set t_kl=^[OD

but the ^[ is actually a single escape character.

That certainly works for me here (FreeBSD 6.1, ssh in from Mac OS).

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It also appears that it must be started as "vim" rather than "vi" in order to read the .vimrc file. I've added an alias to my bashrc scripts to take care of this... "alias vi=vim"

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If you are using vi instead of vim, you need to update the above commands in .exrc file instead of .vimrc. Since alias makes you to work in vim, even you type vi.

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"So, i went to /usr/local/share/vim/vim58 and copied the vimrc_example.vim to ~.vimrc. Problem solved!"

Slightly different path for me, but confirmed it works on sunOS 10, also fixed my backspace issue, setup the colors, and search highlights.

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additional solution 6 Edit

I have a similar problem but slightly different. After a very recent update of my system including vim71 the left and right arrow keys started to play up. They both moved left and right respectively, but only by word increments!

Setting ":set term=builtin_ansi" fixed the problem, so I knew it was a terminal problem.

Looking further ":set t_kl" reporting the weird string "^[O*D" Setting this to "^[[D" or "^[OD" has no effect on the arrow keys actions, it remains jumping by word.

Only setting "term=ansi" seems to help. But destroys use of function keys, and the alternate editing screen (preserving normal command line output display, when not editing). So I am stuck with 'word jumping arrow keys'.

I had the same problem, but solved it in a better way by "se term=linux" in my .vimrc. That way, I don't lose my syntax highlighting, function keys, etc, and still managed to stop the "word jumping" arrow keys.

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Additional Solution 7 Edit

I had the same problem using Mandriva 2010. The solution was to install vim-common from the urpmi repository.

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Additional Solution 8 Edit

I had the arrow keys switching from normal mode to insert mode when I was using vim in the terminal: E.g. pressing "up" would do the same as <Esc>OA, where <Esc> had no effect, O would switch to insert mode, and A would enter the letter "A". The reason was that I in my .vimrc I had mapped <Esc> in normal mode to do funky stuff. Removing the mapping fixed it.

Additional Solution 9 Edit

On my default Ubuntu install, vi meant actual vi, but I was used to vim where this problem didn't occur.

My solution was apt-get install vim.

Additional Solution 10 Edit

On my Gentoo and Debian installs, this problem was caused by the autoclose plugin and using the workarounds above didn't help.
The only solution for me was to get rid of the autoclose plugin.

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Same problem here, the issue appeared on my machine after installing "Limp for Vim", Lisp IDE, for all open Lisp files.
Disabling autoclose plugin in Limp got me the arrow keys back.
Thanks!

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It does seem like the version of autoclose distributed with Limp is causing this. The latest version doesn't have this problem, although Backspace still isn't working for me.

You can fix the arrow key problem by downloading the newest version of autoclose. You then need to modify mode.vim in Limp. Autoclose no longer has the functions AutoClose_start and AutoClose_stop, and mode.vim calls these functions. Edit mode.vim to change

call AutoClose_start()

to

AutoCloseOn

and

call AutoClose_stop()

to

AutoCloseOff

Hope this helps.
Nick Coleman

Additional Solution 11 Edit

I had this problem with a client's server config. Because I didn't have much power or permission to change things, and time was tight, I simply did the following and resolved the problem.

:set term=ansi

If you ever have that kind of situation, give that a shot.

Reference:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Fix_arrow_keys_that_display_A_B_C_D_on_remote_shell