vim: Unable to copy & paste in Debian Stretch

Question

After upgrading to Debian Stretch, we have been unable to copy&paste with the mouse in MacOS Sierra and Windows clients alike.

I have tried several solutions, including from this thread, without much sucess. Copy-paste for vim is not working when mouse (:set mouse=a) is on?

I have tried to place in /etc/vim/vimrc.local the followings lines:

set vb t_vb=
set mouse=""

and besides mouse="", mouse="a" mouse="r" and mouse="v", and none of the solutions worked.

What do seems to work, it to comment in the file /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim the following lines:

"if has('mouse')
"  set mouse=a
"endif

As soon those lines are commented out, we are able to copy&paste again.

However, those changes are lost in the next vim upgrade.

Any suggestions for a more permanent solution?

Recent versions of Vim added bracketed pasting in xterms. The initial implementation was less than perfect, and a number of bugs were fixed in subsequent patches. So if you're running a recent version but not the latest, you may be affected by said bugs. FWIW. — Satō Katsura, Jan 31 '17 at 20:38
@SatoKatsura It is not bracketed pasting...it does not copy anything at all. — Rui F Ribeiro, Jan 31 '17 at 20:59
Out of curiosity, how did you conclude it isn't related to bracketed pasting? — Satō Katsura, Jan 31 '17 at 21:04
@SatoKatsura It completely ignores the copy operation. The paste returns the previous copy before the intended. — Rui F Ribeiro, Jan 31 '17 at 21:09
Yup, this sounds quite similar to a problem reported to vim_dev. It turned out it was related to bracketed pasting. It certainly isn't normal behavior, so feel free to post a bug report if you think it's something else. — Satō Katsura, Jan 31 '17 at 21:12
You can find the right solution or a keyboard trick explained here — snariom38, Jul 27 '17 at 09:57
@snariom38 At work I am having that bug using Mac and Windows, no xterm... — Rui F Ribeiro, Jul 27 '17 at 10:04

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered May 01 '18 at 22:10

Do:

sudo touch /etc/vim/vimrc.local

Then edit the file:

" This file loads the default vim options at the beginning and prevents
" that they are being loaded again later. All other options that will be set,
" are added, or overwrite the default settings. Add as many options as you
" whish at the end of this file.

" Load the defaults
source /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim

" Prevent the defaults from being loaded again later, if the user doesn't
" have a local vimrc (~/.vimrc)
let skip_defaults_vim = 1


" Set more options (overwrites settings from /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim)
" Add as many options as you whish

" Set the mouse mode to 'r'
if has('mouse')
  set mouse=r
endif

This will apply the rule for the whole system and all users. Tested on Debian 9.3.

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 21 '17 at 07:51

4

It's

set mouse=r

I did edit the default file because there were more defaults changed since jessie.

vi /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim

because somehow now syntax highlighting was on at default and all the users complained.

edited Jun 21 '17 at 07:51

Rui F Ribeiro

56,709
26
150
232

answered Jun 20 '17 at 07:39

Alim Özdemir

156

2

Do not edit defaults.vim as that file will be squashed in each upgrade. However I do confirm that set mouse=r now is working. As per my question, it was not working in the beta I tried. – Rui F Ribeiro Jun 20 '17 at 13:02

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 05 '19 at 22:24

2

I did it, setting this option in my local vimrc file

echo "set mouse-=a" > ~/.vimrc

edited Apr 05 '19 at 22:24

Rui F Ribeiro

56,709
26
150
232

answered Feb 14 '17 at 15:23

Carlos

21

Unfortunately, it also does not work. – Rui F Ribeiro Feb 18 '17 at 07:34
have various debian instances and one where only this works [shrug] – teknopaul Dec 21 '23 at 20:08

vim: Unable to copy & paste in Debian Stretch

3 Answers3