RE: Problems with vi Hanging

From: Jim Tucker [mailto:rjtucker-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>Does anyone else have problems with the vi editor hanging on the slug?
>I have not yet pinned down the cause, but it seems to happen more
>frequently if I run vi under the GNU screen and sometimes even without
>GNU screen, particularly if I am editing near the start of a line of
>text and I push "Backspace" one too many times.

Yes.  The busybox vi seems to have some problem with hitting an infinite
loop somewhere, since it catches signals it's difficult to stop.

>When it happens I usually have to resort to killing off the process
>sending signal 9.  (I'm still not sure exactly what that does but it
>seems to work.)

That will leave the corresponding terminal connection in window mode (no
echo etc).  Ideally kill the process with something which does give its
signal handler an opportunity to clean up.  However the problem I have seen
is that vi doesn't respond to any signals.

killall vi

will find any mutant vi's and kill them if possible (with SIGTERM - signal
15).  The nice way to do this is (in this order):

killall -1 vi
killall -15 vi
killall -9 vi

If you have gdb installed you can connect to the vi process and see where it
is...

John Bowler <jbowler-HInyCGIudOg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



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