this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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Copilot can't exit vim (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 days ago by heuristic_lemur@lemmy.ml to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@programming.dev 36 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Why :wq doesnt work?

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 75 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If it’s a read only file it won’t work, but it might be in insert mode and can’t escape.

It should have tried :q!

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think it might not be vim.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Why?

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

It's started something on a terminal. It is assuming it's vim, but it's not operating like vim. I'm questioning it's assumption. If it had fired up nano, for example, sending vim key sequences isn't going to work. Seeing as it seems to be doing stuff with git too, it may not have started this editor explicitly. It will be using whatever git is configured to use.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Oh, ok yah. It might not be vim. It could literally be anything. I just thought I'd missed something

[–] eli@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Could be in recording mode, which usually needs a couple ESC or a Q then you can :wq

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

You mean EX mode? IIRC recording mode doesn't prevent exiting vim

[–] eli@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Ah just looked up EX mode. Didn't know capital Q entered a different mode, I just wrote "Q" to emphasize the key in general not capital Q specifically lol.

Personally I love vim, it's just powerful enough for me for my bash scripts. Anything more complicated then I'm using a proper IDE or something more simple I'm using Kate or whatever graphical editor for my DE.

[–] eli@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Nah, just looked it up. Recording mode is activated by pressing "q" and allows you to record your inputs for a macro. So if you forget to do ":" and just press "q" you'll enter Recording mode and have to press "q" again to exit Recording and then you can do ":q" or whatever you needed.

But if you don't know what you pressed and don't know how to exit Recording mode then you'll be stuck. I've seen coworkers get stuck in this from time to time.

We're a RHEL shop so our vim version may be different, but Recording mode doesn't let us exit vim directly, we have to exit Recording mode and then exit vim. Again, might just be our setup.