3

I use bash shell and sometimes all of a sudded, my Backspace key stops working (when this happens Ctrl + Backspace still works fine)

I am not sure why this happens, but it also carries over to any vim sessions that I use from the shell. To my surprise, getting a fresh shell does not help, and the problem seems to go away as abruptly as it started.

This is what the typed characters look like, each Backspace keypress is shown by a ^? on the shell

$ cat filem^?namr^?e

Does anybody have a clue what might be happening? How can I restore the normal behaviour?

1 Answer 1

5

Try this in the shell

stty erase ^?

If that works for you, add it to one of your startup/profile scripts.

Much more detail on this can be found here - http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-5.html

3
  • this works! can you please explain what is happening? Also, why is the issue intermittent?
    – Lazer
    Jan 4, 2011 at 17:32
  • I don't know why it would happen during a session? are you loading other configurations during the session? Or does the problem occur after running a particular piece of software?
    – bryan
    Jan 4, 2011 at 17:35
  • Ohh I see.. the problem always starts/ends when I switch using/not using VPN.
    – Lazer
    Jan 4, 2011 at 17:51

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .