zsh crash when starting inside tmux with `zsh-newuser-install: startup files exist, aborting`

Question

Every time I try to start zsh inside of tmux it crashes wwith

zsh-newuser-install:  startup files exist, aborting

It worked flawless yesterday night, and suddenly this morning nothing works...

I'm starting tmux with this line as the first in .zshrc:

if [ "$TMUX" = "" ]; then tmux; fi

Thanks!

My zshrc file: https://github.com/Richard87/oh-my-zsh/blob/master/templates/zshrc.zsh-template

EDIT

It suddenly started working again... I don't know what changed, or what is wrong... scratch that, it stopped working again

EDIT #2

On the same computer, it works for root user, but not my main user (the .zshrc files are exactly the same, the only different is that my own user have a custom tmux config file:

# set Zsh as your default Tmux shell
set-option -g default-shell /bin/zsh

# Tmux should be pretty, we need 256 color for that
set -g default-terminal "screen-256color"


# Tmux uses a 'control key', let's set it to 'Ctrl-a'
# Reason: 'Ctrl-a' is easier to reach than 'Ctrl-b'
set -g prefix C-a
unbind C-b

# command delay? We don't want that, make it short
set -sg escape-time 1

# Set the numbering of windows to go from 1 instead
# of 0 - silly programmers :|
set-option -g base-index 1
setw -g pane-base-index 1


# Allow us to reload our Tmux configuration while
# using Tmux
bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; display "Reloaded!"

# Getting interesting now, we use the vertical and horizontal
# symbols to split the screen
bind | split-window -h
bind - split-window -v

Answer 1

This happens to me when, after booting, I open the terminal inside IntelliJ before opening a standalone terminal:

• If I open the standalone terminal first, both the standalone and IntelliJ's terminals work well.
• If I open IntelliJ's terminal first, both the the standalone and IntelliJ's terminals fail showing this message: zsh-newuser-install: startup files exist, aborting.

The only workaround I've found to this is:

1. Close all the terminals and open a standalone terminal, the message should not be shown, then while this one is open, open the IntelliJ terminal and the problem won't happen anymore.
2. In some cases that hasn't worked because I opened the standalone terminal first. In that case, I do what @rghamilton3 suggests: tmux kill-server and then do #1 again.

Answer 2

I know this is old but I seen newer comments on it and I just had this happen to me. I just killed the server by running tmux kill-server and surprisingly enough that did fixed it for me. YMMV of course but hopefully it helps someone else.

Answer 3

First, the zsh-newuser-install function should only be run if:

1) The user does not have any personal zsh startup files(like .zshrc)

2) If the following lines appear in your .zshrc file:

autoload -Uz zsh-newuser-install
zsh-newuser-install -f

3) If the same commands are run manually.

I would check your .zshrc file just in case. Hopefully this will give you a place to start looking.

Personally I wouldn't put the tmux command in the first line of the .zshrc file, but that is my personal opinion. I believe using the TMUX variable is not the best choice for determining if tmux is already running. You would have to be starting a shell running in a tmux window/pane for the variable TMUX to be set. The results of tmux ls would be a better choice in my opinion.

Var=("${(f)$(tmux ls)}")
[ ${#Var} -eq 0 ] && tmux

As I don't know your use case, you may not choose this method.