[vim/vim] Many plugins failing with 9.2.0849 on Arch (Issue #20889)
jclsn
jclsn created an issue (vim/vim#20889)Steps to reproduce
Not sure if this is already known and fixed.
- Install 9.2.0849
- Try to open
:Fern .or open a file with startify - Fern drawer does not open or the error below appears with startify
Error detected while processing function startify#open_buffers[6]..<SNR>256_open_buffer[12]..BufNew Autocommands for "*":
E21: Cannot make changes, 'modifiable' is off
Expected behaviour
Plugins work as usual
Version of Vim
9.2.0849
Environment
Arch Linux
Logs and stack traces
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Christian Brabandt
chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#20889)Well, can you bisect the issue? What version was working before? This looks like an issue specific to fern, so what other plugins are affected?
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
jclsn
jclsn left a comment (vim/vim#20889)I can bisect on the weekend. Startify was also affected when opening files. Probably more but those were the most obvious.
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Christian Brabandt
chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#20889)it would help if you could give exact steps that fail now without any plugins. Hard to say why this:
BufNew Autocommands for "*":
E21: Cannot make changes, 'modifiable' is off
fails otherwise.
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
jclsn
jclsn left a comment (vim/vim#20889)I found the time to bisect
6ab1976e49135c0d03b06e3cddd26dc86edff085 is the first bad commit
commit 6ab1976e49135c0d03b06e3cddd26dc86edff085 (tag: v9.2.0827)
Author: Hirohito Higashi <h.eas...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed Jul 22 09:23:31 2026 +0000
patch 9.2.0827: :startinsert enters Insert mode in a non-modifiable buffer
Problem: ":startinsert" enters Insert mode in a buffer where
'modifiable' is off, the error only appears when a character
is typed. Typing "i" gives the error right away (Barrett Ruth)
Solution: Give the error when the buffer is not modifiable, like "i"
does. Keep ignoring the command in a terminal window, where
":startinsert" is documented to be ineffective, and keep
accepting it when 'insertmode' is set, like "i" does
(Hirohito Higashi).
fixes: #20804
closes: #20806
Signed-off-by: Hirohito Higashi <h.eas...@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brabandt <c...@256bit.org>
src/ex_docmd.c | 16 +++++++++++-----
src/testdir/test_edit.vim | 53 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
src/version.c | 2 ++
3 files changed, 66 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
Yeah, no idea how to debug it either. It is the only error that is shown. Could be anything, I know.
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Christian Brabandt
chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#20889)I cannot reproduce, neither startify nor fern cause an error for me. The above commit fixes a real bug, if this really causes the issue (and the plugins use :startinsert) it seems they need to be updated
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
jclsn
jclsn left a comment (vim/vim#20889)I found the issue. I had this autocmd as workaround in my .vimrc, because Windows terminal for some reasons does still show the cursor from the shell in vim, without this. Not sure why this would cause the plugins to fail though.
" Fix cursor on entry for Windows terminal autocmd BufEnter,BufReadPost,BufNew * startinsert | stopinsert
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS and Android. Download it today!
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.