[vim/vim] Vim startup with text immediately selected sometimes doesn't show "-- VISUAL --" (Issue #16620)

Yee Cheng Chin

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Feb 12, 2025, 1:39:19 AM2/12/25

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Steps to reproduce

This is a pretty minor bug but I found it during revamping test cases (in Test_visual_hl_with_showbreak in test_visual.vim), as it has a chance to fail screen dumps. It's a little inconsistent because it's subject to timing.

Steps:

Make a file (bug_repro.vim) with the following:

sleep 200m
call setline(1, 'aaaaabbbbccccdddd')
normal v4l

Run Vim with vim --clean -S bug_repro.vim.
Note that the launched Vim sometimes doesn't show -- VISUAL -- at bottom.

This doesn't happen all the time. I find that it's a lot easier to trigger using an ASAN build (build Vim using SANITIZER_CFLAGS="-g3 -O0 -DABORT_ON_INTERNAL_ERROR -fsanitize=address -fsanitize=undefined -fno-omit-frame-pointer" env var) as this build is slower and more prone to this timing issue.

Expected behaviour

It should look like this (with the -- VISUAL --):

image.png (view on web)

With this bug it will look like this:

image.png (view on web)

Once you unselect and reselect the text, -- VISUAL -- will show up. Calling redraw in the sourced script will also properly draw it as well.

Version of Vim

9.1.1101

Environment

OS: macOS 15.3
Terminal: Apple Terminal
Shell: ZSH

Logs and stack traces

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zeertzjq

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Mar 21, 2026, 7:42:37 PM (3 days ago) Mar 21

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zeertzjq left a comment (vim/vim#16620)

I think this happens because escape sequences from the terminal cause the char_avail() in skip_showmode() to return TRUE:

    int
skip_showmode(void)
{
    // Call char_avail() only when we are going to show something, because it
    // takes a bit of time.  redrawing() may also call char_avail().
    if (global_busy
	    || msg_silent != 0
	    || !redrawing()
	    || (char_avail() && !KeyTyped))
    {
	redraw_mode = TRUE;		// show mode later
	return TRUE;
    }
    return FALSE;
}

Not sure how to solve this.

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h_east

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Mar 23, 2026, 7:25:25 AM (yesterday) Mar 23

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h-east left a comment (vim/vim#16620)

@ychin Could you check if the issue has been resolved through the PR?

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Christian Brabandt

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4:12 PM (7 hours ago) 4:12 PM

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Closed #16620 as completed via 9a2260d.

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