30

I'm a clumsy typist, and I don't use vi/vim very often, but I do use it for commit messages. However, if you type a wrong command while editing a commit message (:Wq, say, instead of :wq), when you correctly close out the commit message in vim with :wq or :x, you get this:

error: There was a problem with the editor 'vi'.
Please supply the message using either -m or -F option.

Normally, a wrong command like :W is no problem—vim just ignores it and you can keep on working with the file and save it, but in git commit messages as soon as I mistype, I have irrevocably lost the commit message.

What's going on here, and how do I fix it? (Using git 1.9.1 via homebrew, vim 7.3 as packaged with OS X 10.9)

futuraprime
  • 5,468
  • 7
  • 38
  • 58
  • My solution to this and other problems is and has always been switching to `nano`. – Darkhogg Mar 27 '14 at 22:08
  • 6
    While others may answer your exact question, a tip to share: In my version of git on macOS (installed by XCode), I can recover the "lost" commit message by looking in the repo's .git directory for the COMMIT_EDITMSG file. – martian111 May 05 '19 at 22:51

3 Answers3

38

You should set vim to not detach from the shell and be in the foreground. You can do this with the following command: 

git config --global core.editor vim -f

From the man:

   -f          Foreground.  For the GUI version, Vim will not fork and detach from the shell it
               was  started in.  On the Amiga, Vim is not restarted to open a new window.  This
               option should be used when Vim is executed by a program that will wait  for  the
               edit  session  to  finish (e.g. mail).  On the Amiga the ":sh" and ":!" commands
               will not work.
Aliou
  • 1,065
  • 11
  • 17
  • 2
    I'm not sure how this could work without quoting the value. I think the last bit should be quoted: `"vim -f"` – David Cook Apr 06 '21 at 00:59
1

My solution:

git config --global core.editor vim

I think this is the difference between Vim and Vi (although vi on most platform is actually Vim running in compatibility mode). Note that Git uses vi by default, which you can tell from the documentation:

The order of preference is the $GIT_EDITOR environment variable, then core.editor configuration, then $VISUAL, then $EDITOR, and then the default chosen at compile time, which is usually vi.

On my machine (macOS) the full path doesn’t make any difference (which is expected); vim is the same as /usr/bin/vim, and vi is the same as /usr/bin/vi.

Note: you can also tell the program from the error message:

error: There was a problem with the editor 'vi'.

The quoted vi is exactly the command for your editor. You can verify that with

GIT_EDITOR='false -a -b' git commit
Franklin Yu
  • 8,920
  • 6
  • 43
  • 57
-1

As mentioned in several posts vim is exiting with a exit code other than zero. You can fix it by explicitely setting the git editor to the full vim path:

git config --global core.editor /usr/bin/vim

If I remember correctly I fixed the issue by installing a homebrewed vim. Make sure your path is set correctly then.

iltempo
  • 15,718
  • 8
  • 61
  • 72
  • I actually just checked this - open vim, entered a wrong command, then correctly entered `:wq`, and checked the exit code (`echo $?`), and the exit code was 0. – Ayush Mar 27 '14 at 21:46