message.txt For Vim version 7.4. Last change: 2013 Feb 23LINK

VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar

This file contains an alphabetical list of messages and error messages that

Vim produces. You can use this if you don't understand what the message

means. It is not complete though.

1. Old messages :messages

2. Error messages error-messages

3. Messages messages

==============================================================================

1. Old messages :messages :mes message-historyLINK

The ":messages" command can be used to view previously given messages. This

is especially useful when messages have been overwritten or truncated. This

depends on the 'shortmess' option.

The number of remembered messages is fixed at 20 for the tiny version and 200

for other versions.

g<LINK

The "g<" command can be used to see the last page of previous command output.

This is especially useful if you accidentally typed <Space> at the hit-enter

prompt. You are then back at the hit-enter prompt and can then scroll further

back.

Note: If the output has been stopped with "q" at the more prompt, it will only

be displayed up to this point.

The previous command output is cleared when another command produces output.

If you are using translated messages, the first printed line tells who

maintains the messages or the translations. You can use this to contact the

maintainer when you spot a mistake.

If you want to find help on a specific (error) message, use the ID at the

start of the message. For example, to get help on the message:

E72: Close error on swap file

or (translated):

E72: Errore durante chiusura swap file

Use:

:help E72

If you are lazy, it also works without the shift key:

:help e72

==============================================================================

2. Error messages error-messages errorsLINK

When an error message is displayed, but it is removed before you could read

it, you can see it again with:

:echo errmsg

or view a list of recent messages with:

:messages

LIST OF MESSAGES

E222 E228 E232 E256 E293 E298 E304 E317LINK

E318 E356 E438 E439 E440 E316 E320 E322LINK

E323 E341 E473 E570 E685 LINK

Add to read buffer

makemap: Illegal mode

Cannot create BalloonEval with both message and callback

Hangul automata ERROR

block was not locked

Didn't get block nr {N}?

ml_upd_block0(): Didn't get block 0??

pointer block id wrong {N}

Updated too many blocks?

get_varp ERROR

u_undo: line numbers wrong

undo list corrupt

undo line missing

ml_get: cannot find line {N}

cannot find line {N}

line number out of range: {N} past the end

line count wrong in block {N}

Internal error

Internal error: {function}

fatal error in cs_manage_matches

This is an internal error. If you can reproduce it, please send in a bug

report. bugs

ATTENTION

Found a swap file by the name ...

See ATTENTION.

E92 LINK

Buffer {N} not found

The buffer you requested does not exist. This can also happen when you have

wiped out a buffer which contains a mark or is referenced in another way.

:bwipeout

E95 LINK

Buffer with this name already exists

You cannot have two buffers with the same name.

E72 LINK

Close error on swap file

The swap-file, that is used to keep a copy of the edited text, could not be

closed properly. Mostly harmless.

E169 LINK

Command too recursive

This happens when an Ex command executes an Ex command that executes an Ex

command, etc. This is only allowed 200 times. When it's more there probably

is an endless loop. Probably a :execute or :source command is involved.

E254 LINK

Cannot allocate color {name}

The color name {name} is unknown. See gui-colors for a list of colors that

are available on most systems.

E458 LINK

Cannot allocate colormap entry, some colors may be incorrect

This means that there are not enough colors available for Vim. It will still

run, but some of the colors will not appear in the specified color. Try

stopping other applications that use many colors, or start them after starting

gvim.

Browsers are known to consume a lot of colors. You can avoid this with

netscape by telling it to use its own colormap:

netscape -install

Or tell it to limit to a certain number of colors (64 should work well):

netscape -ncols 64

This can also be done with a line in your Xdefaults file:

Netscape*installColormap: Yes

or

Netscape*maxImageColors: 64

E79 LINK

Cannot expand wildcards

A filename contains a strange combination of characters, which causes Vim to

attempt expanding wildcards but this fails. This does NOT mean that no

matching file names could be found, but that the pattern was illegal.

E459 LINK

Cannot go back to previous directory

While expanding a file name, Vim failed to go back to the previously used

directory. All file names being used may be invalid now! You need to have

execute permission on the current directory.

E190 E212 LINK

Cannot open "{filename}" for writing

Can't open file for writing

For some reason the file you are writing to cannot be created or overwritten.

The reason could be that you do not have permission to write in the directory

or the file name is not valid.

E166 LINK

Can't open linked file for writing

You are trying to write to a file which can't be overwritten, and the file is

a link (either a hard link or a symbolic link). Writing might still be

possible if the directory that contains the link or the file is writable, but

Vim now doesn't know if you want to delete the link and write the file in its

place, or if you want to delete the file itself and write the new file in its

place. If you really want to write the file under this name, you have to

manually delete the link or the file, or change the permissions so that Vim

can overwrite.

E46 LINK

Cannot change read-only variable "{name}"

You are trying to assign a value to an argument of a function a:var or a Vim

internal variable v:var which is read-only.

E90 LINK

Cannot unload last buffer

Vim always requires one buffer to be loaded, otherwise there would be nothing

to display in the window.

E40 LINK

Can't open errorfile <filename>

When using the ":make" or ":grep" commands: The file used to save the error

messages or grep output cannot be opened. This can have several causes:

- 'shellredir' has a wrong value.

- The shell changes directory, causing the error file to be written in another

directory. This could be fixed by changing 'makeef', but then the make

command is still executed in the wrong directory.

- 'makeef' has a wrong value.

- The 'grepprg' or 'makeprg' could not be executed. This cannot always be

detected (especially on MS-Windows). Check your $PATH.

Can't open file C:\TEMP\VIoD243.TMP

On MS-Windows, this message appears when the output of an external command was

to be read, but the command didn't run successfully. This can be caused by

many things. Check the 'shell', 'shellquote', 'shellxquote', 'shellslash' and

related options. It might also be that the external command was not found,

there is no different error message for that.

E12 LINK

Command not allowed from exrc/vimrc in current dir or tag search

Some commands are not allowed for security reasons. These commands mostly

come from a .exrc or .vimrc file in the current directory, or from a tags

file. Also see 'secure'.

E74 LINK

Command too complex

A mapping resulted in a very long command string. Could be caused by a

mapping that indirectly calls itself.

CONVERSION ERROR

When writing a file and the text "CONVERSION ERROR" appears, this means that

some bits were lost when converting text from the internally used UTF-8 to the

format of the file. The file will not be marked unmodified. If you care

about the loss of information, set the 'fileencoding' option to another value

that can handle the characters in the buffer and write again. If you don't

care, you can abandon the buffer or reset the 'modified' option.

E302 LINK

Could not rename swap file

When the file name changes, Vim tries to rename the swap-file as well.

This failed and the old swap file is now still used. Mostly harmless.

E43 E44 LINK

Damaged match string

Corrupted regexp program

Something inside Vim went wrong and resulted in a corrupted regexp. If you

know how to reproduce this problem, please report it. bugs

E208 E209 E210 LINK

Error writing to "{filename}"

Error closing "{filename}"

Error reading "{filename}"

This occurs when Vim is trying to rename a file, but a simple change of file

name doesn't work. Then the file will be copied, but somehow this failed.

The result may be that both the original file and the destination file exist

and the destination file may be incomplete.

Vim: Error reading input, exiting...

This occurs when Vim cannot read typed characters while input is required.

Vim got stuck, the only thing it can do is exit. This can happen when both

stdin and stderr are redirected and executing a script that doesn't exit Vim.

E47 LINK

Error while reading errorfile

Reading the error file was not possible. This is NOT caused by an error

message that was not recognized.

E80 LINK

Error while writing

Writing a file was not completed successfully. The file is probably

incomplete.

E13 E189 LINK

File exists (add ! to override)

"{filename}" exists (add ! to override)

You are protected from accidentally overwriting a file. When you want to

write anyway, use the same command, but add a "!" just after the command.

Example:

:w /tmp/test

changes to:

:w! /tmp/test

E768 LINK

Swap file exists: {filename} (:silent! overrides)

You are protected from overwriting a file that is being edited by Vim. This

happens when you use ":w! filename" and a swapfile is found.

- If the swapfile was left over from an old crashed edit session you may want

to delete the swapfile. Edit {filename} to find out information about the

swapfile.

- If you want to write anyway prepend ":silent!" to the command. For example:

:silent! w! /tmp/test

The special command is needed, since you already added the ! for overwriting

an existing file.

E139 LINK

File is loaded in another buffer

You are trying to write a file under a name which is also used in another

buffer. This would result in two versions of the same file.

E142 LINK

File not written: Writing is disabled by 'write' option

The 'write' option is off. This makes all commands that try to write a file

generate this message. This could be caused by a -m commandline argument.

You can switch the 'write' option on with ":set write".

E25 LINK

GUI cannot be used: Not enabled at compile time

You are running a version of Vim that doesn't include the GUI code. Therefore

"gvim" and ":gui" don't work.

E49 LINK

Invalid scroll size

This is caused by setting an invalid value for the 'scroll', 'scrolljump' or

'scrolloff' options.

E17 LINK

"{filename}" is a directory

You tried to write a file with the name of a directory. This is not possible.

You probably need to append a file name.

E19 LINK

Mark has invalid line number

You are using a mark that has a line number that doesn't exist. This can

happen when you have a mark in another file, and some other program has

deleted lines from it.

E219 E220 LINK

Missing {.

Missing }.

Using a {} construct in a file name, but there is a { without a matching } or

the other way around. It should be used like this: {foo,bar}. This matches

"foo" and "bar".

E315 LINK

ml_get: invalid lnum: {number}

This is an internal Vim error. Please try to find out how it can be

reproduced, and submit a bug report bugreport.vim.

E173 LINK

{number} more files to edit

You are trying to exit, while the last item in the argument list has not been

edited. This protects you from accidentally exiting when you still have more

files to work on. See argument-list. If you do want to exit, just do it

again and it will work.

E23 E194 LINK

No alternate file

No alternate file name to substitute for '#'

The alternate file is not defined yet. See alternate-file.

E32 LINK

No file name

The current buffer has no name. To write it, use ":w fname". Or give the

buffer a name with ":file fname".

E141 LINK

No file name for buffer {number}

One of the buffers that was changed does not have a file name. Therefore it

cannot be written. You need to give the buffer a file name:

:buffer {number}

:file {filename}

E33 LINK

No previous substitute regular expression

When using the '~' character in a pattern, it is replaced with the previously

used pattern in a ":substitute" command. This fails when no such command has

been used yet. See /~. This also happens when using ":s/pat/%/", where the

"%" stands for the previous substitute string.

E35 LINK

No previous regular expression

When using an empty search pattern, the previous search pattern is used. But

that is not possible if there was no previous search.

E24 LINK

No such abbreviation

You have used an ":unabbreviate" command with an argument which is not an

existing abbreviation. All variations of this command give the same message:

":cunabbrev", ":iunabbrev", etc. Check for trailing white space.

/dev/dsp: No such file or directory

Only given for GTK GUI with Gnome support. Gnome tries to use the audio

device and it isn't present. You can ignore this error.

E31 LINK

No such mapping

You have used an ":unmap" command with an argument which is not an existing

mapping. All variations of this command give the same message: ":cunmap",

":unmap!", etc. A few hints:

- Check for trailing white space.

- If the mapping is buffer-local you need to use ":unmap <buffer>".

:map-<buffer>

E37 E89 LINK

No write since last change (add ! to override)

No write since last change for buffer {N} (add ! to override)

You are trying to abandon a file that has changes. Vim protects you from

losing your work. You can either write the changed file with ":w", or, if you

are sure, abandon it anyway, and lose all the changes. This can be done by

adding a '!' character just after the command you used. Example:

:e other_file

changes to:

:e! other_file

E162 LINK

No write since last change for buffer "{name}"

This appears when you try to exit Vim while some buffers are changed. You

will either have to write the changed buffer (with :w), or use a command to

abandon the buffer forcefully, e.g., with ":qa!". Careful, make sure you

don't throw away changes you really want to keep. You might have forgotten

about a buffer, especially when 'hidden' is set.

[No write since last change]

This appears when executing a shell command while at least one buffer was

changed. To avoid the message reset the 'warn' option.

E38 LINK

Null argument

Something inside Vim went wrong and resulted in a NULL pointer. If you know

how to reproduce this problem, please report it. bugs

E172 LINK

Only one file name allowed

The ":edit" command only accepts one file name. When you want to specify

several files for editing use ":next" :next.

E41 E82 E83 E342 LINK

Out of memory!

Out of memory! (allocating {number} bytes)

Cannot allocate any buffer, exiting...

Cannot allocate buffer, using other one...

Oh, oh. You must have been doing something complicated, or some other program

is consuming your memory. Be careful! Vim is not completely prepared for an

out-of-memory situation. First make sure that any changes are saved. Then

try to solve the memory shortage. To stay on the safe side, exit Vim and

start again.

Buffers are only partly kept in memory, thus editing a very large file is

unlikely to cause an out-of-memory situation. Undo information is completely

in memory, you can reduce that with these options:

- 'undolevels' Set to a low value, or to -1 to disable undo completely. This

helps for a change that affects all lines.

- 'undoreload' Set to zero to disable.

Also see msdos-limitations.

E339 LINK

Pattern too long

This happens on systems with 16 bit ints: The compiled regexp pattern is

longer than about 65000 characters. Try using a shorter pattern.

It also happens when the offset of a rule doesn't fit in the space available.

Try simplifying the pattern.

E45 LINK

'readonly' option is set (add ! to override)

You are trying to write a file that was marked as read-only. To write the

file anyway, either reset the 'readonly' option, or add a '!' character just

after the command you used. Example:

:w

changes to:

:w!

E294 E295 E301 LINK

Read error in swap file

Seek error in swap file read

Oops, lost the swap file!!!

Vim tried to read text from the swap-file, but something went wrong. The

text in the related buffer may now be corrupted! Check carefully before you

write a buffer. You may want to write it in another file and check for

differences.

E192 LINK

Recursive use of :normal too deep

You are using a ":normal" command, whose argument again uses a ":normal"

command in a recursive way. This is restricted to 'maxmapdepth' levels. This

example illustrates how to get this message:

:map gq :normal gq<CR>

If you type "gq", it will execute this mapping, which will call "gq" again.

E22 LINK

Scripts nested too deep

Scripts can be read with the "-s" command-line argument and with the ":source"

command. The script can then again read another script. This can continue

for about 14 levels. When more nesting is done, Vim assumes that there is a

recursive loop somewhere and stops with this error message.

E319 LINK

Sorry, the command is not available in this version

You have used a command that is not present in the version of Vim you are

using. When compiling Vim, many different features can be enabled or

disabled. This depends on how big Vim has chosen to be and the operating

system. See +feature-list for when which feature is available. The

:version command shows which feature Vim was compiled with.

E300 LINK

Swap file already exists (symlink attack?)

This message appears when Vim is trying to open a swap file and finds it

already exists or finds a symbolic link in its place. This shouldn't happen,

because Vim already checked that the file doesn't exist. Either someone else

opened the same file at exactly the same moment (very unlikely) or someone is

attempting a symlink attack (could happen when editing a file in /tmp or when

'directory' starts with "/tmp", which is a bad choice).

E432 LINK

Tags file not sorted: {file name}

Vim (and Vi) expect tags files to be sorted in ASCII order. Binary searching

can then be used, which is a lot faster than a linear search. If your tags

files are not properly sorted, reset the 'tagbsearch' option.

This message is only given when Vim detects a problem when searching for a

tag. Sometimes this message is not given, even though the tags file is not

properly sorted.

E460 LINK

The resource fork would be lost (add ! to override)

On the Macintosh (classic), when writing a file, Vim attempts to preserve all

info about a file, including its resource fork. If this is not possible you

get this error message. Append "!" to the command name to write anyway (and

lose the info).

E424 LINK

Too many different highlighting attributes in use

Vim can only handle about 223 different kinds of highlighting. If you run

into this limit, you have used too many :highlight commands with different

arguments. A ":highlight link" is not counted.

E77 LINK

Too many file names

When expanding file names, more than one match was found. Only one match is

allowed for the command that was used.

E303 LINK

Unable to open swap file for "{filename}", recovery impossible

Vim was not able to create a swap file. You can still edit the file, but if

Vim unexpectedly exits the changes will be lost. And Vim may consume a lot of

memory when editing a big file. You may want to change the 'directory' option

to avoid this error. See swap-file.

E140 LINK

Use ! to write partial buffer

When using a range to write part of a buffer, it is unusual to overwrite the

original file. It is probably a mistake (e.g., when Visual mode was active

when using ":w"), therefore Vim requires using a ! after the command, e.g.:

":3,10w!".

Warning: Cannot convert string "<Key>Escape,_Key_Cancel" to type

VirtualBinding

Messages like this appear when starting up. This is not a Vim problem, your

X11 configuration is wrong. You can find a hint on how to solve this here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/12179.

[this URL is no longer valid]

W10 LINK

Warning: Changing a readonly file

The file is read-only and you are making a change to it anyway. You can use

the FileChangedRO autocommand event to avoid this message (the autocommand

must reset the 'readonly' option). See 'modifiable' to completely disallow

making changes to a file.

This message is only given for the first change after 'readonly' has been set.

W13 LINK

Warning: File "{filename}" has been created after editing started

You are editing a file in Vim when it didn't exist, but it does exist now.

You will have to decide if you want to keep the version in Vim or the newly

created file. This message is not given when 'buftype' is not empty.

W11 LINK

Warning: File "{filename}" has changed since editing started

The file which you have started editing has got another timestamp and the

contents changed (more precisely: When reading the file again with the current

option settings and autocommands you would end up with different text). This

probably means that some other program changed the file. You will have to

find out what happened, and decide which version of the file you want to keep.

Set the 'autoread' option if you want to do this automatically.

This message is not given when 'buftype' is not empty.

There is one situation where you get this message even though there is nothing

wrong: If you save a file in Windows on the day the daylight saving time

starts. It can be fixed in one of these ways:

- Add this line in your autoexec.bat:

SET TZ=-1

Adjust the "-1" for your time zone.

- Disable "automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes".

- Just write the file again the next day. Or set your clock to the next day,

write the file twice and set the clock back.

W12 LINK

Warning: File "{filename}" has changed and the buffer was changed in Vim as well

Like the above, and the buffer for the file was changed in this Vim as well.

You will have to decide if you want to keep the version in this Vim or the one

on disk. This message is not given when 'buftype' is not empty.

W16 LINK

Warning: Mode of file "{filename}" has changed since editing started

When the timestamp for a buffer was changed and the contents are still the

same but the mode (permissions) have changed. This usually occurs when

checking out a file from a version control system, which causes the read-only

bit to be reset. It should be safe to reload the file. Set 'autoread' to

automatically reload the file.

E211 LINK

File "{filename}" no longer available

The file which you have started editing has disappeared, or is no longer

accessible. Make sure you write the buffer somewhere to avoid losing

changes. This message is not given when 'buftype' is not empty.

W14 LINK

Warning: List of file names overflow

You must be using an awful lot of buffers. It's now possible that two buffers

have the same number, which causes various problems. You might want to exit

Vim and restart it.

E296 E297 LINK

Seek error in swap file write

Write error in swap file

This mostly happens when the disk is full. Vim could not write text into the

swap-file. It's not directly harmful, but when Vim unexpectedly exits some

text may be lost without recovery being possible. Vim might run out of memory

when this problem persists.

connection-refused LINK

Xlib: connection to "<machine-name:0.0" refused by server

This happens when Vim tries to connect to the X server, but the X server does

not allow a connection. The connection to the X server is needed to be able

to restore the title and for the xterm clipboard support. Unfortunately this

error message cannot be avoided, except by disabling the +xterm_clipboard

and +X11 features.

E10 LINK

\\ should be followed by /, ? or &

A command line started with a backslash or the range of a command contained a

backslash in a wrong place. This is often caused by command-line continuation

being disabled. Remove the 'C' flag from the 'cpoptions' option to enable it.

Or use ":set nocp".

E471 LINK

Argument required

This happens when an Ex command with mandatory argument(s) was executed, but

no argument has been specified.

E474 E475 LINK

Invalid argument

Invalid argument: {arg}

An Ex command has been executed, but an invalid argument has been specified.

E488 LINK

Trailing characters

An argument has been added to an Ex command that does not permit one.

E477 E478 LINK

No ! allowed

Don't panic!

You have added a "!" after an Ex command that doesn't permit one.

E481 LINK

No range allowed

A range was specified for an Ex command that doesn't permit one. See

cmdline-ranges.

E482 E483 LINK

Can't create file {filename}

Can't get temp file name

Vim cannot create a temporary file.

E484 E485 LINK

Can't open file {filename}

Can't read file {filename}

Vim cannot read a temporary file. Especially on Windows, this can be caused

by wrong escaping of special characters for cmd.exe; the approach was

changed with patch 7.3.443. Try using shellescape() for all shell arguments

given to system(), or explicitly add escaping with ^. Also see

'shellxquote' and 'shellxescape'.

E464 LINK

Ambiguous use of user-defined command

There are two user-defined commands with a common name prefix, and you used

Command-line completion to execute one of them. user-cmd-ambiguous

Example:

:command MyCommand1 echo "one"

:command MyCommand2 echo "two"

:MyCommand

E492 LINK

Not an editor command

You tried to execute a command that is neither an Ex command nor

a user-defined command.

==============================================================================

3. Messages messagesLINK

This is an (incomplete) overview of various messages that Vim gives:

hit-enter press-enter hit-returnLINK

press-return hit-enter-promptLINK

Press ENTER or type command to continue

This message is given when there is something on the screen for you to read,

and the screen is about to be redrawn:

- After executing an external command (e.g., ":!ls" and "=").

- Something is displayed on the status line that is longer than the width of

the window, or runs into the 'showcmd' or 'ruler' output.

-> Press <Enter> or <Space> to redraw the screen and continue, without that

key being used otherwise.

-> Press ':' or any other Normal mode command character to start that command.

-> Press 'k', <Up>, 'u', 'b' or 'g' to scroll back in the messages. This

works the same way as at the more-prompt. Only works when 'compatible'

is off and 'more' is on.

-> Pressing 'j', 'f', 'd' or <Down> is ignored when messages scrolled off the

top of the screen, 'compatible' is off and 'more' is on, to avoid that

typing one 'j' or 'f' too many causes the messages to disappear.

-> Press <C-Y> to copy (yank) a modeless selection to the clipboard register.

-> Use a menu. The characters defined for Cmdline-mode are used.

-> When 'mouse' contains the 'r' flag, clicking the left mouse button works

like pressing <Space>. This makes it impossible to select text though.

-> For the GUI clicking the left mouse button in the last line works like

pressing <Space>.

{Vi: only ":" commands are interpreted}

If you accidentally hit <Enter> or <Space> and you want to see the displayed

text then use g<. This only works when 'more' is set.

To reduce the number of hit-enter prompts:

- Set 'cmdheight' to 2 or higher.

- Add flags to 'shortmess'.

- Reset 'showcmd' and/or 'ruler'.

If your script causes the hit-enter prompt and you don't know why, you may

find the v:scrollstart variable useful.

Also see 'mouse'. The hit-enter message is highlighted with the hl-Question

group.

more-prompt pager LINK

-- More --

-- More -- SPACE/d/j: screen/page/line down, b/u/k: up, q: quit

This message is given when the screen is filled with messages. It is only

given when the 'more' option is on. It is highlighted with the hl-MoreMsg

group.

Type effect

<CR> or <NL> or j or <Down> one more line

d down a page (half a screen)

<Space> or f or <PageDown> down a screen

G down all the way, until the hit-enter

prompt

<BS> or k or <Up> one line back (*)

u up a page (half a screen) (*)

b or <PageUp> back a screen (*)

g back to the start (*)

q, <Esc> or CTRL-C stop the listing

: stop the listing and enter a

command-line

<C-Y> yank (copy) a modeless selection to

the clipboard ("* and "+ registers)

{menu-entry} what the menu is defined to in

Cmdline-mode.

<LeftMouse> (**) next page

Any other key causes the meaning of the keys to be displayed.

(*) backwards scrolling is {not in Vi}. Only scrolls back to where messages

started to scroll.

(**) Clicking the left mouse button only works:

- For the GUI: in the last line of the screen.

- When 'r' is included in 'mouse' (but then selecting text won't work).

Note: The typed key is directly obtained from the terminal, it is not mapped

and typeahead is ignored.

The g< command can be used to see the last page of previous command output.

This is especially useful if you accidentally typed <Space> at the hit-enter

prompt.

vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: