Actually I am running Xquartz 2.7.11.

I continue to have problems running Vim on a remote system and displaying the output back to my iMac running Xquartz 2.7.11.  I now see the problem on other Linux systems when I edit a file from my xterm session on macOS 10.12.6.

I have tried changing the TERM environment variable in my Xquartz xterm session before logging into the remote system using scp.  I have tried TERM types of xterm, xterm-color, xterm-256color, ansi, linux, vt100, and vt220.  The display problems are not fixed with any of these different TERM types.

I then went back to TERM=xterm and tried logging in to the remote systems using the macOS Terminal application.  In all cases, I was able to correctly edit text files on all remote Linux systems using xterm as the terminal type.  Different levels of Vim on my workstation also worked with Terminal, but consistently fail with an Xquartz xterm.

This sure looks like some kind of compatibility issue between Vim and Xquartz.

I do not see any of these problems logging-in locally to various Linux systems from various other local Linux systems.  The problem only occurs when logging into these remotely from macOS running Xquartx.

Help resolving this problem will be much appreciated.

This problem is becoming increasingly more important to me.  I am unable to
edit files on many of my remote Linux lab machines from an Xquartz xterm on macOS.

I am available to do debugging and testing as needed to fix this problem.

Thanks.

Dick Riegner

I see the garbled Vim display when I login to my remote Linux system from an Xquartz xterm session.

However, if a login to the remote Linux system and launch an xterm session from that remote system, and display back to Xquartz, I do not see the garbled Vim text.

In both cases TERM is set to xterm.

Another variable in this problem is the version of Vim that I run on my workstation from an xterm session on Xquartz.  The older Vim displays correctly, but the newer version garbles the text display.  This problem only happens with an xterm running on Xquartz on macOS.


Vim That Garbles Text Display
-----------------------------
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10)
Included patches: 1-461
Compiled by 'http://www.opensuse.org/'
Huge version without GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):
+acl             +farsi           +mouse_netterm   +syntax
+arabic          +file_in_path    +mouse_sgr       +tag_binary
+autocmd         +find_in_path    -mouse_sysmouse  +tag_old_static
-balloon_eval    +float           +mouse_urxvt     -tag_any_white
-browse          +folding         +mouse_xterm     -tcl
++builtin_terms  -footer          +multi_byte      +terminfo
+byte_offset     +fork()          +multi_lang      +termresponse
+cindent         +gettext         -mzscheme        +textobjects
+clientserver    -hangul_input    +netbeans_intg   +title
+clipboard       +iconv           +path_extra      -toolbar
+cmdline_compl   +insert_expand   +perl            +user_commands
+cmdline_hist    +jumplist        +persistent_undo +vertsplit
+cmdline_info    +keymap          +postscript      +virtualedit
+comments        +langmap         +printer         +visual
+conceal         +libcall         +profile         +visualextra
+cryptv          +linebreak       +python/dyn      +viminfo
+cscope          +lispindent      +python3/dyn     +vreplace
+cursorbind      +listcmds        +quickfix        +wildignore
+cursorshape     +localmap        +reltime         +wildmenu
+dialog_con      +lua/dyn         +rightleft       +windows
+diff            +menu            +ruby/dyn        +writebackup
+digraphs        +mksession       +scrollbind      +X11
-dnd             +modify_fname    +signs           +xfontset
-ebcdic          +mouse           +smartindent     -xim
+emacs_tags      -mouseshape      +sniff           +xsmp_interact
+eval            +mouse_dec       +startuptime     +xterm_clipboard
+ex_extra        -mouse_gpm       +statusline      -xterm_save
+extra_search    -mouse_jsbterm   -sun_workshop    -xpm
   system vimrc file: "/etc/vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
 2nd user vimrc file: "~/.vim/vimrc"
      user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/etc"
 f-b for $VIMRUNTIME: "/usr/share/vim/current"
Compilation: gcc -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H     -fomit-frame-pointer -fmessage-length=0 -grecord-gcc-switches -O2 -Wall -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 -fstack-protector -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -g -Wall -pipe -fno-strict-aliasing      
Linking: gcc   -L. -fstack-protector -rdynamic -Wl,-export-dynamic -Wl,-E -Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib/perl5/5.20.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE   -L/usr/local/lib -Wl,--as-needed -o vim    -lSM -lICE -lXt -lX11 -lSM -lICE  -lm -lnsl    -ltinfo -lacl -lattr -ldl   -Wl,-E -Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib/perl5/5.20.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE  -fstack-protector  -L/usr/lib/perl5/5.20.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE -lperl -lnsl -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lpthread -lc   


Vim That Displays Text Correctly
--------------------------------
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.3 (2010 Aug 15, compiled Sep 21 2011 09:27:46)
Included patches: 1-315
Modified by <bugzilla@redhat.com>
Compiled by <bugzilla@redhat.com>
Small version without GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):
-arabic -autocmd -balloon_eval -browse +builtin_terms -byte_offset -cindent 
-clientserver -clipboard -cmdline_compl +cmdline_hist -cmdline_info -comments 
-conceal -cryptv -cscope -cursorbind -cursorshape -dialog -diff -digraphs -dnd 
-ebcdic -emacs_tags -eval -ex_extra -extra_search -farsi -file_in_path 
-find_in_path -float -folding -footer +fork() -gettext -hangul_input +iconv 
-insert_expand +jumplist -keymap -langmap -libcall -linebreak -lispindent 
-listcmds -localmap -lua -menu -mksession -modify_fname -mouse -mouse_dec 
-mouse_gpm -mouse_jsbterm -mouse_netterm -mouse_sysmouse -mouse_xterm 
+multi_byte -multi_lang -mzscheme -netbeans_intg -path_extra -perl 
-persistent_undo -printer -profile -python -python3 -quickfix -reltime 
-rightleft -ruby -scrollbind -signs -smartindent -sniff -startuptime 
-statusline -sun_workshop -syntax -tag_binary -tag_old_static -tag_any_white 
-tcl +terminfo -termresponse -textobjects -title -toolbar -user_commands 
-vertsplit -virtualedit +visual -visualextra -viminfo -vreplace +wildignore 
-wildmenu +windows +writebackup -X11 -xfontset -xim -xsmp -xterm_clipboard 
-xterm_save 
   system vimrc file: "/etc/virc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
      user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/etc"
 f-b for $VIMRUNTIME: "/usr/share/vim/vim73"
Compilation: gcc -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H     -O2 -g -pipe -Wall  -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1      
Linking: gcc   -L/usr/local/lib -Wl,--as-needed -o vim       -lm  -lselinux -lncurses -lacl -lattr -ldl

Can someone help with this bug?  I have not seen a response to any of my posts.

Thanks.

Resting assignee and QA Contact.

Changing the TERM environment variable from "xterm" to "screen" on my Linux workstation causes vim 7.4 to now properly display its text back to Xquartz on macOS.

Here is the difference between the "xterm" and "screen" terminal definitions in terminfo on my workstation:

infocmp -d xterm screen
comparing xterm to screen.
    comparing booleans.
        bce: T:F.
        mc5i: T:F.
        npc: T:F.
    comparing numbers.
        ncv: NULL, NULL.
    comparing strings.
        acsc: '``aaffggiijjkkllmmnnooppqqrrssttuuvvwwxxyyzz{{||}}~~', '++\,\,--..00``aaffgghhiijjkkllmmnnooppqqrrssttuuvvwwxxyyzz{{||}}~~'.
        clear: '\E[H\E[2J', '\E[H\E[J'.
        cnorm: '\E[?12l\E[?25h', '\E[34h\E[?25h'.
        cuu1: '\E[A', '\EM'.
        cvvis: '\E[?12;25h', '\E[34l'.
        dim: '\E[2m', NULL.
        ech: '\E[%p1%dX', NULL.
        enacs: NULL, '\E(B\E)0'.
        flash: '\E[?5h$<100/>\E[?5l', '\Eg'.
        hpa: '\E[%i%p1%dG', NULL.
        indn: '\E[%p1%dS', NULL.
        invis: '\E[8m', NULL.
        is2: '\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>', '\E)0'.
        kDC: '\E[3;2~', NULL.
        kEND: '\E[1;2F', NULL.
        kHOM: '\E[1;2H', NULL.
        kIC: '\E[2;2~', NULL.
        kLFT: '\E[1;2D', NULL.
        kNXT: '\E[6;2~', NULL.
        kPRV: '\E[5;2~', NULL.
        kRIT: '\E[1;2C', NULL.
        kb2: '\EOE', NULL.
        kend: '\EOF', '\E[4~'.
        kent: '\EOM', NULL.
        kf13: '\E[1;2P', NULL.
        kf14: '\E[1;2Q', NULL.
        kf15: '\E[1;2R', NULL.
        kf16: '\E[1;2S', NULL.
        kf17: '\E[15;2~', NULL.
        kf18: '\E[17;2~', NULL.
        kf19: '\E[18;2~', NULL.
        kf20: '\E[19;2~', NULL.
        kf21: '\E[20;2~', NULL.
        kf22: '\E[21;2~', NULL.
        kf23: '\E[23;2~', NULL.
        kf24: '\E[24;2~', NULL.
        kf25: '\E[1;5P', NULL.
        kf26: '\E[1;5Q', NULL.
        kf27: '\E[1;5R', NULL.
        kf28: '\E[1;5S', NULL.
        kf29: '\E[15;5~', NULL.
        kf30: '\E[17;5~', NULL.
        kf31: '\E[18;5~', NULL.
        kf32: '\E[19;5~', NULL.
        kf33: '\E[20;5~', NULL.
        kf34: '\E[21;5~', NULL.
        kf35: '\E[23;5~', NULL.
        kf36: '\E[24;5~', NULL.
        kf37: '\E[1;6P', NULL.
        kf38: '\E[1;6Q', NULL.
        kf39: '\E[1;6R', NULL.
        kf40: '\E[1;6S', NULL.
        kf41: '\E[15;6~', NULL.
        kf42: '\E[17;6~', NULL.
        kf43: '\E[18;6~', NULL.
        kf44: '\E[19;6~', NULL.
        kf45: '\E[20;6~', NULL.
        kf46: '\E[21;6~', NULL.
        kf47: '\E[23;6~', NULL.
        kf48: '\E[24;6~', NULL.
        kf49: '\E[1;3P', NULL.
        kf50: '\E[1;3Q', NULL.
        kf51: '\E[1;3R', NULL.
        kf52: '\E[1;3S', NULL.
        kf53: '\E[15;3~', NULL.
        kf54: '\E[17;3~', NULL.
        kf55: '\E[18;3~', NULL.
        kf56: '\E[19;3~', NULL.
        kf57: '\E[20;3~', NULL.
        kf58: '\E[21;3~', NULL.
        kf59: '\E[23;3~', NULL.
        kf60: '\E[24;3~', NULL.
        kf61: '\E[1;4P', NULL.
        kf62: '\E[1;4Q', NULL.
        kf63: '\E[1;4R', NULL.
        kfnd: '\E[1~', NULL.
        khome: '\EOH', '\E[1~'.
        kind: '\E[1;2B', NULL.
        kri: '\E[1;2A', NULL.
        kslt: '\E[4~', NULL.
        mc0: '\E[i', NULL.
        mc4: '\E[4i', NULL.
        mc5: '\E[5i', NULL.
        nel: NULL, '\EE'.
        rin: '\E[%p1%dT', NULL.
        ritm: '\E[23m', NULL.
        rmacs: '\E(B', '^O'.
        rmam: '\E[?7l', NULL.
        rmm: '\E[?1034l', NULL.
        rmso: '\E[27m', '\E[23m'.
        rs1: '\Ec', NULL.
        rs2: '\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>', '\Ec\E[?1000l\E[?25h'.
        setb: '\E[4%?%p1%{1}%=%t4%e%p1%{3}%=%t6%e%p1%{4}%=%t1%e%p1%{6}%=%t3%e%p1%d%;m', NULL.
        setf: '\E[3%?%p1%{1}%=%t4%e%p1%{3}%=%t6%e%p1%{4}%=%t1%e%p1%{6}%=%t3%e%p1%d%;m', NULL.
        sgr: '%?%p9%t\E(0%e\E(B%;\E[0%?%p6%t;1%;%?%p5%t;2%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p1%p3%|%t;7%;%?%p4%t;5%;%?%p7%t;8%;m', '\E[0%?%p6%t;1%;%?%p1%t;3%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p3%t;7%;%?%p4%t;5%;m%?%p9%t\016%e\017%;'.
        sgr0: '\E(B\E[m', '\E[m\017'.
        sitm: '\E[3m', NULL.
        smacs: '\E(0', '^N'.
        smam: '\E[?7h', NULL.
        smm: '\E[?1034h', NULL.
        smso: '\E[7m', '\E[3m'.
        u6: '\E[%i%d;%dR', NULL.
        u7: '\E[6n', NULL.
        u8: '\E[?1;2c', NULL.
        u9: '\E[c', NULL.
        vpa: '\E[%i%p1%dd', NULL.

Note that the vim 7.4 text display corruption is only seen when displaying back to Xquartz running on macOS.  

The vim 7.4 text display is always correct when running and displaying on numerous desktop and server systems running X11 on Linux.

Is there anything more I can do or provide to help fix this problem?

It looks like someone else is also seeing the display corruption when running vi remotely on a Linux system and displaying back to Xquartz on macOS.


https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46919687/vi-display-messed-up-in-remote-servers-using-xquartz


And they too have apparently not resolved the problem.

I am going to try running with TERM set to xterm-new on macOS.

In the past 6 weeks, I am no longer able to reproduce this problem and have not seen any of the extraneous lines when editing a file.  I can now correctly edit files with the current vi installed with openSUSE 13.3.  I no longer need to revert to a much older vi version.

I have not recently changed my office Linux workstation hardware or software in over a year that runs the now unsupported openSuSE 13.3.

I have not recently changed my home iMac hardware or software that has been running macOS 10.12.6 for over several months.

I do know that our corporate VPN network has been changed, and continues to change, over the past 2 months.  I suspect that maybe the VPN connection was the cause of this problem, but that is mostly speculation at this time.

In any event, the problem no longer occurs, and I can now correctly edit using the current vi on openSUSE 13.3 executed from an XQuartz xterm on macOS.

I found this work-around for the corrupt edit session display when running vi/vim on a remote Linux system and displaying back to XQuartz on macOS.  Thanks to Norm Wood for his work-around posted here:

http://vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com/Corrupt-display-when-editing-remotely-via-ssh-td5730732.html

His work-around is to reset the vi/vim "term" value after starting a vi/vim edit session.  This example uses an "xterm" terminal session:

:set term=xterm

I made the work-around more permanent by adding these statements to my ~/,vimrc file:

" Work-around for garbage/corrupt edit display back to
" macOS XQuartz (X11) server with newer vi/vim
if (&term == 'xterm')
 set term=dummy
 set term=xterm
endif

This problem does not occur when displaying back to any of our X11 servers running on Linux.

I still do not know the root cause of this problem nor have an actual fix for it.

I consistently see text display corruption when 
editing a file on a remote Linux system with vim.  

I run an xterm window on macOS and ssh into a 
remote Linux machine.  The edit session is 
displayed back to an XQuartz server running on 
the same macOS.

I have only seen this problem when displaying 
back to an XQuartz server running on macOS.  

I have not seen the problem when displaying back
to an X11 server running on various Linux 
systems.

This problem occurs with newer versions of vim,
but not older versions.

Inserting lines causes the INSERT message to be 
displayed in the command line, but it is not 
cleared after hitting the ESC key.  

Inserting text also causes extraneous lines of 
text to be added to the body of the original 
text, corrupting the edit display.

I suspect that I am seeing the same vim behavior
as was reported in this incident:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/GR9YG8TZy6o

A work-around is to add this statement to the 
.vimrc file:

set ambiwidth=single

I do not know if this is a bug in vim, XQuartz, 
or both.  So I am asking for XQuartz help here 
and vim help in another forum.
 
Here is a summary of editing a file using two 
versions of vim, each with and without, the 
ambiwidth work-around.


New Vim
-------
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10)
Included patches: 1-207, 209-326
Compiled by 'http://www.opensuse.org/'

Works with:     set ambiwidth=single
Fails without:  set ambiwidth=single


Old Vim
-------
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.2 (2008 Aug 9, compiled Feb  4 2012 09:50:29)
Included patches: 1-108
Compiled by 'http://www.opensuse.org/'

Works with:     set ambiwidth=single
Works without:  set ambiwidth=single

-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/issues/778.