sometimes my file just freezes in my vi |vim, what happened?

Question

Sometimes when I edit my file using vi or vim, my file just freezes. Even if I type <kbd>Ctrl+C</kbd> or <kbd>Ctrl+D</kbd>, it still freezes there. I `kill -9 <pid>` from another terminal, the pid is killed, but the file still freezes there. I guess I must have typed some combination of key which I do not know. Does anybody have an idea?

Answer 1

This can happen, but is the process really getting frozen? Or is it just some oddity displayed followed up by what appears to be an unresponsive "vi"?

Next time this happens (hopefully, it won't):

1. hit esc 2/3 times
2. type ctrl-l - that should then re-draw the display
3. type :f (coian-f) - the name of your file should appear in lower-left screen ...

If none of this works, you will need to kill the process from another window.

If this happens regularly, you need to ask yourself, why?

Is this a shared server administered by someone else, or your own desktop?

If the former, reach out to the admin ...