Sublime Forum

**oats** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Somehow with the latest Dev 2099, I accidentally got into a mode where the blinking caret turned into a blinking underscore. This is on OS X. It said “command mode” in the status bar… I quit ST and restarted, and still the underscore was present, and it would not allow me to type anything! I’m sure I’m an idiot, but I don’t know how to get out of this mode.

**ehamiter** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Sounds like you’re in vintage mode. Open up your Global.sublime-settings (in another text editor, if necessary) and put this in there:

“ignored_packages”: “Vintage”]

I think “v” quits that mode, too.

**oats** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

There is no other indication that I’m in that mode, other than I can’t type and the _ cursor. I have used VIM a long time ago, and I remember typing “ESC” then :q to quit. But I can’t seem to do that either. I moved the Vintage package to an ignored_packages folder, restarted sublime, and still no luck.

Another strange thing: if i open a new file, i can type, but if I try to type in any of the files which were already open in my project, it doesn’t work. I’m wondering if this is a bug? I’m using the latest 2100 release on OS X.

**adzenith** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

I experienced this same thing around the time Vintage came out—if you just close all your buffers and reopen them you should be good to go. I haven’t seen the problem since.

**ajpalkovic** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Eugh, I got bitten by this today. Closing all files works, but still annoying. It happened at startup for me, hot exit didn’t help. Not really sure what other info I can give you.

**daniellindsley** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Also got bit by this today. Haven’t closed out all buffers yet, but a quit + edit “Global.sublime-settings” + starting ST2 at least lets me edit (thought the cursor still looks wrong).

**jps** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Just to be clear, for everyone who’s had this, have you changed your ignored_packages setting (at any time) to enable Vintage?

**wbond** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

I’ve only experienced it on Windows, and I enabled and disabled Vintage to fix it. It ended up happening a few times while I was running ST2 on Windows, but I only really do that for testing. I have not experienced it at all on Linux.

**ajpalkovic** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Yea, I accidentally downgraded to 2091 today (it was early), so I think it still had the vintage package there, but it wasn’t disabled. I quickly reran my script, updated to 2101. Unfortunately this didn’t fix the problem. I checked global settings and it still had Vintage as being ignored. I tried a few things, but ultimately, I had to do a ‘real’ exit and reopen sublime. I tried reopening the project / switching projects, and it had the same effect.

My guess is maybe there is a flag in sublime that says hey im in vintage mode. When I opened 2091, it loaded vintage, that was set. I did a hot exit and that was saved somewhere. I reopened 2101 and that flag was still there?

**adzenith** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

Yeah, I had enabled Vintage for a little to try it out. I turned it back off and that’s when the problem happened. Maybe the views got stuck in ro mode because I was in command mode when I turned Vintage off?

**jps** · January 13, 2016, 6:34am

When Vintage is enabled, it’ll set the command_mode and inverse_caret_state settings on all views. When it’s disabled, it removes these settings. However, if it doesn’t get notified about being disabled, such as via Global.sublime-settings being modified when Sublime Text isn’t running, then the settings will be left around.

I’ll take a look at changing things such that these settings are never serialized.

**oats** · January 13, 2016, 6:35am

I did not enable VI mode intentionally, and afterwards moved the package to the ignored packages folder, and even that didn’t help. It is still not clear to me how I got in VI mode. What is the keystroke to enter/leave vintage mode? I didn’t see anything in the key bindings.

**ajpalkovic** · January 13, 2016, 6:35am

Temporary solution:

Save and close the project
Edit the project file
Replace “command_mode”: true with “command_mode”: false
Replace “inverse_caret_state”: true with “inverse_caret_state”: false
Save the file
Reopen the project

**jbrooksuk** · January 13, 2016, 6:35am

I experience this problem today on Lion.

Closing all buffers, quitting and then re-opening sorted it.

I don’t remember ever enabling Vintage mode.

**jsampson45** · May 19, 2022, 12:04pm

Had this problem in the year 2022 except that caret is not an underline. Closing Sublime Text and restarting re-enabled typing. This is Build 4126, running in Windows 10. If this is Vintage mode there seems to be no key press for entering Insert mode.

**QQqioqio** · January 7, 2023, 3:56am

Hi, may I know how did u eventually settle this problem… I had the exact same situation with you. And I had set everything done so I do not wish to reinstall Sublime Test again… any solution…

**xKOLx** · February 6, 2023, 10:12am

For whoever that happen the same… I could fix it by going to the appdata and delete all the sublime text files.

Exit ST3
goto C:\Users\User\AppData\Local and delete the ST3 folder
goto C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming and delete the ST3 folder
Open st3 again… it will be like fresh install.

Cuz may be there is a reason why even if u unistall and reinstall keep a flag that say “hey this dude is in V mode” and keep the problem.

saludos

**OdatNurd** · February 6, 2023, 6:12pm

That “reason” is that your configuration is stored separately from the application so that you can upgrade without damaging your configuration, and is also the reason why when you have problems, uninstalling and reinstalling does nothing 99.9% of the time.

If you have accidentally enabled Vintage or another vi mode package that you don’t want, Tools > Command Pallette, choose the disable package command and pick the appropriate package to have Sublime unload and ignore it.

Help -- I can't type!