Error while lunarvim installation unknown flag 'u' (read workaround at the top of the issue)

[hamzamohdzubair]

how to fix this issue (maintainer edit)

#3612 (comment)
Remove exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" from ~/.local/bin/lvim as a workaround

Problem description

I get the following error as the last line of the installation process (see screenshots)
And i get the same error when i try to run lunarvim later using lvim

error: unknown flag `u'

LunarVim version

1.2

Neovim version (>= 0.8.0)

NVIM v0.8.1

Operating system/version

CentOS Linux 7 (Core)

Steps to reproduce

1. Install neovim

Screenshots

[LostNeophyte]

Send the output of nvim --help

[hamzamohdzubair]

@LostNeophyte

Send the output of nvim --help

[LostNeophyte]

interesting, -u is in the list. Create a file.lua and run nvim -u file.lua, will it work?

[hamzamohdzubair]

interesting, -u is in the list. Create a file.lua and run nvim -u file.lua, will it work?

yes it worked

[LostNeophyte]

does lvim -u file.lua work?

[hamzamohdzubair]

does lvim -u file.lua work?

[LostNeophyte]

send the output of cat ~/.local/bin/lvim

[hamzamohdzubair]

send the output of cat ~/.local/bin/lvim

[LostNeophyte]

what about nvim --headless -u NONE

[LostNeophyte]

and if you have nvim in ~/.local/bin/nvim, test it too

[hamzamohdzubair]

what about nvim --headless -u NONE

just freezes

[hamzamohdzubair]

and if you have nvim in ~/.local/bin/nvim, test it too

no nvim in ~/.local/bin/

[LostNeophyte]

what about nvim --headless -u NONE

just freezes

that's expected, idk what's wrong tbh since nvim -u works

[hamzamohdzubair]

what about nvim --headless -u NONE

just freezes

that's expected, idk what's wrong tbh since nvim -u works

i have been using lunarvim since last 2-3 months without any problems, recently i reinstalled nvim from snap, earlier i was using appimage

[LostNeophyte]

we have an experimental lunarvim appimage with bundled nvim btw https://github.com/LostNeophyte/LunarVim/releases/tag/stable

[hamzamohdzubair]

we have an experimental lunarvim appimage with bundled nvim btw https://github.com/LostNeophyte/LunarVim/releases/tag/stable

this is pretty smooth, i like it thanks. the lunarvim appimage just starts and runs perfectly.
Thanks again for this.

However, since I have not been able to solve this problem, i will keep the issue open for now. hope that's fine

[LostNeophyte]

does bash -c "exec nvim -u NONE" or bash -c "nvim -u NONE" trigger the same error?

[George-Spanos]

Hello!! I'm continuing this thread since I have the same exact issue up until this point of the convo. Unfortunately I get the same error even by using the .deb (I'm on Ubuntu).
bash -c "exec nvim -u NONE" just opens a nvim normally.

[LostNeophyte]

What if you remove exec -a lvim (exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" in newer versions) from ~/.local/bin/lvim and then run lvim?

[George-Spanos]

What if you remove exec -a lvim from ~/.local/bin/lvim and then run lvim?

For me, removing fixed the issue!

[Philipp0205]

For me lvim starts now, but not with the usual start screen and theme. Something seems to be broken.

[LostNeophyte]

For me lvim starts now, but not with the usual start screen and theme. Something seems to be broken.

Run :PackerSync for 1.2 / :Lazy sync for master

[LostNeophyte]

@George-Spanos @Philipp0205 what shell are you using? what's its version and the version of bash and your OS?

I'll need to reproduce and fix this

[Philipp0205]

@LostNeophyte Okay PackerSync helped. It's my first time using lvim so I was a bit confused :)

After removing exec -a lvim everything works!

➜  ~ neofetch
            .-/+oossssoo+/-.               philipp@x1 
        `:+ssssssssssssssssss+:`           ---------- 
      -+ssssssssssssssssssyyssss+-         OS: Ubuntu 22.10 x86_64 
    .ossssssssssssssssssdMMMNysssso.       Host: 20UAS6FH00 ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 
   /ssssssssssshdmmNNmmyNMMMMhssssss/      Kernel: 5.19.0-28-generic 
  +ssssssssshmydMMMMMMMNddddyssssssss+     Uptime: 18 hours, 13 mins 
 /sssssssshNMMMyhhyyyyhmNMMMNhssssssss/    Packages: 3682 (dpkg), 43 (flatpak), 29 (snap) 
.ssssssssdMMMNhsssssssssshNMMMdssssssss.   Shell: zsh 5.9 
+sssshhhyNMMNyssssssssssssyNMMMysssssss+   Resolution: 1680x1050 
ossyNMMMNyMMhsssssssssssssshmmmhssssssso   DE: Regolith 
ossyNMMMNyMMhsssssssssssssshmmmhssssssso   WM: i3 
+sssshhhyNMMNyssssssssssssyNMMMysssssss+   Theme: Dracula [GTK3] 
.ssssssssdMMMNhsssssssssshNMMMdssssssss.   Icons: Dracula [GTK3] 
 /sssssssshNMMMyhhyyyyhdNMMMNhssssssss/    Terminal: gnome-terminal 
  +sssssssssdmydMMMMMMMMddddyssssssss+     CPU: Intel i7-10610U (8) @ 4.900GHz 
   /ssssssssssshdmNNNNmyNMMMMhssssss/      GPU: Intel CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics] 
    .ossssssssssssssssssdMMMNysssso.       Memory: 6240MiB / 15633MiB 

[George-Spanos]

I don't have any issues as @Philipp0205 describes. I'm using bash on Ubuntu 22.04.

[LostNeophyte]

thanks, I'll try to reproduce it in an ubuntu container

[jagblad]

I've a similar problem. I think for me it may be due to having nvim installed via "snap", then it seems the lvim script tries to launch /snap/bin/nvim which is a symlink for /usr/bin/snap, so it launches snap instead of nvim. Snap doesn't have a "-u" option.

[George-Spanos]

I've a similar problem. I think for me it may be due to having nvim installed via "snap", then it seems the lvim script tries to launch /snap/bin/nvim which is a symlink for /usr/bin/snap, so it launches snap instead of nvim. Snap doesn't have a "-u" option.

Sounds reasonable, I will test if this is valid as well.

[LostNeophyte]

I've a similar problem. I think for me it may be due to having nvim installed via "snap", then it seems the lvim script tries to launch /snap/bin/nvim which is a symlink for /usr/bin/snap, so it launches snap instead of nvim. Snap doesn't have a "-u" option.

so does nvim -u not work with snap installed nvim?

[AkioKiyota]

only remove -a "$NVIM_APPNAME", nothing more

it works thx :D

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 50 days with no activity.

[josielrocha]

only remove -a "$NVIM_APPNAME", nothing more

Same here. It works after deleting -a $NVIM_APPNAME.

lvim -v
NVIM v0.9.1
Build type: RelWithDebInfo
LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3
Compilation: /usr/bin/cc -O2 -g -Og -g -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes -std=gnu99 -Wshadow -Wconversion -Wvla -Wdouble-promotion -Wmissing-noreturn -Wmissing-format-attribute -Wmissing-prototypes -fno-common -Wno-unused-result -Wimplicit-fallthrough -fdiagnostics-color=always -fstack-protector-strong -DUNIT_TESTING -DINCLUDE_GENERATED_DECLARATIONS -D_GNU_SOURCE -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include/luajit-2.1 -I/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/build/src/nvim/auto -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/build/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/build/cmake.config -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/src -I/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include -I/build/nvim/parts/nvim/build/.deps/usr/include

   system vimrc file: "$VIM/sysinit.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/share/nvim"

Run :checkhealth for more info

[MheniMerz]

this is what worked for me
i modified the first line of ~/.local/bin/lvim script to basically change the value of the NVIM_APPNAME variable

from

export NVIM_APPNAME="${NVIM_APPNAME:-"lvim"}"

to

export NVIM_APPNAME="${NVIM_APPNAME:-"nvim"}"

[LostNeophyte]

this is what worked for me i modified the first line of ~/.local/bin/lvim script to basically change the value of the NVIM_APPNAME variable

from

export NVIM_APPNAME="${NVIM_APPNAME:-"lvim"}"

to

export NVIM_APPNAME="${NVIM_APPNAME:-"nvim"}"

don't do that, it will use different directories if you do that, use the workaround I edited in at the top of the issue

[Qwer-TeX]

@hamzamohdzubair

Did you download nvim from snap?
sudo snap install --beta nvim --classic ?

[lackovic]

I am also getting the same error, right after installation:

$ lvim
error: unknown flag `u'

I installed Neovim through snap in order to get the last version.

What if you remove exec -a lvim from ~/.local/bin/lvim and then run lvim?

The last line of my ~/.local/bin/lvim is:

exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" nvim -u "$LUNARVIM_BASE_DIR/init.lua" "$@"

If I remove it then nothing happens when I run lvim.

[Qwer-TeX]

@lackovic

I think that you shouldn't install Neovim through snap because the ubuntu developer strip down the binary to save space.
I suggest that you either download the binaries from their website of build it yourself.

[LostNeophyte]

@lackovic did you remove only the mentioned part of that line?

[lackovic]

I suggest that you either download the binaries from their website of build it yourself.

In that case I would have to keep Neovim manually up to date while with snap I get all my applications updated to their latest versions with sudo snap refresh.

did you remove only the mentioned part of that line?

The mentioned part exec -a lvim is not present on the last line of my ~/.local/bin/lvim:

exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" nvim -u "$LUNARVIM_BASE_DIR/init.lua" "$@"

I first tried to remove just exec -a, without that a warning is printed indefinitely:

$ lvim
bash: warning: shell level (1000) too high, resetting to 1
bash: warning: shell level (1000) too high, resetting to 1
bash: warning: shell level (1000) too high, resetting to 1

When I removed exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" then the application started and successfully installed 43 plugins.

It looks like it's working the same with or without exec.

Why is exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" part of the last line of ~/.local/bin/lvim if with that it does not work?

[LostNeophyte]

exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" used to be exec -a lvim

Why is exec -a "$NVIM_APPNAME" part of the last line of ~/.local/bin/lvim if with that it does not work?

for some reason exec's -a flag breaks the nvim executable (or maybe its wrapper) from snap, the same happens with bob (nvim version manager)

[Peelz]

OS: Ubuntu 22.04

I'm not sure about root cause, but for me i was install neovim from snap.
After removed nvim from snap store, and use Applmage.
It's working now.

[obayit]

@hamzamohdzubair
I remove the line mentioned in the workaround, but it gets readded after running the installation script again. Can you please show a detailed steps of how to install?

[bilenkonito]

The error is comming from /usr/bin/snap, not nvim:

$ /usr/bin/snap -u
error: unknown flag 'u'

The reason is that snap's shims work by symlinking each binary name to /usr/bin/snap, which then grabs the binary name from the 0th argument and executes the actual binary found inside the snap image.

The exec -a command is effectively passing lvim as the 0th argument to nvim but since snapd cannot find any snap declared binary called lvim, the execution of /snap/bin/nvim instead behaves as if /usr/bin/snap was being executed directly.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 50 days with no activity.

[github-actions]

This issue was closed because it has been inactive for 14 days since being marked as stale.

[estrac]

The workaround at the top of did not resolve this issue for me -- the installation of LunarVim still failed.

As @bilenkonito explained above, this is an issue with snap. I was able to successfully install LunarVim by first removing my neovim installation with:

sudo snap remove nvim

Then I installed neovim from source (which was surprisingly easy following neovim "Install from Source" instructions) and re-ran the LunarVim installation script.

[nb5p]

I encountered the same problem with bob-nivm. Modifying the last line as follows solved it.

exec nivm -u "$LUNARVIM_BASE_DIR/init.lua" "$@"

[WayneBuckhanan]

FYI, snap has the ability to "alias" executable names so it resolves to the correct packaged executable when using another name to call it.

sudo snap alias nvim lvim

As long as your ~/.local/bin is before the snap nvim in your path, it will run the lvim script, then when the script calls the snap managed nvim, it has no issues with the exec -a renaming it lvim.

[Aegox]

Thats great, delete exec -a and run path of lvim

[ivandez]

as jagblad said, I had neovim installed via snap and it did not work, so I delete neovim with snap remove and then install it again with curl from neovim official doc and now it works https://github.com/neovim/neovim/blob/master/INSTALL.md#install-from-package