Feather M4 does soft reboot when files on it are being edited while a file is also running

[evaherrada]

I don't think this is an issue that needs to be fixed, but I think that it would be worth adding something to some docs somewhere telling people to edit the code locally and then copy it across to the board. I was using vim, and I think the creation and modification of .swp files is partly to blame.

[deshipu]

I think you can configure vim to not create them on the usb drive, or to create them in your home directory instead.

[evaherrada]

Ok. Thanks for the tip. I was more posting this with the hope it could get documented somewhere and other people having the same issue would be able to see that.

[siddacious]

I'll give my support for documenting this. It did also mention apps that auto save

[evaherrada]

I'm fine documenting this, I just don't know where or if I even can contribute to the docs.

[dhalbert]

if you invoke vim with vim -n, then vim doesn't use .swp files. This is on the one-page cheat sheet we gave out, but I'll also add it to here: https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/creating-and-editing-code#1-use-an-editor-that-writes-out-the-file-completely-when-you-save-it-7-13. I thought it was mentioned there but it isn't.

[siddacious]

You absolutely can contribute and we appreciate it! I'm not sure where the best place would be, @kattni should know

[evaherrada]

Ok. Thanks @dhalbert that's useful to know. @kattni how should I proceed.

[dhalbert]

I just edited that page to say:

• vim / vi safely writes all changes. But set up vim to not write swapfiles (.swp files: temporary records of your edits) to CIRCUITPY. Run vim with vim -n, set the no swapfile option, or set the directory option to write swapfiles elsewhere. Otherwise the swapfile writes trigger restarts of your program.

Click on the "swapfiles" link for more information. Feel free to suggest edits of the above to improve its clarity.

[evaherrada]

Awesome! Sounds good.

[kevinjwalters]

FYI, reading a file (on Windows and possibly other host o/s) can also trigger a reload: #1830 (comment)