macOS Neovide: app only starts from the Terminal

[al3xandru]

I have installed Neovide on macOS Sonoma on a MBP M1. Starting the app by double-clicking doesn't do anything. But it does start when using neovide from the Terminal.

I looked in Console for any error messages but I couldn't find much. Anyone knows why this is happening and how I could fix it?

thank you

[al3xandru]

I did set the path to nvim using neovim_bin setting but still nothing.

> cat ~/.config/neovide/config.toml
neovim_bin = "/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim"
frame = "Full"

[fredizzimo]

It's not ideal, but check this out #1859, there are several solutions there, but we need to come up with a better fix.

[al3xandru]

I read through the whole thread and the only hint is related to the system PATH.

On my system (macOS Sonoma on M1), I have installed nvim with brew. Thus nvim is in /opt/homebrew/bin.

1. I have added /opt/homebrew/bin to /etc/paths. Restart. Nothing
2. I have symlinked nvim from /usr/local/bin which is in the PATH. Nothing.
3. The instruction of providing a path for neovim using neovim_bin in the toml config file doesn't work either.

Isn't the 3rd item a bug? And unfortunately it's not clear what the solution is.

[al3xandru]

An update: I've learned that the issue of starting Neovide 0.11.2 in macOS might actually have nothing to do with the M1 or Intel versions. I have installed Neovide using brew on an Intel macOS running 13.5.2 and the behavior is identical. This make me believe that the path might be a red herring and the root cause is somewhere else (lack of permission? etc)

[fredizzimo]

There are a few of issues with workarounds

• Failed launching neovide on macOS from brew #1373
• “Neovide” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software. #1479
• Cannot launch neovide on my MacBook Pro M1 #1998

[al3xandru]

From #1373:

1. $PATH should be set in ~/.zprofile. I have create such a file and included export PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH. Nothing. My system is set to use bash though.
2. sudo launchctl config user path "$(brew --prefix)/bin:${PATH} I tried this too. Nothing.
3. symlink nvim into /usr/local/bin. Tried. Nothing.
4. symlink the .app into $HOME/Applications. Nothing
5. "enable terminal inside Developer Tools" Not sure what this has to do. Tried. Nothing.

[al3xandru]

#1479 and #1998 seem to be about the app not being signed issue. I went through the dance of right clicking, etc.

[al3xandru]

I put together a quick AppleScript:

set theReturn to (do shell script "export PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH; echo $PATH; echo \"$(which nvim
)\"; open /Applications/Neovide.app")
log theReturn

Output:

/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim

Next I changed it to:

set theReturn to (do shell script "export PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH; echo $PATH; echo \"$(which nvim
)\"; neovide")
log theReturn

The output this time:

error "ERROR: Unexpected output from neovim binary:
	/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim -v
Check that your shell doesn't output anything extra when running:
	$SHELL -lc '/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim -v'" number 1

It looks to me that Neovide it expecting a specific kind of output and it fails to parse it.

> nvim -v
NVIM v0.9.4
Build type: Release
LuaJIT 2.1.1696795921

   system vimrc file: "$VIM/sysinit.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/neovim/0.9.4/share/nvim"

Run :checkhealth for more info

[fredizzimo]

It looks like there is some extra output when you run it from your script, or when Neovide launches it, even if you don't see any in your test. Try this script:

set theReturn to (do shell script "export PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH; echo $PATH; echo \"$(which nvim
)\";$SHELL -lc '/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim -v'")
log theReturn

The cause might be the same as this issue #2049, something launches ps and because there's no proper terminal size it fails with some ouptut to the stderr.

This message also contains a patch to get more output from Neovim #2049 (comment), so if you are able to compile from source and apply that it would be helpful.

[al3xandru]

I have removed the other echo just to be sure. The output is:

NVIM v0.9.4
Build type: Release
LuaJIT 2.1.1696795921

   system vimrc file: "$VIM/sysinit.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/neovim/0.9.4/share/nvim"

Run :checkhealth for more info

[fredizzimo]

I guess we really need this patch #2049 (comment) to debug further, and see what's actually output when Neovide runs nvim --version. It has to be something else than you see when it's run either manually or through the script modification that I made.

Note, with this change, the startup errors will be reported instead of just silently quitting, which would have made debugging it this far much easier.

• fix!: Report errors at startup #2072

[al3xandru]

That seems to be a general improvement so why not committing it? I could then use brew to install the HEAD.

[fredizzimo]

I created a PR for it here #2083

[al3xandru]

I can confirm that after removing my .bash_profile, Neovide app could start.

It has been impossible to figure out what’s breaking Neovide though. Even the first line of my bash_profile stty -ixon would already break it.

[fredizzimo]

Hm, shouldn't that be in .bashrc? Instead of .bash_profile?

.bashrc is run for interactive shells, while .bash_profile is for noninteractive ones, so there might not be a tty available.

[al3xandru]

Maybe.

Removing it though leaves another few hundred lines of bash and neovide still not starting :-(

[al3xandru]

The good news for me is that I got to a point where Neovide starts from the app on one of my machines.

The less good news is that I haven't been able to pinpoint the issue and that means others might hit the same problem and 1) there's no clear workaround for it; 2) there's no way to make neovide's start more resilient.

[fredizzimo]

I was wondering why you have so much stuff in your .bash_profile rather than .bashrc, but then I read this article https://scriptingosx.com/2017/04/about-bash_profile-and-bashrc-on-macos/.

IMO, the correct approach is to follow the advice there and add

if [ -r ~/.bashrc ]; then
   source ~/.bashrc
fi

to your .bash_profile

And then at the top of the .bashrc the standard

# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[[ $- != *i* ]] && return

This way you can separate the stuff you want to run on all shells, like setting paths to .profile, while adding everything you need for interactive shells in .bashrc, exactly like it works on Linux based systems.

This in itself won't help you pinpoint the issue, but if you only have paths (and perhaps aliases) in .bash_profile, there should not be anything preventing Neovide from starting.

In .bashrc you can then have for example prompt customisation and other special stuff like neofetch

[fredizzimo]

@al3xandru if you are able to test then #2083, should include better error messages. It ill probably be merged to main soonish, after someone has reviewed it.

[al3xandru]

I have subscribed to #2083 to be notified when it gets merged and try it out. Is it that any echo command in the bash setup could mess with neovide's start?

[fredizzimo]

Yes, any output to either stdout or stderr will cause problems.

The reason for that is that neovide use those to channels to communicate with neovim. That is a pretty standard way of doing things and for example most LSP clients communicate with neovim the same way.

What makes it problematic in the case of Neovide is that we also need to launch a new shell in case you run it from the desktop, so that all environment variables and aliases for example gets set up correctly. And if the user has configured the shell incorrectly so that it outputs things also in a non-interactive mode then it will break. And worse if it waits for inputs, like oh-my-zsh update prompts for example

Perhaps we could somehow detect the initial input/output and ignore it, but things gets quite complex.