Suddenly OMZ gives compdef: command not found

[konsbn]

Discussed in https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/discussions/10701

^{Originally posted by konsbn February 17, 2022}
Out of nowhere I am being greeted with this message as I fire up a new terminal. I haven't done anything with my .zshrc or the config files.

/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/lib/completion.zsh:78: bashcompinit: function definition file not found
zsh: compdef: command not found...
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/lib/termsupport.zsh:108: add-zsh-hook: function definition file not found
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/lib/termsupport.zsh:109: add-zsh-hook: function definition file not found
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/lib/theme-and-appearance.zsh:2: colors: function definition file not found
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/lib/vcs_info.zsh:3: is-at-least: function definition file not found
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/lib/vcs_info.zsh:3: is-at-least: function definition file not found
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/git/git.plugin.zsh:140: is-at-least: function definition file not found
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
zsh: compdef: command not found...
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/git/git.plugin.zsh:282: is-at-least: function definition file not found
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh:59: is-at-least: function definition file not found
zsh-syntax-highlighting: Failed to load add-zsh-hook. Some speed optimizations will not be used.
zsh-syntax-highlighting: failed loading add-zsh-hook.
/home/sbn/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh:742: add-zsh-hook: function definition file not found
zsh: compdef: command not found...

Please help me resolve this issue

[rwmitchell]

I believe compdef is defined in:

PATH/share/zsh/VERSION/functions/compinit

where PATH and VERSION will depend on your installation.

Are those files still ok?

[mcornella]

Same as #10697. Have you updated from 5.8 to 5.8.1? If so, can you post the output of typeset -p fpath?

[zapateo]

I had the same problem on Fedora 35 Workstation, after updating Zsh from 5.8 to 5.8.1.
The FPATH variable was pointing to /usr/share/zsh/5.8/functions instead of /usr/share/zsh/5.8.1/functions.

Rebooting the system solved the problem (a logout wasn't enough, not sure why).

[mcornella]

Check for changes to $fpath or $FPATH in your zshrc or similar. It might be that somewhere something is doing export FPATH, which shouldn't happen ($fpath and $FPATH are tied variables and never should be exported).

[konsbn]

I had the same problem on Fedora 35 Workstation, after updating Zsh from 5.8 to 5.8.1. The FPATH variable was pointing to /usr/share/zsh/5.8/functions instead of /usr/share/zsh/5.8.1/functions.

Rebooting the system solved the problem (a logout wasn't enough, not sure why).

[mcornella]

Rebooting the system solved the problem (a logout wasn't enough, not sure why).

See #10702 (comment). Can you run typeset -p fpath and post the output so I can see if it is exported?

[mcornella]

If you followed the wrong advice on #4607 or other threads, it's likely you have a line in your .zshrc file saying export FPATH. YOU SHOULD DELETE THAT LINE, otherwise this problem will keep happening every time you update your zsh version.

[xapienz]

@mcornella

Can you run typeset -p fpath and post the output so I can see if it is exported?

Mine is this:

$ typeset -p fpath
typeset -aT FPATH fpath=( /home/xapienz/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/git /home/xapienz/.oh-my-zsh/functions /home/xapienz/.oh-my-zsh/completions /home/xapienz/.oh-my-zsh/cache/completions /usr/share/Modules/init/zsh-functions /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions /usr/share/zsh/site-functions /usr/share/zsh/5.8/functions )

However, opening a new terminal doesn't solve the issue.

I didn't try to reboot and I believe that ohmyzsh updates shouldn't require reboots, so I made a symlink as a local workaround: sudo ln -s /usr/share/zsh/5.8.1 /usr/share/zsh/5.8

[rwmitchell]

"I didn't try to reboot and I believe that ohmyzsh updates shouldn't require reboots,"

omz doesn't require a reboot, however, your system updated ZSH and apparently did so in a way that breaks current running zsh sessions.

[xapienz]

@rwmitchell You are right, I was confused between zsh and ohmyzsh upgrades, because I saw several reports like this, and thought that it was caused by ohmyzsh update. Looks like zsh itself is the culprit

[mcornella]

The "workaround" is only useful until you reboot, so I don't see why you'd prefer that. If this happened because of Zsh, it'll happen again when you update to the next Zsh version.

[mcornella]

Thank you for the sponsorship by the way!

[xapienz]

The "workaround" is only useful until you reboot

Yes, I did it exactly because I don't want to reboot :)
When I reboot, it will get fixed in fpath, according to comments above, and I will be safe until next time.

[tik9]

I get ln: /usr/share/zsh/5.8: Read-only file system on Mac Monterey when doing sudo ln -s /usr/share/zsh/5.8.1 /usr/share/zsh/5.8. I did csrutil disable because before it, I got permission denied with the ln command. Seems like one has to consider this

[rwmitchell]

Or maybe just don’t install in /usr

Not to be flip, corporate lockdown policies are worse than Apple's. Installing non-apple programs in $HOME/local is a reasonable workaround. It also has the advantage of getting backed up with your HOME and makes it easy to keep OS updates separate from your own.

[tik9]

You mean copy zsh folder to $home/zsh from usr/share/ and then do the ln in it? Should I leave /usr/local/share/zsh as is? And I have to change the last entry of $fpath - current /usr/share/zsh/5.8.1/functions - to $home/zsh/5.8.1/functions?

[rwmitchell]

No.

I was assuming you were installing zsh by compiling from source and could therefore use:

./configure --prefix=$HOME/local

but now you're talking about copy files from /usr/share into /usr/local/share...how did you get files in /usr/share to begin with if you can't create files there now? If you're using Apple's installation, it should already be using 'its' latest version without needing to create a symlink to it.

[tik9]

The default shell on Mac Monterey is zsh and the default zsh folder besides /bin/zsh is /usr/share. So I take your point, and try to uninstall zsh or change the system zsh dir. A google search with mac change default system zsh directory to home does not result well .So no idea how to do it. this post about installing with homebrew does not help here.

[phdbrianlee]

sudo ln -s /usr/share/zsh/5.8.1 /usr/share/zsh/5.8
solved my issue on 5.13.6-200.fc34.x86_64.