:term doesn't work on mac OS High Sierra

[Azakur4]

When i run :term in vim only get a black window

the prompt never appear, im running vim 8.0.1150

[chrisbra]

When did it break? What is your 'shell' setting? and what happens when you use :term bash?

[lifepillar]

It works in macOS 10.12, it breaks in macOS 10.13 (tested with Terminal.app and iTerm2). The 'shell' option is set to shell in both cases. A command like :term bash behaves as described by the OP in 10.13, it works in 10.12. Good luck figuring out what Apple has changed!

[lifepillar]

I can reproduce the issue on macOS 10.13 with Vim as old as v0.997 (I haven't tried older versions). No problems with macOS 10.12.

[chrisbra]

I guess someone with a recent mac needs to debug this then.

[ichizok]

On 10.13, trying to open /dev/ptyXY fails EAGAIN error.
I think need to open /dev/ptmx, or use posix_openpt instead of open.

Could you try this patch? (but this is just workaround)

--- a/src/pty.c
+++ b/src/pty.c
@@ -267,7 +267,7 @@ OpenPTY(char **ttyn)
 }
 #endif

-#if defined(HAVE_SVR4_PTYS) && !defined(PTY_DONE) && !defined(hpux) && !defined(MACOS_X)
+#if defined(HAVE_SVR4_PTYS) && !defined(PTY_DONE) && !defined(hpux)

 /* NOTE: Even though HPUX can have /dev/ptmx, the code below doesn't work!
  * Same for Mac OS X Leopard. */

[chrisbra]

shouldn't we perhaps also get an error, if openpty fails?

[lifepillar]

Yup, the patch appears to fix it.

[Azakur4]

sorry for my ignorance but how i can apply ur patch @ichizok do u know some site i can read about that?

Or i have to fork the vim repository make the changes and compile again?

[nuko8]

I agree to @ichizok .

Recently, I've been working on overhauling macOS part of the build system, and I came across a similar problem regarding /dev/ptmx just a few days ago --- even on El Capitan (10.12), :term hangs against the Athena and Motif GUIs on XQuartz.

But my solution is a bit conservative in comparison with his:

diff --git a/src/pty.c b/src/pty.c
index 9b0361222..cc1c39a43 100644
--- a/src/pty.c
+++ b/src/pty.c
@@ -267,10 +267,11 @@ OpenPTY(char **ttyn)
 }
 #endif

-#if defined(HAVE_SVR4_PTYS) && !defined(PTY_DONE) && !defined(hpux) && !defined(MACOS_X)
+#if defined(HAVE_SVR4_PTYS) && !defined(PTY_DONE) && !defined(hpux) \
+                    && !(defined(MACOS_X) && !defined(MAC_OS_X_VERSION_10_6))

 /* NOTE: Even though HPUX can have /dev/ptmx, the code below doesn't work!
- * Same for Mac OS X Leopard. */
+ * Same for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5). */
 #define PTY_DONE
     int
 OpenPTY(char **ttyn)

This is because of the comment on Leopard (10.5), and that, when googling, I came across a question at SO in which a Tiger (10.4) user asked about /dev/ptmx last March.

[tracyone]

Same issue.

[daleworley]

You likely ran into the same problem I had on High Sierra with Emacs shell windows (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53531777/cannot-open-pty-under-mac-os-high-sierra/53581958#53581958) -- High Sierra uses a different mechanism for allocating pty's than earlier Mac OS X releases, so if your code isn't reconfigured for it, it will fail to allocate a pty.