Terminal won't accept command. Keeps "Restoring" previous command

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Level 1

6 points

Terminal won't accept command. Keeps "Restoring" previous command

Hi,

I am on OSX 10.9.5 and I have a mysterious problem with Terminal restoring old commands after I insert a new command, so I can't get it to accept the new command.

A greyed out line appears in the Terminal window saying [Restored] as in the attached pic. (I have blurred my ID details in the pic).

I have also tried to restore it to defaults in Preferences, but it won't do that either. I just get [Restored] again.

Has anyone got any ideas what is making it do this please?

Just for background, I had originally entered the command line:

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool false

and I am trying to change it back by entering the command line:

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool true

But as I say, it won't accept it. It just restores the previous command, and it won't restore defaults either.

Thanks

Sarah

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jan 19, 2015 9:21 PM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Jan 20, 2015 9:25 AM in response to Sazza

Have you tried restarting and then see if Terminal will let you enter what you want?

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Answer 2

Sazza Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 26, 2015 7:47 PM in response to Eric Root

Yes I did, several times

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Answer 3

BobHarris

Level 9

53,147 points

Feb 27, 2015 5:50 AM in response to Sazza

do you have any of the following files?

.bash_profile

.bash_login

.bashrc

.profile

If so, then it is possible this message is coming from a shell initialization file.

Because these files begin with a period, the Finder will not display them so you are going to have to use the Terminal " ls -a " command.

Terminal -> Shell -> New Command... -> /bin/ls -l .bash_profile .bash_login .profile .bashrc

These files DO NOT exist by default, so you may see things like

-ls: .bash_login: No such file or directory

-ls: .profile: No such file or directory

That is perfectly OK.

But if you see:

-rw-r--r-- 1 me staff 32776 Feb 6 14:10 .bash_profile

-rw-r--r-- 1 me staff 63633 Feb 4 15:04 .bashrc

Then you have one of the files, and it is possible that the contents of that shell initialization script are affecting the behavior inside the Terminal.

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Answer 4

Sazza Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 27, 2015 4:40 PM in response to Sazza

Wow thank you! Yes I will check.

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