gvim produces error when hitting the close window

Question

Everytime I close a gvim window with the little x on the window or Alt + F4. I get the following error and have to hit return to get my command prompt back. Has anyone seen this?

(gvim:26639): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot retrieve class for invalid (unclassed) type `<invalid>'

That is the complete command prompt, when you close the window that is what you get — bjackfly, Sep 06 '13 at 07:02
Bug report: [Launchpad bug #1195448](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vim/+bug/1195448). — Håkon A. Hjortland, May 08 '16 at 15:04

score 24 · Answer 1 · answered May 08 '16 at 15:12

24

vim-gnome has this problem, but vim-gtk does not, so this is a quick fix for the problem:

sudo apt remove vim-gnome
sudo apt install vim-gtk

answered May 08 '16 at 15:12

Håkon A. Hjortland

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It's worth noting that vim-gtk3 (which includes the GNOME3 integration) also doesn't emit this warning – Zrax May 05 '17 at 20:03
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What is the difference between vim-gnome and vim-gtk3 or vim-gtk3-py2? Why is vim-gnome the default in Ubuntu 16.04? – Hans Deragon Oct 07 '17 at 12:02
`sudo apt-get install vim-gtk3` – Arun Saha Feb 17 '18 at 15:59
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@HansDeragon See https://askubuntu.com/questions/33260/difference-between-vim-gtk-and-vim-gnome – Arun Saha Feb 17 '18 at 16:00
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`sudo apt-get remove vim-gnome && sudo apt-get install vim-gtk3` – Arun Saha Mar 24 '18 at 21:42

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 06 '13 at 13:38

Normally, GLib-GObject-WARNING while running gtk applications in the command line, are normally ignored by developers and demonstrate a poorly written applications. If you report a bug against the package, it would be the best, but don't act surprised if developers ignore or say that "is ok" in your bug report.

TL;dr: They are normally safe to be ignored.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 20 '18 at 04:24

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I found myself caught between the spurious Warning (vim-gnome) or an empty file bug with vim-gtk3. Open an existing file, then try switching to a new file that doesn't exist using

:e newEmptyFile => SEGV

So I'm back to using vim-gnome with this hack in my ~/.bash_aliases to shutup vim-gnome:

alias gvim='gvim 2>/dev/null'

I'm sure it will get fixed soon and I won't have to keep throwing away all errors because of a persistent spurious warning.

edited Jun 20 '18 at 04:24

swift

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answered Jun 19 '18 at 16:28

Mike Rieser

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Perfect 1 minute solution for a rookie like me :) I tried to replace `vim-gnome` with `viw-gtk` or `vim-gtk3`, but still got the error. The alias is an easy solution. Moreover, if I am not wrong, one still can get error by "canceling" the alias with a backslash `\gvim foo.txt` to call the original `\gvim` application – el-teedee Sep 09 '18 at 01:14
You _could_ always pipe the stderr to a `grep -v 'cannot retrieve class for invalid (unclassed) type'` (or more detailed if you like) and get on with your life, no? :) – tgm1024--Monica was mistreated Feb 07 '21 at 18:00

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 12 '17 at 18:08

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Try

sudo update-alternatives --config gvim

then select /usr/bin/vim.gtk-py2

edited Aug 12 '17 at 18:08

Zanna

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answered Aug 12 '17 at 15:45

user724538

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gvim produces error when hitting the close window

4 Answers4