Changes to .bash_profile causing Terminal shell to not load but keep looping with PATH settings

bashterminal

I was trying to make some changes with PATH (mostly add a new PATH) to my .bash_profile and the last line entered was source .bash_profile.

After I saved and restarted the Terminal app, instead of the shell prompt I see PATH values continuously popping up on my Terminal window tab. Only CTRL+C will kill it but now I see 'Application Closed' message and that's the end of it. What do I do to restore the shell back to my previous status? I tried running the repair permissions under Disk Utility but that didn't seem to fix my issue.

Thanks in advance.

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Best Answer

You should remove the line:

source .bash_profile

from your .bash_profile. This line is causing the infinite loop by continuously loading the file. As you have discovered, repairing permissions will not solve this issue.

Since you can't access terminal, you can edit your .bash _profile in TextEdit. Here's how to do so:

Open TextEdit Application and select Open (under File).
Navigate to your home folder.
.bash_profile will not be shown by default, since it begins with a period and is hidden. Type Cmd-Shift-. to view all hidden files.
Then, open up your .bash_profile and remove the source .bash_profile line.

Related Solutions

Strange behavior in Terminal with custom .bash_profile

You should surround your non-printing characters (in this case, your ANSI escape sequences) with bash escape sequences: \[ and \]. That way bash will know the enclosed characters are not visible, ie. they do not take space, ie. they should not be included in the word-length calculation used by the line-wrapper.

in other words change your PS1 definition:

export PS1="\e[31m\u\e[0m@\e[34m\h\e[33m\w\n \$ \e[0m "

… to:

export PS1="\[\e[31m\]\u\[\e[0m\]@\[\e[34m\]\h\[\e[33m\]\w\n \$ \[\e[0m\] "

And here's the same PS1 value, for human–reading only, with perhaps improved readability (ANSI-escapes in the lower row, bash escapes in the middle and printing characters in the upper row.)

          \u          @          \h          \w\n \$
\[      \]  \[     \] \[      \]  \[      \]        \[     \] 
  \e[31m      \e[0m     \e[34m      \e[33m            \e[0m

Getting the old Terminal back after uninstalling fish

First, rm ~/.bashrc ~/.bash_profile ~/.profile These are not needed and don't exist by default.

Second, check to see /etc/profile is there, should be:

# System-wide .profile for sh(1)
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
    eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
    [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

Third, check /etc/bashrc (this is where your prompt is defined). Should be:

# System-wide .bashrc file for interactive bash(1) shells.
if [ -z "$PS1" ]; then
   return
fi
PS1='\h:\W \u\$ '
# Make bash check its window size after a process completes
shopt -s checkwinsize
# Tell the terminal about the working directory at each prompt.
if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "Apple_Terminal" ] && [ -z "$INSIDE_EMACS" ]; then
    update_terminal_cwd() {
        # Identify the directory using a "file:" scheme URL,
        # including the host name to disambiguate local vs.
        # remote connections. Percent-escape spaces.
    local SEARCH=' '
    local REPLACE='%20'
    local PWD_URL="file://$HOSTNAME${PWD//$SEARCH/$REPLACE}"
    printf '\e]7;%s\a' "$PWD_URL"
    }
    PROMPT_COMMAND="update_terminal_cwd; $PROMPT_COMMAND"
fi

Finally, if it's still not working make sure you have /bin/bash set as your default shell using the advanced options in the User & Groups System Preference. If you don't login with bash, it will bypass the configs in /etc/

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Strange behavior in Terminal with custom .bash_profile

Getting the old Terminal back after uninstalling fish

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