Macos – I can’t clear the terminal in Mac OS X Lion – “terminals database is inaccessible”

macososx lionterminal

UPDATE 3 – Better Solution

I kept Google'ing this until I came to a different solution. I ended up downloading the terminfo directory from somewhere (I forgot where so I just posted the zip on my website here) and replaced my current working terminfo directory with the new stuff.

The terminfo directory, for me, is located at…

/usr/share/terminfo

UPDATE 2

bahamat helped me get to the solution. I added the following to my .profile…

TERM="xterm"
export TERM

… and I am still able to keep "xterm-256color".

UPDATE

I figured out why this is happening. At one point, I changed some settings…

enter image description here

The default is "xterm-color" and I changed it to "xterm-256color". Is there a reason for this to be happening?

I just set up a second admin user account on a fresh install of Mac OS X Lion and now when I try to clear the terminal, I get the following error…

Hristo $ clear
terminals database is inaccessible

This is a problem for both user accounts and I have no idea why. I'm not sure if this is much help, but here is what $TERM is set to…

Hristo $ echo $TERM
xterm-256color

Any thoughts as to why this might be happening?

Let me know if I need to show my .bashrc or .profile.

Best Answer

Looks like your TERM value isn't recognized. You are probably setting the TERM value in your .profile (or similar) or you've got missing/corrupt files or invalid permissions in /usr/share/terminfo/.

Related Solutions

Macos – How to reset the $PATH variable on Mac OS X

If you have a ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist file, check it to see if it provides a default PATH value.

If it is in XML format (plists can be in many formats), you can edit with any text editor. Check it with plutil -lint ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist if you edit it by hand.

Or, you can use commands like defaults or PlistBuddy to make controlled modifications to XML or binary format plist files.

You can always set your own PATH in any of your shell's initialization files.

Put something like the following in your of your shell's startup files (.bashrc, or .bash_profile/.bash_login/.profile):

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
export PATH

# add custom, local installations to PATH
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:"$PATH"

# add MacPorts to PATH
PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:"$PATH"

That will override whatever default PATH is set when the shell starts (the first PATH= does not use $PATH, so it will always start out with only whatever you give it).

Only one of the ‘login’ files will ever be used (the first one that exists and is readable of ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile will be used). .profile is for backwards compatibility with other shells—if you use it, be sure to keep it free of syntax that is specific to bash. If you go with .bash_login or .bash_profile (they are functionally equivalent except for the names), then use a line like [[ -e ~/.bashrc -a -r ~/.bashrc ]] && source ~/.bashrc ]] near the top so that login shells will also get the customizations made in your .bashrc.

If you want all instances of bash to have the same PATH, then use .bashrc. If you often find yourself interactively modifying a single shell's PATH from the command line and want to use that modified PATH in subshells (a cases that is probably not terribly common), then you should put the statements in one of the ‘login’ files instead. Pick only one of the login files and use it.

Linux – I can’t get XFCE terminal to display VIM’s colorschemes

You need to go to the xfce terminal preferences, click the Compatibility tab, and make sure the emulation setting is "xterm-256color" and not "xterm"

The basic reason for the issue can be found in this article: https://codeyarns.com/2015/03/18/how-to-set-term-to-xterm-256color/

Basically, you need to have VTE or GNOME based terminals set the term environment variable before the shell is invoked. The above settings will cause this to happen in the XFCE terminal