Bash terminal stuck in process ([Process Completed])

bashterminal

My Bash Terminal is stuck after a bad command.

Even opening new shell instances (cmd T) starts the same hangup ending with a [Process completed] message.

It's rendering bash terminal unusable (cannot type or run any other process). How can I kill the hangup process?

Note: ^C, ^D, ^Z do not work.

Best Answer

This is on macOS, right?

As it's difficult to edit the file from a terminal (owing to the fact that the shell will immediately exit), open the file you previously modified (probably ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, or ~/.profile), from the Finder, in a text editor, and correct the error.

You should be able to toggle the listing of hidden files in any "Open File" dialog box, or in the Finder itself, by pressing ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+..

Another option is simply to rename the file that you think is causing the issue. Again, do this from the Finder.

Speculating on the cause:

You may have inadvertently executed exit, possibly unconditionally, or through following some logic branching. Or you may have used set -e or set -o errexit and then had a utility exit with a non-zero exit status (i.e. failing).

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Shell – How to exit or cancel a bad bash command

You can always try the obvious things like ^C, ^D (eof), Escape etc., but if all fails I usually end up suspending the command with ^Z (Control-Z) which puts me back into the shell.

I then do a ps command and note the PID (process id) of the command and then issue a kill thePID (kill -9 thePID if the former didn't work) command to terminate the application.

Note that this is not a tidy (no pun intended) way to terminate the application/command and you run the risk of perhaps no saving some data etc.

An example (I'd have used tidy but I don't have it installed):

$ gnuplot

    G N U P L O T
    Version 4.2 patchlevel 6 
     ....
    Send bug reports and suggestions to <http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot>

Terminal type set to 'wxt'
gnuplot> 
gnuplot>               #####  typed ^Z here
[1]+  Stopped                 gnuplot
$ ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 1681 pts/1    00:00:00 tcsh
 1690 pts/1    00:00:00 bash
 1708 pts/1    00:00:00 gnuplot
 1709 pts/1    00:00:00 ps


$ kill 1708            ###### didn't kill the command as ps shows

$ ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 1681 pts/1    00:00:00 tcsh
 1690 pts/1    00:00:00 bash
 1708 pts/1    00:00:00 gnuplot
 1710 pts/1    00:00:00 ps
$ kill -9 1708           ### -9 did the trick
$ 
[1]+  Killed                  gnuplot

$ ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 1681 pts/1    00:00:00 tcsh
 1690 pts/1    00:00:00 bash
 1711 pts/1    00:00:00 ps

Shell – How to kill a job that was initiated in another shell (terminal window or tab)

Yes, all you need to know is the process id (PID) of the process. You can find this with the ps command, or the pidof command.

kill $(pidof ping)

Should work from any other shell. If it doesn't, you can use ps and grep for ping.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Shell – How to exit or cancel a bad bash command

Shell – How to kill a job that was initiated in another shell (terminal window or tab)

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