While trying to save a file out of Nano the other day, I got an error message saying “XOFF ignored, mumble mumble”. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Any insights?
Answers:
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Method 1
You pressed Ctrl+S instead of Ctrl+O to save the file. Ctrl+S is an old flow-control key combination to pause the transmission, and stop scrolling, of data to a terminal (internally, the code sent is called XOFF). Ctrl+Q (XON) is the complement to start transmission and resume scrolling.
Nano ignores these code since it doesn’t use scrolling. The muttering is likely a result of its frustration that you didn’t remember to use Ctrl+O to save.
Method 2
You typed the XOFF character Ctrl-S. In a traditional terminal environment, XOFF would cause the terminal to pause it’s output until you typed the XON character.
Nano ignores this because Nano is a full-screen editor, and pausing it’s output is pretty much a nonsensical concept.
As to why the wording is what it is, you’d have to ask the original devs.
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0