Rescuing a buggered console

Question

Once in a while, you'll get some output in your console that causes it to go haywire. In some cases, you can't enter text, in others you can enter text but it looks like the Cyrillic alphabet.

Is there any sort of magical command to get it back on track?

Feel free to give us some idea of what you're talking about. Just the word "console" isn't a whole lot to go by. You could start by letting us know what OS. — John Gardeniers, Feb 23 '10 at 08:28

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 23 '10 at 06:49

5

Have you tried reset?

answered Feb 23 '10 at 06:49

Okay this is amazing. Except it's not quite perfect. I'm in pdb (Python debugger) when this happens and I have to quit the debugger to `reset`. I was hoping for some keyboard ninjitsu (hopefully with Sysrq somehow involved.) – bundini Feb 23 '10 at 07:09
1

Well, can you shell out from the debugger to a command prompt (like `!` in vim) ? – Dave Cheney Feb 23 '10 at 08:38

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 23 '10 at 06:49

2

You mean reset?

answered Feb 23 '10 at 06:49

Ivan Peevski

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haha :) I guess that was an easy one :) – Ivan Peevski Feb 23 '10 at 06:50
Hold on, I don't believe you guys. ;) I've been ignorant of this way too long. – bundini Feb 23 '10 at 07:03

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '10 at 08:30

If the terminal has switched to showing letters as VT100 line drawing characters, the classic way to switch it back is to type echoSpace Ctrl-V Ctrl-O ⏎. Also, stty sane is useful to fix messed up terminal settings. But as many other answers has pointed out, the reset command should fix all of these and it's easier to just remember one command.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 23 '10 at 06:50

0

Try reset :-)

answered Feb 23 '10 at 06:50

DaDaDom

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Rescuing a buggered console

4 Answers4