My ZSH completions won't work on start but they do when I source .zshrc (Mac)

Question

a simple summary is in the title but to further explain:

Whenever i open my terminal (iterm2) i load into zsh but completions don't seem to work, then when i manually run source .zshrc it does fully load. I've tried moving stuff around in my .zshrc file to see if the order of loading was incorrect but it didn't fix anything.

My .zshrc file:

# ZSH customization
export ZSH="/Users/user/.oh-my-zsh"
source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh
plugins=(git docker asdf zsh-autosuggestions zsh-completions zsh-history-substring-search zsh-syntax-highlighting)
autoload -U compinit && compinit
# color
. "/Users/user/.bin/lscolors.sh" #big color file
zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors "${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}"
# alias
alias ip="curl ifconfig.me"
alias ls="gls --color --group-directories-first -hp"
alias ydl="youtube-dl"
alias py="python"
alias code="codium"
# env
export PATH="/usr/local/opt/ncurses/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/opt/openssl@1.1/bin:$PATH:/opt/metasploit-framework/bin:$HOME/.bin:$HOME/.cargo/bin"
export EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/codium
export DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl@1.1/lib -L/usr/local/opt/ncurses/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl@1.1/include -I/usr/local/opt/ncurses/include"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/usr/local/opt/ncurses/lib/pkgconfig"
# fzf
[ -f ~/.fzf.zsh ] && source ~/.fzf.zsh
# inits
test -e "${HOME}/.iterm2_shell_integration.zsh" && source "${HOME}/.iterm2_shell_integration.zsh"
eval "$(starship init zsh)"

Any help would be appreciated, if i should provide more info please tell me.

Try to reinstall it from here https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions/blob/master/INSTALL.md — Abanoub Asaad, May 11 '21 at 10:28
@AbanoubAsaad just tried that, gave the same results. tried the second method described in the INSTALL.md file too but that too didn't work. — user9503, May 11 '21 at 10:32
@AbanoubAsaad You are confusing autosuggestion with completion. They are two different things. — Marlon Richert, May 11 '21 at 10:40

Marlon Richert · Accepted Answer · 2023-08-03T19:28:38.757

7

You're making two mistakes in your .zshrc file:

If you source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh, then you shouldn't also autoload -U compinit && compinit, because the former includes the latter.
- Running compinit more than once can cause problems and slows down your shell’s startup. Each time you run it, it reinitializes the completion system. This will erase any completion entries that were added programmatically (as opposed to picked up automatically from your $fpath) after the previous compinit was run.
plugins=( ... ) should be set before running source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh.
- $plugins is not special to your shell in any way. Rather, it’s a parameter that’s read by OMZ.
- Array elements can be listed on separate lines. No need to put them all on the same line.

So, change the top of your .zshrc file to this:

ZSH="/Users/user/.oh-my-zsh"
plugins=(
    foo
    bar
    ...
)
source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

edited Aug 03 '23 at 19:28

answered May 11 '21 at 10:39

Marlon Richert

5,250
1
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I was having the same problem. Using solution 2 fixed the issue. – Hasidul Islam Sep 20 '22 at 11:54
I see this error [oh-my-zsh] plugin 'zsh-autosuggestions' not found [oh-my-zsh] plugin 'zsh-completions' not found [oh-my-zsh] plugin 'zsh-history-substring-search' not found [oh-my-zsh] plugin 'zsh-syntax-highlighting' not found – Rupesh Kumar Tiwari Jul 25 '23 at 19:52
Those plugins are not included in OMZ by default. The code I gave is specific to the `.zshrc` posted in the question. I'll change my answer to be more generic. – Marlon Richert Aug 03 '23 at 19:27

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '23 at 20:01

For me this below steps fixed autocomplete issue.

step1: Run below script first on your terminal to install zsh plugins

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions.git ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-completions
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search.git ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-history-substring-search

step2: open .zshrc and below 2 lines

# Terminal autocomplete fix
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

plugins=(
    git
    docker
    asdf
    zsh-autosuggestions
    zsh-completions 
    zsh-history-substring-search 
    zsh-syntax-highlighting
)

My ZSH completions won't work on start but they do when I source .zshrc (Mac)

2 Answers2