Delete and change key sequences are slow

Question

When I use mapped key sequences which cause an immediate change in the file (e.g. cw, dw, D, C), i have a wait time of roughly 1 second. Other mappings which are just movement (e.g. 3w) or movement and a mode change (e.g. A or I) do not cause any delay.

Currently my attempted solutions include:

Changed ttimeout and timeout (neither was set to have a timeout, I tried messing with them anyway)
used :profile file * and :profile func * - did not see anything which ran more than once or had a runtime over roughly ~0.1 seconds (my experiment was to open a file and type a bit - experienced the delay several times while profiling)
To make sure it wasn't my terminal (iTerm2) waiting for something, I loaded up vanilla vi (no plugins or anything) and tried that - no delays there.

I'm on neovim v0.4.4, in iTerm2. Any help or other avenues to explore are appreciated. Is there any way to use :profile for mapped key sequences?

Edit: as per filbranden's feedback I loaded nvim using nvim --clean, and the problem isn't there. Tomorrow I will try removing different plugins and see what causes the problem, then report back.

Edit 2: As per eyal karni's advice I checked nmap cw, which reported no mapping found. I also don't see anything that looks relevant in au, but to be honest, I'm new enough to neovim that I could be missing something - I searched it for cw and didn't find anything.

Welcome to [vi.se]! Can you check if the problem still happens if you have no plug-ins or settings from init.vim loaded? You can start NeoVim that way with nvim --clean. Please [edit] the question to report whether that helps or not. — filbranden, Sep 27 '20 at 21:28
I assume you have an overlapping mapping. It waits to see if it completes the mapping. Try nmap cw. Or just nmap and verify ok. Also, check au — eyal karni, Sep 28 '20 at 01:09
@filbranden Thanks! Problem disappeared with nvim --clean, I'll search tomorrow for the problem plugin and report back with another edit. — Exnur, Sep 28 '20 at 01:39
See How do I debug my vimrc file? for a recommendation on how to narrow down to the setting or plug-in that is causing the issue... — filbranden, Sep 28 '20 at 02:24
@filbranden it turns out that the offending line was the following: set clipboard=unnamed,unnamedplus and the lag was caused by clipboard interaction - pasting is slow with it on too. Any idea why this might have studdenly started, or should I just ask that separately? I've had this in my vimrc for over a year. — Exnur, Sep 29 '20 at 22:10
Glad you found the issue! My suggestion is that you post a self-answer here, indicating that this was your issue and you were able to track it down to that line. Then, yes, post a separate question about why this was happening. Note that external clipboard is quite dependent on your OS and particular setup, so make sure you include details of the OS you're in, the version of Vim including features, as reported by :version or vim --version etc. and whether you're setting g:clipboard or similar. I'm not super experienced in 'clipboard' settings, but others will be able to help! — filbranden, Sep 29 '20 at 22:28
Awesome, will do - thanks for helping me navigate both vim and stackexchange. — Exnur, Sep 29 '20 at 22:32

Exnur · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-29T22:58:53.340

Turns out the issue was not with immediate changes as I thought, but with clipboard interaction. I bisected my vimrc repeatedly until I found the offending line, which was:

set clipboard=unnamed,unnamedplus

This was making vim use the system clipboard. It's annoying (imo) to not have vim use the system keyboard, so for now, I have replaced this by making the following mappings (which only work on mac os, thus the if statement):

if has('macunix')
  " pbcopy for OSX copy/paste
  vmap <C-x> :!pbcopy<CR>
  vmap <C-c> :w !pbcopy<CR><CR>
  noremap <C-p> :read !pbpaste<CR>
endif

The root of the issue appears to be slowness in the actual pbcopy and pbpaste tools, which are what nvim was using when I had the clipboard variable set. The delay persists on the terminal without nvim:

ethan ~
06:56:57 PM > time echo "abcde" | pbcopy
________________________________________________________
Executed in  333.49 millis    fish           external
   usr time  292.80 millis  140.00 micros  292.66 millis
   sys time   34.45 millis  660.00 micros   33.79 millis

Some additonal system information:

nvim --version output:

NVIM v0.4.4
Build type: Release
LuaJIT 2.0.5
Compilation: /usr/bin/clang -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 -DNDEBUG -DMIN_LOG_LEVEL=3 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes -std=gnu99 -Wshadow -Wconversion -Wmissing-prototypes -Wimplicit-fallthrough -Wvla -fstack-protector-strong -fno-common -fdiagnostics-color=auto -DINCLUDE_GENERATED_DECLARATIONS -D_GNU_SOURCE -DNVIM_MSGPACK_HAS_FLOAT32 -DNVIM_UNIBI_HAS_VAR_FROM -I/tmp/neovim-20200808-17465-1c37yvx/neovim-0.4.4/build/config -I/tmp/neovim-20200808-17465-1c37yvx/neovim-0.4.4/src -I/usr/local/include -I/tmp/neovim-20200808-17465-1c37yvx/neovim-0.4.4/deps-build/include -I/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk/usr/include -I/usr/local/opt/gettext/include -I/tmp/neovim-20200808-17465-1c37yvx/neovim-0.4.4/build/src/nvim/auto -I/tmp/neovim-20200808-17465-1c37yvx/neovim-0.4.4/build/include
Compiled by brew@Mojave

OS: macOS Mojave 10.14.6

You might want to take a look at this: https://neovim.io/doc/user/provider.html#clipboard — filbranden, Sep 29 '20 at 22:41
Though essentially what that is saying is that NeoVim should be automatically using pbcopy and pbpaste if you use the "* and "+ registers... In other words, you don't need the special mappings for that, if you use the registers. Also... Do you see a slowdown if you use the mappings? If so, there might be a problem with those tools themselves... — filbranden, Sep 29 '20 at 22:43
Yeah, i saw that - I believe you're right about there being problems with the tools themselves, they are indeed slow on the terminal just by themselves:
06:34:41 PM > time echo "abcde" | pbcopy

Executed in 336.73 millis

(cleaned up the output a bit - formatting wasn't going well).

This is about the same delay that i see in vim, maybe a little faster on the terminal. — Exnur, Sep 29 '20 at 22:47
There's also [apple.se] where they might know more about Mac stuff... — filbranden, Sep 29 '20 at 22:59
All i can add is I don’t notice any sluggishness with either the pb tools or the star register in vim on either of my older macs (2012/2015) — D. Ben Knoble, Sep 30 '20 at 12:18

Delete and change key sequences are slow

1 Answers1