How to disable Vim bells sounds?

Question

I am trying to disable the error bells on vim, both visual and audio. However I cannot get them to stay off.

I have the following in my vimrc:

" Disable annoying beeping
set noerrorbells
set vb t_vb=

That doesn't work, I figured some plugin or another setting was resetting it so I added it again to the end of my vimrc, still no luck.

The only way I can get it to turn off is if I manually call set vb t_vb= after everything has loaded. I guess I could emulate this by adding a script to the plugin/after folder but I am trying to avoid that as it means it's another thing I have to set up whenever I switch to another machine.

You can see my full vimrc here: https://github.com/lerp/dotfiles/blob/master/vimrc

Ricardaricardama

This sound is so annoying. Why is it on by default?? Is there anyone out there who might change that??? – Lobbyist

@Soren - The sound depends on your terminal. Back in the day, the terminal bell was pretty innocuous on most terminals. Remember, back when vi started, we used hardware terminals like VT100 and ADM3. (And now you can say "OK Boomer.") – Southward

Answer 1

Assuming you have that problem in GVim, adding the following line

autocmd GUIEnter * set vb t_vb=

in your if has("gui_running") conditional block should help.

From :help 'visualbell':

Note: When the GUI starts, 't_vb' is reset to its default value.
You might want to set it again in your gvimrc.

Goddamn

Ahh, I must have skipped that line whilst reading the help file, I don't understand why it needs to be reset, it's a bit obnoxious. Thanks for the autocmd though. – Ricardaricardama

Here is the link to the vim docs where it is mentioned – Jueta

Answer 2

Try to use the following line in your .vimrc, .gvimrc files:

set belloff=all

Feldspar

Thanks - other answers work for disabling visual bell, but this is the setting that disables audio bell for me. – Pulchritude

Works on vim-gtk3 8.0. – Valenciavalenciennes

This worked on Ubuntu 16LTS after updating the default version of vim with sudo apt install vim which installed version 8 – Outcome

i still get beeps when pressing down arrow on last line in insert mode – Entrain

This one produces an error using PowerShell to ssh into RedHat, entered it into ~/.vimrc, and then running vi. So, not viable in vi on RedHat? – Lazurite

On my (cygwin) installation the file was ~/.vim/vimrc not ~/.vimrc. The RC file locations can be discovered by running vi --version. – Verrucose

Like a hammer to the thumb, that bell is a direct hit my cerebral cortex. ow – Klein

Can be shortened to set bo=all – Twilatwilight

Answer 3

For me with gVim it works if I put

set noerrorbells
set vb t_vb=

in ~/.gvimrc, not ~/.vimrc.

Laborious

Answer 4

To disable visual bell in Visual Studio 2019 with VsVim extension:

VsVim detects the presence of _vimrc, so add the following to it:

C:\Users\YourName\_vimrc

set vb t_vb=

Setting other options like errorbells or beloff had no effect in VsVim.

Punchinello

I had installed vim extension in pycharm and this solution worked! – Broken

Nothing to do with vsvim or Visual Studio, but this option is the only one given that worked for me -- using PowerShell to ssh into RedHat, and then running vi therein. – Lazurite

Answer 5

After trying all the options mentioned (that haven't worked for me), I figured out the following solution and that worked for me (Windows). The beep sound is related to the git bash terminal settings.

Follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the terminal/git bash or whatever you are using.
2. Click on options.
3. Select Terminal.
4. From Bell drop-down select "no beep".

Shatzer

Also, you can change the beep into an innocuous sound. – Southward

Answer 6

I tried several solutions and different configurations but none worked. GVim resets the visual bell upon starting. The only way it works for me is this snippet at the end of your .vimrc (or _vimrc if you are on Windows):

set visualbell t_vb=
if has("autocmd") && has("gui")
    au GUIEnter * set t_vb=
endif

Maclay