Text being overwritten as I type

Sometimes, and seemingly at random, typing text overwrites anything anything in front of the caret, e.g., if I have the line "print 'Hello world'" and I place the cursor in front of 'Hello world' to and type an opening paren, the line will become (Hello world' - i.e., the opening quote has been typed over. If I continue to type, I will continue to replace the characters in the string. This continues until I restart pycharm, and sometimes happens a few times a day, and I am not sure why. Is this a setting that I am turning on with a key combination, or is it a bug? Thank you!

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27 comments
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Permanently deleted user

Hello,

I hope you've already found the solution but just in case (and for other people with the same issue),

To toggle this feature on/off you can use the 'Insert' key on your keyboard

 

Hope this helps.

 

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Permanently deleted user

I don't have an "Insert key" on my keyboard.  So now what?

1

Hello,

You can simulate 'insert' with different shortcuts depending on your keyboard and OS. Hope it helps.

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Permanently deleted user

I consider it a bug to require a key that is a bit exotic on Macs, which many developers use, to recover from a mysterious entry to overwrite mode in the first place. 

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Permanently deleted user

virtual keyboard. you should have one in the accessibility in the start menu 

 
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Permanently deleted user

Wait, this isn't being treated as a bug? It is seriously annoying and has been happening to me for a while. It happens somewhat randomly but easily 10 times a day. I think it usually after I've backspaced everything in the evaluate expression box, it'll enter this "insert" mode.

 

I'm definitely not triggering it with my own press of "insert" (since, like the previous poster, I don't have such a key). It makes the "evaluate expression" box vastly more irritating to use, when otherwise it would be an extremely helpful feature.

 

Telling us we should open up a virtual keyboard in order to fix this clear bug in the evaluate expression box is, frankly, pretty unacceptable.

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Yes, because it's not a bug. If you press insert or the insert shortcut it will override the text you type, whether using JetBrains product or any regular text editor. If you don't want it to happen you should disable the shortcut at the operating system level. It's unrelated to the software you are using.

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Save hassle, stay ignorant/innocent , and restart your computer. It worked for me :)

1

I'm getting the same issue (and I am not in "insert" mode).

Basically, when I try to write text in the built-in terminal in pycharm, any text to the right of it does not appear to shift to the right as you’d expect, but rather appears to be overwritten while I am typing. And then when I press enter the command executes normally, without the text being overwritten. For example, if I type
123 456
Then scroll back and insert 789 before the 123, the prompt looks like
789 456
but it actually executes
789123 456
This bug basically makes pycharm unusable. Is there any solution to this problem?
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Hey, try checking and disabling the VIM plugin. 

Press: Ctrl+Alt+S. Preferences -> Plugins -> Installed. Then check if you have that plugin installed. If so disable it!
Source: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/207026025/comments/360000100650

7

This happens to me when my cursor is directly behind text, example:

 

    When typing I will overwrite the following.|text

    When typing I will overwrite the following.with.this

when what I really wanted was:

    When typing I will overwrite the following.with.this.text

 

I do not have VIM plugin installed, and I do not use INSERT

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On Windows, the number key for zero (key = 0) also serves as a toggle for Insert/Overwrite text entry mode. On some keyboards, the 0 number will also have 'insert' on the key. It's easy to accidentally hit the zero key, if you use the arrow keys to navigate around text.

If you hit the 0 key, you toggle into Overwrite mode. Hit the key again and you toggle to Insert mode.

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Acid Inc

Thanks a lot. Your tip worked for me. 

It was just deactivate the IdeaVim plugin and the typing came "normal" again. 

 

ur a hero!

2

I don't know if it's been solved but if you press number lock and then press "0" it will work 

2

Acid Inc Ferrotodv

Thanks! It is now fixed. This is bugging me for a long time and it is now okay.

0

I have the same issue. Rider keeps overriding the same character. But the behaviour seems to be another one. 

First: It only happens in Rider. Every other program is working just fine. 

Second: After every typed character the one gets removed, even when I don't type a new one.

Any idea what that could be?

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I don't know what happened but after I've unselected a few plugins (not VIM which I didn't had installed) and restarted Rider it worked again :-/ *Strange*

 

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Hello Max,

this is a thread about another JetBrains product, YouTrack. If you need support from the Rider team, please feel free to post to their forum here: https://rider-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=97145

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Hello, i have same problem, however solutions presented here does'nt work. i tried to press insert and/or 0. Still, lines being overwrited instead of being typed before text. I do not have VIM plugin. And it isn't system's config fault. When i type in search box in PyCharm settings, it acts normal or anywhere else on my OS. It is specifically acting up in main.py

0

Hi! Unfortunately, this thread is not about IDE or PyCharm particularly. The initial issue and discussion are about a completely different service — YouTrack.

If you have any issues with PyCharm, please feel free to create a new post in the corresponding forum or contact support directly.

0

I got the same problem, keyboard related, I type ' and again and then any other character i type after will be replaced by a 3rd '.

I am no longer paying for it, after doing so for many years, its impossible apparently to pay attention to details anymore, such as the one that interrupt my  flow for now about  an hour.

These support responses do not motivate me to even keep trying.

0

Because I had many times the same issue and it's quite blocking when not trained to it, and because it seems that the team doesn't handle well the some calm, and if someone still doesn't know how to revert that behaviour which I think awful, then instead of restarting your Idea, "just":

- go into your Settings -> Keymap
- search for "Toggle Insert/Overwrite"
- look for your actual shortcut
- close the settings by clicking "OK" and trigger that shortcut

To prevent it for the future:

- go into your Settings -> Keymap
- search for "Toggle Insert/Overwrite"
- double-click that line
- click on "Remove"
- close the settings by clicking "OK"

Hope it helps :)

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@Greg Hibberd

While what you say is true, if I look at the keybindings in pycharm, it just says the key is "insert", which I do not have on my keyboard. So we are able to activate a function using a key that doesn't exist. It might not be a bug but it's definitely classic jetbrains half-baked information / laziness

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Hello,

Please note this is the YouTrack community forum. If you have any issues with PyCharm, please feel free to create a new post in the corresponding forum or contact support directly.

0

I'm here in 2022, because same thing started happening to me while using Pycharm after an regular update. Neved had this problem but aparenttly it now became one. Is was happenning only in Pycharm and not any other application.
Came here obviously looking to read it was a bug, it is not necessarily is the case and at max, a setting running a little different. With a little help of the existing comments, just solved by:

  • Checking if the insert key was under Settings-> keymaps -> Toggle Insert/Overwrite.
  • Pressing it on my keyboard once. (i'm running manjaro/gnome, togglet it by pressing Fn+delete keys)
  • It should work on smiliar plataformos, afterall all JetBrains products are quite similar.
  • In other cases maybe just removing the keymap will resolve the issue at all :)

Cheers!

0

Felixoakz Hi! This forum is for discussing YouTrack, so if you want to report an issue with PyCharm, please check the corresponding forum or contact PyCharm support.

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For me, the problem was related to a environment variable called `TERM`.
I set `export TERM=xterm-color` for my bash console to prevent a strange SBT error.

After removing the `TERM` variable, it worked out fine!

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