Solved vim / gvim Unable to open GUI

[byrnejb]

I log on to a publicly exposed sshd service using ssh -Xt -2 -p $SSHPORT $SSHUSERID@$SSHHOST.$SSHTLD from a MacBook terminal utility. The sshd service is running in a Freebsd-13 jail. Usually, once I am logged on I can run gvim and get an XQuartz editing window on my MacBook. However, sometimes I get the message in the ssh session that:

$ gvim


E2backupdir=~/.vim/tmplay
Press ENTER or type command to continue


E8backupdir=~/.vim/tmps failed to start the GUI
Press ENTER or type command to continue

Note that the E2 and trailing stings after .vim/tmp are as displayed in the ssh session terminal window.

I would like to discover what is causing this behaviour as it intermittent, but once it appears then gvim will no longer open a local window on my MacBook. The issue is sometimes cleared by logging off and then logging in again, but not every time. Does anyone have an idea of what is going on?

 

[byrnejb]

This appears to be an artifact of specifying ssh -X. Based on a reference that I can no longer locate I switched to -Y and the problem has not reoccurred since.