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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T15:06:22+00:00

This should be a very straightforward problem. I have a simple .vimrc file. It

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This should be a very straightforward problem. I have a simple .vimrc file. It is 15 lines in its entirety:

filetype off
set nocompatible
call pathogen#infect()
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on

set hlsearch
set colorcolumn=79
set number
set list
set expandtab
set tabstop=4
set softtabstop=4

colorscheme vividchalk

When I try to start vim, though, I get the following error message:

Error detected while processing /Users/Jon/.vimrc:
line    3:
E117: Unknown function: pathogen#infect
line   15:
E185: Cannot find color scheme 'vividchalk'

I have worked quite a while at solving this, including looking here: Vim: Pathogen not loading and here: Pathogen does not load plugins and here: https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/issues/50

I am storing all my vim-related files in a ~/.dotfiles/vim/ directory and have symlinked .vimrc and .gvimrc and .vim/from my home directory. I have three plugins I am trying to load: command-t, commentary, and fugitive. These plugins are all git submodules. The directory structure is as follows:

.dotfiles/
 ├──vim/
    ├── autoload/
    │   └── pathogen.vim
    ├── bundle/
    │   ├── command-t/
    │   ├── commentary/
    │   └── fugitive/
    ├── colors/
    │   ├── distinguished.vim
    │   └── vividchalk.vim
    ├── ftdetect/
    │   ├── markdown.vim
    │   └── vim.vim
    ├── gvimrc
    ├── snippets/
    │   └── markdown.snippets
    ├── syntax/
    │   ├── markdown.vim
    │   └── python.vim
    ├── test.txt
    └── vimrc
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Since vividchalk can’t load either, I’d guess vim can’t access your .vim.

    Are you on OS X? Are you using MacVim?

    You may have incorrectly created your ~/.vim. I would do this (with absolute paths):

    ln -s ~/.dotfiles/vim ~/.vim

    You could try this:

    mkdir ~/vim_archive
mv ~/.*vim* ~/vim_archive/.
mkdir -p ~/.vim/colors
cp ~/vim_archive/.vim/colors/vividchalk.vim ~/.vim/colors/.
echo colorscheme vividchalk > ~/.vimrc

    If that successfully loads, then vim is correctly reading your vimrc and .vim. Then try it with a linked folder. If that works, then add pathogen and see if it loads.

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