Works for me.. Maybe you have backupdir set someplace else?? I just tried with fully updated 4.8 and 5.5 systems..

Odd, even with backupdir explicitly set, it doesn't make a copy? It's getting disabled someplace as strace doesn't indicate any mention of it.

Can you dump your current configuration?

Sure, on one machine:

:set --- Options --- background=dark history=50 incsearch scrolloff=5 smartcase viminfo='20,"50 t_Sf=^[[3%dm backup hlsearch nomodeline showbreak=> ttyfast nowrap helplang=en ignorecase ruler sidescrolloff=5 ttymouse=xterm2 t_Sb=^[[4%dm backspace=indent,eol,start fileencodings=utf-8,latin1 wildmode=list:longest,full

Nothing jumps out.. What specific version are you running? selinux enabled?

vim-enhanced-7.0.109-6.el5 vim-common-7.0.109-6.el5 vim-minimal-7.0.109-6.el5

No selinux. Odd, it was working on all the systems until recently?

Same versions as me.

Check filesystems for space? Temp dir? Maybe try cleaning out your .vimrc to see if some cruft in it? Also check /etc/vimrc for changes.. Maybe even re-install or check to see if the packages have been corrupted?

All the systems exhibit, space is good etc. Even w/o a vimrc...

Wth is up with the size discrepancy?

# yum reinstall vim-common vim-minimal vim-enhanced /snip Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package vim-common.x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package vim-common.x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 set to be erased ---> Package vim-enhanced.x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package vim-enhanced.x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 set to be erased ---> Package vim-minimal.x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package vim-minimal.x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 set to be erased --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ===================================================================================================================================================================================== Package Arch Version Repository Size ===================================================================================================================================================================================== Installing: vim-common x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 base 6.4 M vim-enhanced x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 base 1.3 M vim-minimal x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 base 333 k Removing: vim-common x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 installed 15 M vim-enhanced x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 installed 2.7 M vim-minimal x86_64 2:7.0.109-6.el5 installed 616 k Transaction Summary ===================================================================================================================================================================================== Install 3 Package(s) Update 0 Package(s) Remove 3 Package(s) Total download size: 8.1 M Is this ok [y/N]:

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 02:34:11PM -0700, ellis@spinics.net wrote:

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:22:13 -0700, Kwan Lowe kwan.lowe@gmail.com wrote:

...

Check filesystems for space? Temp dir? Maybe try cleaning out your .vimrc to see if some cruft in it? Also check /etc/vimrc for changes.. Maybe even re-install or check to see if the packages have been corrupted?

Check inode availability as well. If you're out of inodes, you won't be able to create a file.

You can also look at your `limit' output. Maybe one of those limits (most possible `filesize' or `descriptors') exceeded.