Vim Starts on Insert Mode and Inserts Special Characters

So vim just suddenly started flaking out on me today and I can’t pinpont the problem. Haven’t touch the configuration file and the last thing I worked on before I noticed the problem was updating my sshd_config and sshd_config.pacnew files.

What I noticed is that upon opening the sshd_config file is vim starting out in insert mode and automatically inserted a series special characters wherever the curser was at the moment. So it overwrites information in configuration files. I guess that can become somewhat problematic =)

So if I start a new file touch test_vim && vim test_vim this is what I see: :bfff/00fe/00fe/13fe[>85;95;0c

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those things that’s really stupid and I completely overlooked. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on?

" An example for a vimrc file.
"
" Maintainer:   Bram Moolenaar <[e-mail]>
" Last change:  2014 Feb 05
"
" To use it, copy it to
"     for Unix and OS/2:  ~/.vimrc
"         for Amiga:  s:.vimrc
"  for MS-DOS and Win32:  $VIM_vimrc
"       for OpenVMS:  sys$login:.vimrc

" When started as "evim", evim.vim will already have done these settings.
if v:progname =~? "evim"
  finish
endif

" Use Vim settings, rather than Vi settings (much better!).
" This must be first, because it changes other options as a side effect.
set nocompatible

" allow backspacing over everything in insert mode
set backspace=indent,eol,start

if has("vms")
  set nobackup      " do not keep a backup file, use versions instead
else
  set backup        " keep a backup file (restore to previous version)
  set undofile      " keep an undo file (undo changes after closing)
endif
set history=50      " keep 50 lines of command line history
set ruler       " show the cursor position all the time
set showcmd     " display incomplete commands
set incsearch       " do incremental searching

" For Win32 GUI: remove 't' flag from 'guioptions': no tearoff menu entries
" let &guioptions = substitute(&guioptions, "t", "", "g")

" Don't use Ex mode, use Q for formatting
map Q gq

" CTRL-U in insert mode deletes a lot.  Use CTRL-G u to first break undo,
" so that you can undo CTRL-U after inserting a line break.
inoremap <C-U> <C-G>u<C-U>

" In many terminal emulators the mouse works just fine, thus enable it.
if has('mouse')
  set mouse=a
endif

" Switch syntax highlighting on, when the terminal has colors
" Also switch on highlighting the last used search pattern.
if &t_Co > 2 || has("gui_running")
  syntax on
  set hlsearch
endif

" Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands.
if has("autocmd")

  " Enable file type detection.
  " Use the default filetype settings, so that mail gets 'tw' set to 72,
  " 'cindent' is on in C files, etc.
  " Also load indent files, to automatically do language-dependent indenting.
  filetype plugin indent on

  " Put these in an autocmd group, so that we can delete them easily.
  augroup vimrcEx
  au!

  " For all text files set 'textwidth' to 78 characters.
  autocmd FileType text setlocal textwidth=78

  " When editing a file, always jump to the last known cursor position.
  " Don't do it when the position is invalid or when inside an event handler
  " (happens when dropping a file on gvim).
  " Also don't do it when the mark is in the first line, that is the default
  " position when opening a file.
  autocmd BufReadPost *
     if line("'"") > 1 && line("'"") <= line("$") |
       exe "normal! g`"" |
     endif

  augroup END

else

  set autoindent        " always set autoindenting on

endif " has("autocmd")

" Convenient command to see the difference between the current buffer and the
" file it was loaded from, thus the changes you made.
" Only define it when not defined already.
if !exists(":DiffOrig")
  command DiffOrig vert new | set bt=nofile | r ++edit # | 0d_ | diffthis
           | wincmd p | diffthis
endif

Answer

This is a recent Vim bug. You should probably roll back to an earlier release while a proper fix is worked on.