How to stop zshell from dumping

I fixed this once couple years ago, with more than a little guidance from the ZSH-Users list.  But it started happening to me again a few weeks ago and I couldn’t remember how I fixed it. After searching through my GMail this morning, I found it.  Maybe if I put it here I will remember how to fix it next time.  And maybe help someone else.

This only happens to me when I use zsh  via Cygwin (I also use zsh on OSX and Linux).  What happens is that when zsh hits compinit in my ~/.zshrc, it prints a ton of the built-in functions to standard error and that’s it.  No error, no complaints . . . and no completion.  None at all!  See this article for a decent idea on how wonderful zsh does completion.

The fix is easy — manually remove ~/.zcompdump and manually run compinit. That instance of compinit will complete fine.  Then start a new shell and you are good to go!  Note that you have to manually run compinit – just starting a new shell won’t fix it.

I’m not sure why my ~/.zcompdump keeps getting corrupted . . . maybe because my home directory is on a shared drive?