Backspace and arrow keys not working in vi editor

Question

The backspace is unable to erase the characters. The navigation keys produce alphabets.

Can anyone tell me how to fix this?

Answer 1

If update alterantives --list editor shows that the vi editor in reality is vim.basic then I guess that this has to do with character translation at some layer. The most likely place to encounter problems is in a SSH-client like Putty if such is being used to access the console. If so then check Puttys settings and choose your correct translation - probably utf8. If vim.basic is not listed in the output then simply try to install Vim.

Answer 2

You should see in the vi & vim forum

Anyway, there is a thread that can help you: Backspace does nothing