# Silly command crashes my console



## tanked (Mar 22, 2011)

Hello, I foolishly ran the following command:


```
ee /var/log/messages | less
```

and it appeared to make the console unresponsive; ctrl+c didn't do anything and all I could see was mangled text on the screen. It wasn't a huge problem as I could simply switch to another console using ctrl+alt+F2 but was there a way to make the original console become responsive again?

Thanks.


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## _martin (Mar 22, 2011)

interesting. 

I don't use ee myself, but going through ee(1) man page solution is quite easy. Press ^c (control-c) and type quit, hit the enter and then press Q. 

In other words first quit ee and then quit less.


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## Alt (Mar 23, 2011)

Just kill ee process from other console.
Why you need this command btw?


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## SirDice (Mar 23, 2011)

matoatlantis said:
			
		

> In other words first quit ee and then quit less.


Less will get killed when ee is killed because of a broken pipe.


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## _martin (Mar 23, 2011)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Less will get killed when ee is killed because of a broken pipe.



When I tried it I had to hit Q to quit from *less*. I see "(END)" after closing *ee*, but *less* is still running (double-checked with *ps*).

So I guess *less* has a problem to deal with this and stays up.
Anyway that is the way how to deal with it


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## da1 (Mar 23, 2011)

I don't understand the logic behind using [CMD=""]less[/CMD], [CMD=""]more[/CMD], etc with [CMD=""]ee[/CMD]. These cmd's should be used with [CMD=""]cat[/CMD], [CMD=""]grep[/CMD], etc (something that prints to the console and not something that edits the file).


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 23, 2011)

That's why OP called it 'silly', da1.


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## da1 (Mar 23, 2011)

Aaa ... ups


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## tanked (Mar 23, 2011)

Thanks guys, as suggested by matoatlantis, pressing control-c, typing quit, hitting ENTER and then pressing Q made the console usable again.


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