micro-editor/micro · error

Unsupported operating system

Error message

Unsupported operating system

What it means

Constant-shaped error returned by RunTermEmulator in internal/action/terminal_unsupported.go, a file only compiled for plan9, nacl or windows (//go:build tag). The integrated terminal emulator requires a unix pty layer, so on these platforms the stub unconditionally returns this error for any attempt to run a terminal command. It is a build-time capability gate, not a runtime failure.

Source

Thrown at internal/action/terminal_unsupported.go:12

//go:build plan9 || nacl || windows

package action

import "errors"

// TermEmuSupported is a constant that marks if the terminal emulator is supported
const TermEmuSupported = false

// RunTermEmulator returns an error for unsupported systems (non-unix systems
func RunTermEmulator(input string, wait bool, getOutput bool, callback func(out string, userargs []any), userargs []any) error {
	return errors.New("Unsupported operating system")
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 1c8b82b32e)

Solutions

1. Before calling, branch on the exported constant action.TermEmuSupported (false exactly on these platforms) and skip or substitute
2. On Windows, use the regular shell integration instead: ':shell'-style external shells or run commands via the sucmd/os layer rather than the internal emulator
3. Run micro under WSL if the embedded terminal is a hard requirement

Example fix

// before
action.RunTermEmulator("ls -la", false, false, nil, nil) // panics UX on windows

// after
if !action.TermEmuSupported {
    // fall back to non-interactive command execution
    return errors.New("terminal emulator unavailable")
}
action.RunTermEmulator("ls -la", false, false, nil, nil)

// Capability check exported by the package
if !action.TermEmuSupported {
    return errors.New("terminal emulator not available on this platform")
}
err := action.RunTermEmulator(cmd, false, false, cb, nil)

// Platform capability guard (constant is false on windows/plan9 builds)
func canRunTermEmulator() bool {
    return action.TermEmuSupported
}
// Use it to narrow behavior:
if canRunTermEmulator() { runEmbedded() } else { runExternalShell() }

err := action.RunTermEmulator(input, wait, getOut, cb, args)
if err != nil {
    if err.Error() == "Unsupported operating system" {
        // permanent for this build: disable the feature, don't retry
        disableTermFeature()
        return nil
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: On Windows (or plan9), executing > term, running the 'term' command from a plugin/lua (RunTermEmulator is documented in runtime/help/plugins.md), or any code path that shells out through micro's built-in terminal pane.

Common situations: Cross-platform Lua plugins that call the term emulator without checking action.TermEmuSupported; users switching from Linux and expecting the same > term workflow; CI running micro on windows containers.

Related errors

• Terminal emulator is not supported on this system
• No clipboard received from terminal

AI-assisted analysis of micro-editor/micro@1c8b82b32e (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f8c107e0a9547885. Report an issue: GitHub.