bat no longer works in gitbash/msys after upgrade to Windows 11

[embix]

What steps will reproduce the bug?

1. have a working bat (0.26.0) in gitbash on windows 10
2. step 2 upgrade to windows 11
3. use bat in gitbash: fails
4. upgrade to latest rust, force reinstall bat in gitbash via cargo install --force bat
5. use fresh 0.26 bat in gitbash on windows 11: still fails

What happens?

When I use a simplistic test file test.md

# test

and type bat test.md I just get a new promp line in bash, as if I just typed enter/return instead of a command:

08:10:01 embix@DEV temp → cat test.md
# test
08:10:13 embix@DEV temp → bat test.md
08:10:20 embix@DEV temp → echo $?
0

However, in powershell/WindowsTerminal it works as expected:

C:\temp
❯ cat .\test.md
# test

C:\temp
❯ bat test.md
─────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     │ File: test.md
─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   1 │ # test
─────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

C:\temp
❯

What did you expect to happen instead?

I expected bat to work in gitbash as well as in Windows native-ishy terminals/shells like powershell and cmd.

How did you install bat?

via cargo

---

bat version and environment

v0.26.0, Windows 11 (x86_x64), gitbash

output of diagnostic in gitbash (Click to expand)

bat --diagnostic

Software version

bat 0.26.0

Operating system

• OS: Windows 11 Enterprise N
• Kernel: 26200

Command-line

'C:\Users\embix\.cargo\bin\bat.exe' --diagnostic

Environment variables

BAT_CACHE_PATH=<not set>
BAT_CONFIG_PATH=<not set>
BAT_OPTS=<not set>
BAT_PAGER=<not set>
BAT_PAGING=<not set>
BAT_STYLE=<not set>
BAT_TABS=<not set>
BAT_THEME=<not set>
COLORTERM=<not set>
LANG=<not set>
LC_ALL=<not set>
LESS=-R
MANPAGER=<not set>
NO_COLOR=<not set>
PAGER=less
SHELL='C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\bash.exe'
TERM=xterm
XDG_CACHE_HOME=<not set>
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=<not set>

System Config file

Could not read contents of 'C:\ProgramData\bat\config': The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3).

Config file

Could not read contents of 'C:\Users\embix\AppData\Roaming\bat\config': The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3).

Custom assets metadata

Could not read contents of 'C:\Users\embix\AppData\Local\bat\metadata.yaml': The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3).

Custom assets

'C:\Users\embix\AppData\Local\bat' not found

Compile time information

• Profile: release
• Target triple: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
• Family: windows
• OS: windows
• Architecture: x86_64
• Pointer width: 64
• Endian: little
• CPU features: cmpxchg16b,fxsr,sse,sse2,sse3
• Host: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc

Less version

> C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\less.exe --version
less 679 (PCRE2 regular expressions)
Copyright (C) 1984-2025  Mark Nudelman

less comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
For information about the terms of redistribution,
see the file named README in the less distribution.
Home page: https://greenwoodsoftware.com/less

output of diagnostic in powershell/WindowsTerminal (Click to expand)

Software version

bat 0.26.0

Operating system

• OS: Windows 11 Enterprise N
• Kernel: 26200

Command-line

C:\Users\embix\.cargo\bin\bat.exe --diagnostic

Environment variables

BAT_CACHE_PATH=<not set>
BAT_CONFIG_PATH=<not set>
BAT_OPTS=<not set>
BAT_PAGER=<not set>
BAT_PAGING=<not set>
BAT_STYLE=<not set>
BAT_TABS=<not set>
BAT_THEME=<not set>
COLORTERM=<not set>
LANG=<not set>
LC_ALL=<not set>
LESS=<not set>
MANPAGER=<not set>
NO_COLOR=<not set>
PAGER=<not set>
SHELL=<not set>
TERM=<not set>
XDG_CACHE_HOME=<not set>
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=<not set>

System Config file

Could not read contents of 'C:\ProgramData\bat\config': The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3).

Config file

Could not read contents of 'C:\Users\embix\AppData\Roaming\bat\config': The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3).

Custom assets metadata

Could not read contents of 'C:\Users\embix\AppData\Local\bat\metadata.yaml': The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3).

Custom assets

'C:\Users\embix\AppData\Local\bat' not found

Compile time information

• Profile: release
• Target triple: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
• Family: windows
• OS: windows
• Architecture: x86_64
• Pointer width: 64
• Endian: little
• CPU features: cmpxchg16b,fxsr,sse,sse2,sse3
• Host: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc

[keith-hall]

Hi, a couple of questions. Does using --paging=never fix it? Can we determine if it is a problem with less? Maybe worth trying to invoke less directly instead of bat and seeing what happens. And perhaps clearing the LESS env var to see if it makes a difference. And finally trying with --pager=builtin.

[embix]

less works, so does --paging=never. --pager=builtin works too.

07:10:48 mbretsch@DEV07 temp → bat --paging=never test.md
─────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     │ File: test.md
─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   1 │ # test
─────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Currently LESS is set to -R for whatever reason, using LESS=""; bat test.md also works.

To my surprise, even plain bat now works 🤨 - my machine rebooted this night and I just started investigating why. I hope it's not a hardware error, but that could certainly explain my experience with bat. I'll just reboot and test if it still works.

Update: yup, no longer reprocible. bat works as intended. Sorry for the inconvenience.