Vim doesn't use default indenting for markdown

Question

My default indent width settings (4 spaces) are not used for markdown files. Whenever I open a markdown file it is indented using 2 spaces.

Here are my default indent width settings. In my .vim/vimrc I have

set tabstop=4
set softtabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set expandtab

almost at the end. I have no markdown plugins installed.

I have a .vim/ftdetect/markdown.vim

au BufNewFile,BufReadPost *.md set filetype=markdown

and a .vim/ftplugin/markdown.vim

let g:markdown_fenced_languages = ['python', 'bash=sh', 'shell=sh', 'c', 'html', 'css', 'javascript', 'js=javascript', 'json=javascript' ]
let g:markdown_syntax_conceal = 0
let g:markdown_minlines = 100
setlocal spell

Also adding

set tabstop=4
set softtabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set expandtab

to .vim/ftplugin/markdown.vim does not change the situation.

Note, the filetype is properly recognized. Manually setting it after the file is opened worked.

• Why are my settings not applied?
• How to debug this?

Answer 1

If you open :e $VIMRUNTIME/ftplugin/markdown.vim you will find that it loads ALL filetype plugins for html

runtime! ftplugin/html.vim ftplugin/html_*.vim ftplugin/html/*.vim

Command runtime! with an exclamation mark will source all matched files found in your runtime path, including your local .vim/ftplugin/html.vim.

To properly override any settings you have to put them into .vim/after/ftplugin/markdown.vim file -- it will be sourced AFTER $VIMRUNTIME/ftplugin/markdown.vim and .vim/ftplugin/markdown.vim (and thus after your html included filetypes).