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Here's a sample macro.

2Ea,^[j^ (Jump to the end of the second word, append a "," escape visual mode, and go to the next line.)

Instead of 99 The, I get 99 The,ê^ and it stays stuck in insert mode.

Any ideas?

I've tried manually rewriting the macro like: 2Ea,<Esc>j^ 2Ea,<Escape>j^

And neither work, I just end up with something like this: 99 The,<Esc>

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    @newUserNameHere I think I can reproduce your issue by adding the following code in my vimrc silent! exe "set <M-j>=\ej" and set ttimeoutlen=2000. In your Vim session, what is the output of :echo &ttimeoutlen ? Have you defined mappings using the Alt modifier key ? Is your problem still there if you restart Vim with a minimum of initializations vim -u NORC -N? – saginaw Jan 27 '16 at 10:18
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    @newUserNameHere I'm really glad I could help you! However I don't feel comfortable writing an answer as there are too many things I don't understand. I don't want to bother you with all the details, but to make it short, on my machine, the real problem is not 'timeout', neither 'timeoutlen' nor 'ttimeoutlen', but the command I mentioned exe "set <M-j>=\ej". As soon as I type it, I experience the same issue as you. I had similar commands in my vimrc in the past because I wanted to use mappings with the Alt modifier key... – saginaw Jan 27 '16 at 16:07
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    ... and Vim must be taught what's the sequence of keycodes for a mapping whose {lhs} uses the Alt key. See here for a confirmation: vi.stackexchange.com/a/6021/4939 But I removed most of them because I've discovered they break too many things, including the replay of a macro. If I launch cat in my shell and type <A-j>, it displays ^[j. So <A-j> produces the sequence of keycodes Escape + j. When Vim receives this sequence of keycodes, it doesn't know if you typed <A-j> or the character ê. Why? It's complex... – saginaw Jan 27 '16 at 16:07
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    ... but if you're interested, here's an answer: vi.stackexchange.com/a/6107/4939 So once I tell Vim that Escape + j must be interpreted as <A-j>, I have the exact same issue as you. And if I "unteach" Vim what <A-j> is (exe "set <M-j>="), the problem disappears. On my machine, the options 'timeoutlen' and 'ttimeoutlen' have nothing to do with the problem. They control how much time Vim will wait for respectively a sequence of keystrokes in a mapping, and a sequence of keycodes. – saginaw Jan 27 '16 at 16:07
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    The reason why I mentioned 'ttimeoutlen' is because I thought that by reducing the length of the timeout for keycodes on your machine, you would increase the chance for Vim to interpret Escape and j as 2 separate keystrokes instead of a single sequence of keycodes. I typed the command you mentioned set timeoutlen=0 ttimeoutlen=-1. But on my machine it breaks all my mappings because if 'timeoutlen''s value is 0, when I type the first character of a mapping Vim doesn't wait anymore for the next one. – saginaw Jan 27 '16 at 16:08

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