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If the file is named *.markdown then the highlighting works correctly. If it is named *.md then it doesn't work.

Even if I type :set syntax=markdown, the highlighting doesn't turn on.

With other filetypes e.g. awk, I can turn on the highlighting by running :set syntax=awk. But this doesn't work for markdown.

Ultimately I want to make Vim recognize .md files as markdown, but when the autocommand didn't work I tried just setting the syntax directly and found that didn't work either.

What could be causing this?

I am using MobaXterm.

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    Does :set filetype=markdown help or is the filetype already set correctly? – cbaumhardt Feb 22 '16 at 22:11
  • @cbaumhardt, sorry, I should have mentioned: I tried both set filetype=markdown and set syntax=markdown and neither made any difference. – Wildcard Feb 22 '16 at 22:54
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    When I start my Vim 7.4 without my vimrc (vim -Nu NONE), write a small markdown example, enter :set filetype=markdown and :syntax on it works for me. Do you have syntax enabled? Are you using an old Vim version? – cbaumhardt Feb 22 '16 at 23:23
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    @cbaumhardt, I'm using 7.3.646. I confirmed that doing what your comment suggested worked, and doing the same without the -Nu NONE did not work. My ~/.vimrc includes these lines for editing CFEngine files, then at the bottom I have set smartindent, filetype plugin indent on, syntax on which may be redundant but I was trying to get something else to work...any of these look like a likely culprit? – Wildcard Feb 23 '16 at 2:03
  • Does :syntax on have no effect? At least you now know that it is related to your .vimrc. You can try to comment out blocks of code to figure out what causes this behaviour. The lines you linked don't look relevant to me. – cbaumhardt Feb 23 '16 at 2:12
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EDIT: As noted by @Christian Brabandt below, this is no longer the case. Can't imagine why I had to do this. :=(

You have to :set filetype=markdown or do it in an autocmd group.

Turns out that vim by default sets .md files to Modula-2 (except for README.md), so that overrides the syntax setting.

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    That is not correct. Vims default for .md files is markdown as can be seen here. This has been changed like 5 years ago. – Christian Brabandt Mar 22 '19 at 6:28

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