PuTTY: connected to some Ubuntu server, sometimes stops going to a new line when pressing enter

You can use the reset command by typing in reset then pressing Enter when that occurs to reset the terminal so it'll go to a new line when pressing Enter again.

Command

ubuntu@db200krctc:~$ ubuntu@db200krctc:~$ ubuntu@db200krctc:~$ ubuntu@db200krctc:~$
ubuntu@db200krctc:~$ reset
ubuntu@db200krctc:~$
ubuntu@db200krctc:~$
ubuntu@db200krctc:~$

Further Resources

  • reset

    When invoked as reset, tset sets cooked and echo modes, turns off cbreak and raw modes, turns on newline translation and resets any unset special characters to their default values before doing the terminal initialization described above. This is useful after a program dies leaving a terminal in an abnormal state.


The reset command does more than you really need here in this particular case, as your problem is merely that echo has been turned off. reset actually emits control sequences to reset the terminal itself, when all that you actually need is to reconfigure the line discipline within the operating system kernel, turning echo mode back on, and not touch the terminal at all.

For that, simply use:

stty sane
or even just:

stty echo

reset addresses situations when it is actually the terminal's own state that needs resetting and not (just) the state of the line discipline; i.e. the tabstops have been erased, the terminal is left switched to the alternative screen buffer, an inconvenient 8-bit character set has been swapped in, and so forth.

Further reading

  • https://superuser.com/a/712668/38062
  • https://stackoverflow.com/a/39302351/340790
  • https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/117981/