Linux vi arrow keys broken in insert mode

Question

My arrow keys don\'t work in vi in insert mode at home, they just each insert a newline and a capital letter, like \'A\'. Is there a way to fix that?

Answer 1

Yet another variation: this problem appeared for me after some .vimrc changes. A concerted search eventually revealed that my clever re-mapping of ESC in normal mode was not a good idea. Removing it solved the problem:

" this is NOT something you want in .vimrc:
" In normal mode, hitting Esc turns off search highlights:
nmap  :nohl  " Do NOT add this to .vimrc