Bug: Bundled treesitter query files are incompatible with bundled parsers

[paul-mc]

Neovim snap version

nvim v0.11.5 (Rev 4611, latest/stable, classic)

Description

The snap package bundles treesitter query files (queries/vim/highlights.scm) that reference node types not present in the bundled vim.so parser. This causes errors on startup for any plugin that triggers vim filetype treesitter parsing (e.g. noice.nvim).

Errors

.../usr/share/nvim/runtime/lua/vim/treesitter/query.lua:373: Query error at 130:4. Invalid node type: "substitute"

.../usr/share/nvim/runtime/lua/vim/treesitter/query.lua:373: Query error at 256:3. Impossible pattern: (parameter) @keyword)

.../usr/share/nvim/runtime/lua/vim/treesitter/query.lua:373: Query error at 318:3. Impossible pattern: "=" @keyword)

Root cause

The file /snap/nvim/4611/usr/share/nvim/runtime/queries/vim/highlights.scm (362 lines) references node types that the bundled parser at /snap/nvim/4611/usr/share/nvim/runtime/parser/vim.so does not support. The query file and parser are from different versions and are out of sync.

Specific incompatibilities found:

• Line 130: "substitute" - invalid node type
• Line 255-256: (script (parameter) @keyword) - impossible pattern
• Line 317-318: "=" @keyword in lua_statement - impossible pattern

Expected behaviour

The bundled query files and parsers should be from matching versions so that no query errors occur on a clean install.

Workaround

Create a local override at ~/.config/nvim/queries/vim/highlights.scm using the compatible version from the nvim-treesitter repository:

mkdir -p ~/.config/nvim/queries/vim
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/master/queries/vim/highlights.scm \
  -o ~/.config/nvim/queries/vim/highlights.scm

Neovim resolves the local file before the snap's bundled version, bypassing the mismatch.

Additional notes

• The nvim-treesitter plugin cannot fix this by installing an updated parser because the snap's bundled parsers take precedence in the runtime path
• Even with snap install nvim --classic, the issue persists since the bundled files are inside the read-only snap mount at /snap/nvim/
• Related upstream issues: Invalid node type "tab" for vim parser after commit 8cdffc6d nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter#8369, treesitter: noisy "Invalid node type" error neovim#27235

Environment

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• snap install nvim --classic (also reproduced without --classic)
• Plugins triggering the error: noice.nvim (any plugin using treesitter vim queries would trigger it)

[justinmk]

Don't see how that's possible. Does the appimage from https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases have the same issue? They all should have the same files.