change to a directory containing \ results in glitched up terminal that cannot be reset

Just for the record, I cannot reproduce this on Mac OS X 10.4.10's bash: 2.05b.0(1)-release

I'm on Gutsy, and I managed to follow the repro steps. For me, it simply looked like the prompt was hanging, but once I typed a command and hit Enter, it executed, and revealed the previous prompt when the window scrolled.

era@indeed:~$ mkdir -p /tmp/test/c\\c
era@indeed:~$ cd /tmp/test/c\\c
<U+001B>]0;era@indeed: /tmp/test/cera@indeed:/tmp/test/c\c$ ech ohellos
bash: ech: command not found
<U+001B>]0;era@indeed: /tmp/test/cera@indeed:/tmp/test/c\c$ echo hellos
hellos
<U+001B>]0;era@indeed: /tmp/test/cera@indeed:/tmp/test/c\c$ cd -
/home/era
era@indeed:~$ cd -
/tmp/test/c\c
<U+001B>]0;era@indeed: /tmp/test/cera@indeed:/tmp/test/c\c$ cd -
/home/era
era@indeed:~$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
era@indeed:~$

For the record, switching back to my home directory fixed it for me. It's only hosed as long as you are in a directory which contains the backslash (and. apparently, your $PROMPT_COMMAND is set to attempt to print it).

era@indeed:~$ echo $PROMPT_COMMAND
echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}: ${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"
era@indeed:~$ unset PROMPT_COMMAND
era@indeed:~$ cd -
/tmp/test/c\c
era@indeed:/tmp/test/c\c$ cd - # look ma, no display problems
/home/era
era@indeed:~$

Personally, I would revert the use of PROMPT_COMMAND in favor of simply embedding the xterm title-changing stuff in PS1 proper. I don't have any insight into why this is implemented this way, though (however, ISTR that this used to be all handled in PS1 back in some primordial version of Debian).

Tangentially, see also, perhaps, bug 116226

There hasn't been any activity in this ticket for a while. Is this still a problem in Jaunty or Karmic?

Jaunty no longer seems to be using PROMPT_COMMAND so it appears that the suggestion in comment #4 was implemented. Debian bug #420656 is indicated in the Changelog as an upstream equivalent; fixed in Debian bash 3.2-2

Thank you for reporting back and closing this ticket.