My terminal on osx 10.11.6 will not accept `[` character
So I have found the cause in my .inputrc

[[ $- = *i* ]] &amp;&amp; bind TAB:menu-complete


I don't know why it's the cause of the problem but it was resolved by removing this, and to be honest I am not even sure what the reason for this being there was

if anyone knows the reason this causes it please feel free to answer and I will accept that answer over this