vscode: First Terminal Does Not Follow Default

This happens to me intermittently on Windows. I believe it can only happen to the very first terminal of any given VS Code window when launching from upon a completely new/fresh launch of VS Code (if you already have a VS Code instance/window open, it will not happen).

In my case, I have Git Bash setup as the default, but the first time I launch VS Code, when this happens, it makes the terminal a PowerShell. I can hit the + sign and it will be Git Bash on any following terminal. If I hit the dropdown, it shows Git Bash is the default.

I get inconsistent behavior and it seems to happen more often when many windows are being launched, which appears to cause the total VS Code launch time to increase by quite a bit, and that may be what is driving this to happen.

• What I mean by multiple windows, is that if you do a file/exit with multiple VS Code windows open, it will close all of them, and then if you launch VS Code after that, it will open all the prior windows at once.
• This is where it gets inconsistent. With 1 or 2 windows, usually I get the correct default terminal in all of them. I recently had a case where with 3 windows I got PowerShell on one of them, and Git Bash on the other 2. I just tried it with 4 windows, and I got PowerShell (the wrong terminal) on all 4 windows.

It seems there is a loading-order race condition where the config setting that tells VS Code which terminal is a default may not have loaded yet at the time a window is creating the terminal, the first time VS Code launches, if there is enough stuff going on at startup from many extensions and multiple windows being opened at once. (or something like that).

Here’s the rest of the info generated by my Issue Reporter:

VS Code version: Code 1.65.2 (c722ca6c7eed3d7987c0d5c3df5c45f6b15e77d1, 2022-03-10T14:33:55.248Z) OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.18363 Restricted Mode: No

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python383cf:30185419
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vspor363:30204092
pythonvspyl392:30443607
pythontb:30283811
pythonptprofiler:30281270
vshan820:30294714
vstes263:30335439
vscorecescf:30445987
pythondataviewer:30285071
vscod805:30301674
pythonvspyt200:30340761
binariesv615:30325510
bridge0708:30335490
bridge0723:30353136
vsaa593cf:30376535
vsc1dst:30438360
pythonvs932:30410667
wslgetstarted:30449410
pythonvsnew555:30457759
vscscmwlcmt:30465135
pynewfile477:30463512

This happens to me intermittently on Windows. I believe it can only happen to the very first terminal of any given VS Code window when launching from upon a completely new/fresh launch of VS Code (if you already have a VS Code instance/window open, it will not happen). In my case, I have Git Bash setup as the default, but the first time I launch VS Code, when this happens, it makes the terminal a PowerShell. I can hit the + sign and it will be Git Bash on any following terminal. If I hit the dropdown, it shows Git Bash is the default. I’m seeing the same problem as @MSLeiter. I think quite a while it happened and then was fixed. But recently it has started happening every time I start VS Code. If I open a new window it seems to work correctly. Rather annoying.

I think this is no longer happening on: Version: 1.70.2 (system setup) Commit: e4503b30fc78200f846c62cf8091b76ff5547662 Date: 2022-08-16T05:35:13.448Z Electron: 18.3.5 Chromium: 100.0.4896.160 Node.js: 16.13.2 V8: 10.0.139.17-electron.0 OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19044

I’m having a very similar bug (though not exactly the same, it’s likely the same thing just different observed behaviour)

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/144825#issue-1165001031

This happens to me intermittently on Windows. I believe it can only happen to the very first terminal of any given VS Code window when launching from upon a completely new/fresh launch of VS Code (if you already have a VS Code instance/window open, it will not happen).

In my case, I have Git Bash setup as the default, but the first time I launch VS Code, when this happens, it makes the terminal a PowerShell. I can hit the + sign and it will be Git Bash on any following terminal. If I hit the dropdown, it shows Git Bash is the default. I’m seeing the same problem as @MSLeiter. I think quite a while it happened and then was fixed. But recently it has started happening every time I start VS Code. If I open a new window it seems to work correctly. Rather annoying.

I´ve found a temporary[^1] workaround 🎉 (don´t solves the core problem)

Instead of configuring your default shell/ terminal the recommended way by setting terminal.integrated.profiles.linux and terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux in your remote machines settings.json like here

{
  "terminal.integrated.profiles.linux": {
    "bash": {
      "path": "/usr/bin/bash",
      "icon": "terminal-bash",
      "args": ["-l"]
    }
  }
  "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux": "bash"
}

use the deprecated way of setting the default terminal (which fixes the bug for me 🙌):

{
  "terminal.integrated.shell.linux": "/usr/bin/bash",
  "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux": ["-l"]
}

You can use both solutions at the same time so all your profiles are accessible when launching new terminals after VSCode is up and running. [^1]: This will not work forever as the config used is deprecated

I have removed terminal.integrated.profiles.windows from my user settings. Now when I open vscode I get my preferred terminal specified in terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows