vscode: Scoop: does not start anymore (blank window) (related to symlinks of installations)
Edit with workaround: This was due to VS Code being launched via a path with a symlink in it. Launching the executable without a symlink in the path works fine. This should be fixed in more recent Insider builds. See discussion starting at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/126533#issuecomment-863079344 for cause and resolution.
Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes
- VS Code Version: nightly-20210612, and nightly-20210616. Currently on 1.58.0-insider
3e0c442a8ee9fdc037d627d70fe291f72af04cfdx64 - OS Version: Windows 10 Pro Insider (21390)
Steps to Reproduce:
- Open VS Code
- Window appears, but seemingly stops loading forever. It only displays the placeholder
monaco-parts-splashelements and no other controls. No resize handles, but I can grab the window by the title bar area and resize it with Aero Snap (either dragging or keyboard shortcuts). Window immediately responds to Alt-F4. Process is idle (0-0.2% CPU usage, ~18MB RAM). See screenshot:

A few things I’ve tried with no resolution:
- Deleting
%appdata%\Code - Insiders\Code Cacheas suggested in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/114459 - I tried launching from the terminal with combinations of
--open-devtools,--disable-features=CalculateNativeWinOcclusion,--disable-extensions,--disable-gpu, with no change. - Electron Chrome devtools do not show any messages in the console.
- Tried opening a new path in case it was an issue with restoring another session.
- Tried updating from previous build (2021-06-12) but still encounter the issue on current nightly (2021-06-16).
Some more context:
- VS Code is installed via
scoop install vscode-insiders - I’ve successfully run VS Code (2021-06-12) before on this OS build earlier this week.
- I can run a fresh install of the official release version of Code (1.57.0) just fine, even if I copy over the settings and symlink the extension folder.
- Logs from
%appdata%\Code - Insiders\logsare very sparse. All launches today show only amain.logwith these messages below:
[2021-06-16 14:17:57.744] [main] [info] window: using vscode-file:// protocol and V8 cache options: bypassHeatCheck
[2021-06-16 14:17:58.015] [main] [info] update#setState idle
Sometimes the next two lines are also included:
[2021-06-16 14:18:28.022] [main] [info] update#setState checking for updates
[2021-06-16 14:18:28.199] [main] [info] update#setState idle
Keywords for search:
- blank window
- empty window
- blank status bar, blank menu bar
About this issue
- Original URL
- State: closed
- Created 3 years ago
- Reactions: 1
- Comments: 44 (21 by maintainers)
@lediur @bpasero Thank you for figguring this out! Very impressive analysis! I’m working on a fix.
It works in
1.58.0-insider🎉/verified
Nice debugging. Out of curiosity and to narrow things down I downloaded the Linux archive version and set up a similar symlink structure on WSL, and that launched fine, so seems like it’s Windows specific. I have very little knowledge of the internals of the editor startup process but thought this might help save a bit of time.