Vscode-remote-release: VS Code server failed to start using zsh

[a2975667]

• VSCode Version: 1.34.0-insider (user setup)
• Local OS Version: Windows 10 1809
• Remote OS Version: N/A (locally using Ubuntu 18.04 for WSL)
• Remote Extension/Connection Type: WSL (Ubuntu 18.09)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Launch wsl from powershell
2. open a python folder with virtualenv activated
3. launch code-insiders .

Does this issue occur when you try this locally?: Yes
Does this issue occur when you try this locally and all extensions are disabled?: Yes

[Tyriar]

Do you use tmux in WSL?

[a2975667]

No. I'm using bash+zsh

[aeschli]

Can you try to run the server script manually in the wsl shell?
Should be something like (Replace 'YourUserName' with your Windows user name)

bash -x /mnt/c/Users/YourUserName/.vscode-insiders/extensions/ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl-0.31.0/
scripts/wslServer.sh 473af338e1bd9ad4d9853933da1cd9d5d9e07dc9 insider .vscode-remote

[a2975667]

I see.
So I realized that I mapped the path in WSL to neglect /mnt/ which causes it not to find the path...
Is there a way to translate this? (this was done because I was trying to sync paths in WSL with windows for docker a long time ago) I guess I wouldn't need to deal with this anymore?

[a2975667]

So I tried removing the /mnt/ and it still doesn't work. It seems like as mentioned in #77 it's a zsh issue.
Commenting out the initialization of zsh from bashrc will work. Not otherwise.

[aeschli]

Can you try this version?

remote-wsl-0.32.1.vsix.zip

• Save the extension as remote-wsl-0.32.1.vsix (GitHub limitation on files to attach)
• in the extensions viewlet, use Install from VSIX...
• check that you now see version 0.32.1

This fixes:

• when starting the wslServer.sh, no longer runs with -i, so unexpected commands (such as cd, zsh) in .bash_profile no longer interfere.
• inside wslServer.sh, start the server with the user configured shell (and -i)

See https://medium.com/@vinhp/set-and-use-zsh-as-default-shell-in-wsl-on-windows-10-the-right-way-4f30ed9592dc on how to configure the shell in wsl

Please let me know if that solves the issues.

[alexmspina]

@aeschli I just tried the install steps you outlined for version 0.32.1 but I received this error

Installing extensions...
(node:19772) [DEP0005] DeprecationWarning: Buffer() is deprecated due to security and usability issues. Please use the Buffer.alloc(), Buffer.allocUnsafe(), or Buffer.from() methods instead.
Corrupt ZIP: end of central directory record signature not found
Failed Installing Extensions: c:\Users\username\.vscode-insiders\extensions\remote-wsl-0.32.1.vsix

[alexmspina]

@aeschli not sure what happened (maybe a new update was pushed recently) but 0.32.1 installed on my machine. thanks!

[mckernanin]

Entertainingly simple fix for me, I couldn't access WSL in a regular terminal either so I rebooted and all is well 😎

[alexmspina]

I was able to get 0.32.1 to work by changing the shebang line to #!/usr/bin/env zsh and manually removing the -i in the wslServer.sh command. Today there was an update to 0.33.0 and it overwrote my changes and also keeps the -i in the command

Now I can't find that same line in the wslServer.sh file and I'm not sure where the command is being executed.

[timolinn]

@alexmspina I used search to find and remove the -i from wslDaemon.js.

I only needed to remove the first highlighted -i and it seems to work without changing the shebang to zsh.

[a2975667]

@aeschli Manually disabling auto update and install 0.32.1 does fix the issue (running on the latest code insider as well)

[alexmspina]

@timolinn thanks for finding that. It's running with my zsh environment again.

[aeschli]

Yes, the fix that's in 0.32.1 has still to be pushed and published in a real version. Working in it!

[leandrowilliam]

You need to use this on your .bashrc file:
# Switch to ZSH shell if test -t 1; then exec zsh fi

Instead of:
exec zsh

If you use the second one the vscode remote server couldn't start...

[Tyriar]

If you want to change your default shell you should use chsh, not run the other shell in your .bashrc.

[leandrowilliam]

Yes! this is the right way... but the error was because it's configured as the other way.

Would be great if some sites like 👇 were updated... to avoid this kind of error, because they appear at the top of the search "how to install oh-my-zsh on WSL"

https://www.howtogeek.com/258518/how-to-use-zsh-or-another-shell-in-windows-10/
https://evdokimovm.github.io/windows/zsh/shell/syntax/highlighting/ohmyzsh/hyper/terminal/2017/02/24/how-to-install-zsh-and-oh-my-zsh-on-windows-10.html

[proteus-aholt]

You need to use this on your .bashrc file:

if test -t 1; then
  exec zsh
fi

Instead of:
exec zsh

If you use the second one the vscode remote server couldn't start...

I was having this exact same issue, only i use fish shell rather than zsh. The above snippet worked perfectly for me just by replacing zsh for fish.

so, changing:

to

if test -t 1; then
  fish
fi

was the solution for me.

[Tyriar]

@proteus-aholt you should change you default shell as in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/27#issuecomment-499082064:

chsh -s <path to fish>