multiple profiles seem to exist but are not visible

[where2go947]

I use WSL2 in Windows 10 to install Ubuntu-16.04. And due to some issues, I need to reinstall it.

• First, I uninstall it by:

  1. uninstall it from Apps and Features
  2. wsl --unregister <distro>, I also check it under \\wsl.localhost.

• Then, I install Ubuntu-16.04 from scratch. But this time, the profile is not automatically generated. (In windows terminal, click open a new tab, there is no profile of Ubuntu-16.04).

• So, I would like to add a new profile myself. However, in Duplicate a profile, there are several the profiles of Ubuntu-16.04 in it, which are all not visible in open a new tab in windows terminal title bar. (Note: now there is only one file in \\wsl.localhost. And in json file it seems to be normal: only one item named ubuntu-16.04 exists under profiles-list).

I guess they are just links to real files. How can I edit these profiles and leave only one usable profile? Thanks in advance.

[zadjii-msft]

Can you just share your settings.json file? That might answer questions quicker. Uninstalling a distro can sometimes leave the Terminal in a bit of a confused state. (https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/14061). There's also ongoing confusions (https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/12961) about the fact that Canonical ships a second set of Ubuntu profiles (rather than extending the Terminal's built-in ones).

I'd reckon that the old WSL profile got marked as "deleted" in state.json, because the Terminal noticed that it was uninstalled, but can't effectively determine that an uninstalled distro was re-installed.

[zadjii-msft]

Closing as stale. If you ever want to follow-up, feel free to do so. We can always reopen this or open a new issue over at https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues. Thanks!