VS Code was lost on shutdown with pending update

[manglobe]

It was the second time ,it happend. I download VScode's update patch when I was coding , and then shut down the computer and forgot to update it. Next day I turn the computer on and can't find VScode anywhere , all the file was empty.

• OS Version : Windows 10 Home

[danieljclubb]

happened to me today (April 14th 2020) on Windows 10. After a shutdown VS Code was completely gone.

[NPTP]

Happened to me just now, also Apr 14 2020 - closed VS Code, auto-updater began, something in the auto-updater failed. Then Code was inaccessible. After restart, it was completely gone. Poof.

[phospi]

Happened to me today. Yesterday vscode was installed and available. After my boot this morning, vscode is gone.

[jwatson-CO-edu]

This is still an ongoing problem. I started my computer 10 minutes before a code review with one of my students to find VS Code (Version 1.44.1 on Windows 10.0.18363 Build 18363) had vanished. This is disruptive to my work, as I was frantically reinstalling VS while conducting the review.

[neilpalima]

This happened to me today.

[tcamde]

Happened to me today. Turning on my laptop to start coding and vscode is completely gone. That was quite a shock.

Luckily after reinstalling everything works as before, but now I am really dubious how can such a major bug be open so long? I mean the program deletes itself how is this not the top priority bug?

System info: Dell Xps 13 Windows 10

[amramadan]

Happened to me today as well.

System info: HP Omen 2018 Windows 10 Home

[adriennn]

jesus guys.

[markrendle]

Happened to me just now.

[jmaybe]

I've had it happen at least 5 or 6 times in the past few months. Am reinstalling again now, but this is getting old. Win 10 Dell XPS i9

[iamafungi]

Same here, keeps happening.

[AghiadHaloul]

Visual Studio Code was removed automatically on MS Windows 10 Education Version 1909 Build 18363.778.

[3rd]

It's a sign from the gods.

[leulu]

Happened to me as well a few months ago on Windows 7. I rebooted and my icon would not boot VScode. It turned out it had actually moved my installation to a different location, but the behavior was odd so I overwrote the installation. Unfortunately I don’t have any screenshots or notes from that event.

[skibz]

please lock this thread

[naikrovek]

GitHub issue etiquette lesson for all:

Please do not comment on an issue unless you are providing information of value to resolution of the issue. "Me too" comments add no value, and should be indicated by 👍 reactions to the issue itself (not the comments, though reacting to comments is of course fine on its own.)

This is typically a good rule of thumb for all GitHub issues on all GitHub repositories.

I am not a Microsoft employee, just someone tired of seeing "me too" comments whenever Hacker News links to a GitHub issue.

[mokanfar]

I stopped using vscode because of this. It's happened at least 5 times that I narrowed down the problem to be on my machine as either a non-admin user issue when updating or some other electron app such as [f.lux, postman, ...n] that is running parallel unrelated to vscode that makes it fail during the update. The update process is highly flawed in any case.

• DELETE ALL APP FILES FIRST FROM INSTALL DIR
• INSTALL EVERYTHING AGAIN FROM SCRATCH

"Oh Access Denied? Sorry we deleted everything already. In the meantime reinstall everything all over again manually, disable automatic updates and let's hope it doesn't happen again!"

😤 Imagine having to reinstall settings and extensions from scratch every time vscode decides it wants to update and fail at it. No thanks.

[PrinceMerluza]

Just happened to me again, should I just stop updating VS Code

[mmehr2]

The solution is to convert your installation over to Portable mode, per Microsoft's instructions here. It's pretty simple to do.

Then when a new update ZIP file comes in, you just extract it to a folder next to the one your old one is in (mine was in C:\Users\Mike\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code"), then move the data subfolder from the old to the new, swap the names around, and you should be good to go.

[bstreiff]

I also had this happen to me. In my case, I had resources\ThirdPartyNotices.txt from the Microsoft VS Code folder open in a different editor when the auto-update triggered.

Because it was open, the auto-updater failed during uninstallation: May 27 13:05:24.079 ERRO The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (os error 32)

This has left me in a state where Visual Studio Code is no longer installed.

(Considering that I received no prompt for auto-update, this would seem to suggest that there's no safe time to ever read any of the license documentation without being at risk for VS Code deleting itself out from underneath you...)

[davidlindercodes]

yup, happens to me often also seem the only way to get it back is to complete re-installed VS code.

re-installed 3 times now, so will be using another code editor until this issue is resolved.

Machine specs: Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro14,3 Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7 Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz Number of Processors: 1 Total Number of Cores: 4 L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB L3 Cache: 6 MB Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled Memory: 16 GB Boot ROM Version: 205.0.0.0.0 SMC Version (system): 2.45f3 Serial Number (system): C02VJ1N7HTD5 Hardware UUID: 102BF22B-2341-5894-9E2D-47F6BD088134

Downloading the latest version from here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/?dv=osx

Thanks

[ankpaw]

happened to me today, I had shutdown my laptop while it was updating and now I don't have vs code anymore

[Abdurozzaq]

I also have the same error. I installed vs code with user mode not for all users, when I close vs code suddenly a message appears, an error for the update and my vs code disappears. but when I reinstall vs code with user mode again I can open my vs code, but when I close it the error is the same.

and I go to the installation directory my vs code in "C:\Users\Abdurozzaq NH\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code"

but Code.exe is in "C:\Users\Abdurozzaq NH\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code_" - the right directory.

So actually my code vs was not erased, but I don't know why Code.exe changed the path. not the same as in the shortcut link

[phospi]

I'm looking forward to friday. Should we meet somewhere to celebrate the anniversary of this issue? 🎉 🎉

[hfarhidzadeh]

First comment after 2nd anniversary of this. :) it happened to me as well.

[celloist]

Happened to me too nice

[Nika-St]

Same thing

[OvaisFareed]

It happened to me as well 4 to 5 times as I fed up as hell, but after searching a lot, I saw this solution on any other github issue that updated failed when any other program used vs code in background, somehow Skype used it (don't know how but it does) 😕 But these steps worked for me..!! 😃

when update failed and retry dialog appears, follow these steps: 1- quit skype 2- open task manager, kill all processes/services related to skype 3- back to dialog, and click "retry"

hope it hepls! 🥰

[fredheidrich]

Hey I solved my issue by stop using vscode, ok bye.

In all seriousness it's not a critical issue. It's going to keep popping up every time windows updates or your computer reboots while vscode is doing it's update. All user settings and plugins are not removed, it's just an inconvenience for people who like to leave their computer running or sleeping over shutting it down.

There seems to be no interest of fixing it, either.

[To240]

The fact that Microsoft, a multi billion dollar company, haven't managed to fix this issue for two years, should be testament to why you should just use another IDE. See you all in a year for the 3rd anniversary 👍

[Grkmus]

That is the worst issue ever. A software that deletes itself. 💯

[Holokai]

This just happened to me as well. Still no fix?

[alvileg]

Same, time to reinstall I guess. Although the extensions are still in .vscode folder so, not as bad ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[kishansindhe]

Happened to me too. Installed it on my VM. Next time my machine was rebooted there's no VS Code.

[grimuz]

happened to me too

[totszwai]

This just happened this morning, Insider started, but then failed to do my typical Remote SSH... and upon closing the program it uninstalled itself! WTF

[jjbartek]

Happend to me as well.

[Kaghar]

Same. As pointed above when reinstalling extensions were back in place, so that's something I guess

[thrnd]

Happened to me today. Here is log file vscode-inno-updater-1598402422.log

[aleksficek]

Second month in a row of it happening.

[UchihaSV]

WTF, why VS Code disappeared? He himself could not leave because the uninstaller remained in place in the control panel. This is some kind of mistake, Bill Gates solve this problem, otherwise I will no longer use your buggy programs.

[jefriedrichsen]

vscode not found on reboot. today I downloaded and reinstalled the version I had already updated to.

[Dantaro]

Had this happen to me today. Interestingly enough running code . in WSL would launch VSCode just fine, but I can't launch it normally. Upon starting up from code . it prompted me to update which resulted in an error log pointing out that it can't find code.exe in C:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe

Still runs when I do code . though.

[arandommudkip]

Happened to me as well, somewhere around in August, and the solution for me was to use the open source version of the software VSCodium, since it does not randomly disappear. As others have confirmed, the program is indeed installed, as it can be found in Control Panel, it just disappears from context menus, taskbar (if it was pinned) etc. This is a bug that should definitely be a top priority, since it happens to quite a few people.

[Al-Himyari]

This happened today with me as well. It doesn't get deleted, it just gets moved to another directory. By default, it would be located in C:\Users\"your user"\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\_

[pjnovas]

first-timer here, this bug it's hilarious.

So as @Al-Himyari said, I've just copied the contents of Microsoft VS Code\_ back into Microsoft VS Code\ and it all worked again .. it also show me the changelog of new updates 😆

[freekvh]

It happened to me again today, I'm now on version 1.49.1...

[emmagonz22]

Happened today for me.

[johankitti]

happend to me today

[mduey]

My turn. I got it back by copying files back as @pjnovas describes.