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Troubleshooting the GitLab for VS Code extension

doc/editor_extensions/visual_studio_code/troubleshooting.md

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If you encounter any issues with the GitLab for VS Code extension, or have feature requests for it:

  1. Check the extension documentation for known issues and solutions.
  2. Report bugs or request features in the gitlab-vscode-extension issue tracker. Provide the required information for Support.

Enable debug logs

Both the VS Code Extension and the GitLab Language Server provide logs that can help you troubleshoot. To enable debug logging:

  1. In VS Code, open the Settings editor:

    • For macOS, press <kbd>Command</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.
    • For Windows or Linux, press <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.

  2. In the upper-right corner, select Open Settings (JSON) to edit your settings.json file.

  3. Add this line, or edit it if it already exists:

    json
    "gitlab.debug": true,

  4. Save your changes.

View log files

To view debug logs from either the VS Code Extension or the GitLab Language Server:

  1. Use the command GitLab: Show Extension Logs to view the output panel.
  2. In the upper-right corner of the output panel, select either GitLab or GitLab Language Server from the dropdown list.

Error: 407 Access Denied failure with a proxy

If you use an authenticated proxy, you might encounter an error like 407 Access Denied (authentication_failed):

plaintext
Request failed: Can't add GitLab account for https://gitlab.com. Check your instance URL and network connection.
Fetching resource from https://gitlab.com/api/v4/personal_access_tokens/self failed

You must enable proxy authentication for the GitLab Language Server.

Configure self-signed certificates

To use self-signed certificates to connect to your GitLab instance, configure them using these settings. These settings are community contributions, because the GitLab team uses a public CA. None of the fields are required.

Prerequisites:

Setting nameDefaultInformation
gitlab.canullDeprecated. See the SSL setup guide for more information on how to set up your self-signed CA.

For specific rules and formatting, see the NodeJS ca documentation. | | gitlab.cert| null | Unsupported. See epic 6244. If GitLab Self-Managed requires a custom certificate or key pair, set this option to point to your certificate file. See gitlab.certKey.

For specific rules and formatting, see the NodeJS cert documentation. | | gitlab.certKey| null | Unsupported. See epic 6244. If GitLab Self-Managed requires a custom certificate or key pair, set this option to point to your certificate key file. See gitlab.cert.

For specific rules and formatting, see the NodeJS key documentation. | | gitlab.ignoreCertificateErrors | false | Unsupported. See epic 6244. If you use GitLab Self-Managed with no SSL certificate, or have certificate issues that prevent you from using the extension, set this option to true to ignore certificate errors. |

Expired SSL certificate

In some cases, certificates can be falsely classified as expired. This can result in the error API request failed - Error: certificate has expired. If you encounter this issue, you can disable VS Code support for system certificates.

To disable system certificates:

  1. In VS Code, open the Settings editor:
    • For macOS, press <kbd>Command</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.
    • For Windows or Linux, press <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.
  2. On the User settings tab, select Application > Proxy.
  3. Disable the settings for Proxy Strict SSL and System Certificates.

HTTPS project cloning works but SSH cloning fails

This problem happens in VS Code when your SSH URL host or path is different from your HTTPS path. The GitLab for VS Code extension uses:

  • The host to match the account that you set up.
  • The path to get the namespace and project name.

For example, the VS Code extension's URLs are:

  • SSH: [email protected]:gitlab-org/gitlab-vscode-extension.git
  • HTTPS: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-vscode-extension.git

Both have the gitlab.com and gitlab-org/gitlab-vscode-extension path.

To fix this problem, check if your SSH URL is on a different host, or if it has extra segments in a path. If either is true, you can manually assign a Git repository to a GitLab project:

  1. In VS Code, in the left sidebar, select GitLab ({{< icon name="tanuki" >}}).
  2. Select the project marked (no GitLab project), then select Manually assign GitLab project:
  3. Select the correct project from the list.

For more information about simplifying this process, see issue 577 in the gitlab-vscode-extension project.

GitLab Duo features are unavailable

To troubleshoot GitLab Duo errors in VS Code:

  1. Ensure you meet the prerequisites.
  2. Review diagnostics output:
    1. Open the Command Palette with <kbd>Command</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>P</kbd> or <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>P</kbd>
    2. Run the command GitLab: Diagnostics and review the output for any failed checks.
  3. If the diagnostics indicate that the feature is not turned on:
    1. In VS Code, open the Settings editor:
      • For macOS, press <kbd>Command</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.
      • For Windows or Linux, press <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.
    2. Select Extensions > GitLab > GitLab Duo.
    3. Find the GitLab › section for the missing feature and select the checkbox to turn it on.
  4. If the diagnostics indicate that Agentic Chat is not supported for the current project, set a default GitLab Duo namespace.

For additional support:

Known issue: GitLab Duo Chat fails to initialize in remote environments

When using GitLab Duo Chat in remote development environments (such as browser-based VS Code or remote SSH connections), you might encounter initialization failures like:

  • Blank or non-loading Chat panel.
  • Errors in logs: The webview didn't initialize in 10000ms.
  • Extension attempting to connect to inaccessible local URLs.

To resolve these issues:

  1. In VS Code, open the Settings editor:

    • For macOS, press <kbd>Command</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.
    • For Windows or Linux, press <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>,</kbd>.

  2. In the upper-right corner, select Open Settings (JSON) to edit your settings.json file.

    • Alternatively, press <kbd>F1</kbd>, enter Preferences: Open Settings (JSON), and select it.

  3. Add or modify this setting:

    json
    "gitlab.featureFlags.languageServerWebviews": false

  4. Save your changes and reload VS Code.

For updates on a permanent solution, see issue #1944 and Issue #1943

Error: can't access the OS Keychain

Error messages like these can occur on both macOS and Ubuntu:

plaintext
The GitLab extension can't access the OS Keychain.
If you use Ubuntu, see this existing issue.
plaintext
Error: Cannot get password
at I.$getPassword (vscode-file://vscode-app/snap/code/97/usr/share/code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:1712:49592)

For more information about these errors, see:

macOS workaround

A workaround exists for macOS:

  1. On your machine, open Keychain Access and search for vscodegitlab.gitlab-workflow.
  2. Delete vscodegitlab.gitlab-workflow from your keychain.
  3. Remove the corrupted account from VS Code using the GitLab: Remove Account from VS Code command.
  4. To add the account again, run either Gitlab: Add Account to VS Code or GitLab: Authenticate to GitLab.com.

Ubuntu workaround

When you install VS Code with snap in Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04, VS Code can't read passwords from the OS keychain. Extension versions 3.44.0 and later use the OS keychain for secure token storage. A workaround exists for Ubuntu users who use versions of VS Code earlier than 1.68.0:

  • You can downgrade the GitLab for VS Code extension to version 3.43.1.
  • You can install VS Code from the .deb package, rather than snap:
    1. Uninstall the snap VS Code.
    2. Install VS Code from the .deb package.
    3. Go to Ubuntu's Password & Keys, find the vscodegitlab.workflow/gitlab-tokens entry, and remove it.
    4. In VS Code, run Gitlab: Remove Your Account to remove the account with missing credentials.
    5. To add the account again, run GitLab: Authenticate.

If you use VS Code version 1.68.0 or later, re-installation might not be possible. However, you can still run the last three steps to re-authenticate.

Set token with environment variables

If you often delete your VS Code storage, such as in Gitpod containers, set environment variables before starting VS Code. If you set the token in a VS Code environment variable, you don't have to set a personal access token each time you delete your VS Code storage. Set these variables:

  • GITLAB_WORKFLOW_INSTANCE_URL: Your GitLab instance URL, like https://gitlab.com.
  • GITLAB_WORKFLOW_TOKEN: Your personal access token, which you created when authenticating with GitLab.

The token configured in an environment variable is overridden if you configure a token for the same GitLab instance in the extension.

Connection and authorization error when using GDK

When using VS Code with GDK, you might get an error that states that your system is unable to establish a secure TLS connection to a GitLab instance running on localhost.

For example, if you are using 127.0.0.1:3000 as your GitLab server:

plaintext
Request to https://127.0.0.1:3000/api/v4/version failed, reason: Client network
socket disconnected before secure TLS connection was established

This issue occurs if you are running GDK on http and your GitLab instance is hosted on https.

To resolve this, manually enter an http URL for your instance when you run the GitLab: Authenticate command.

Required information for support

Before contacting Support, make sure the latest GitLab for VS Code extension is installed. All releases are available on the VS Code Marketplace under the Version History tab.

Gather this information from affected users, and provide it in your bug report:

  1. The error message shown to the user.
  2. Workflow and Language Server logs:
    1. Enable debug logs.
    2. Retrieve log files for the extension, and the Language Server.
  3. Diagnostics output.
    1. Open the Command Palette with <kbd>Command</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>P</kbd> or <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>P</kbd>
    2. Run the command GitLab: Diagnostics, and note the extension version.
  4. System details:
    • In VS Code, go to Code > About Visual Studio Code and find OS.
    • Machine specifications (CPU, RAM): Provide these from your machine. They are not accessible in the IDE.
  5. Describe the scope of impact. How many users are affected?
  6. Describe how to reproduce the error. Include a screen recording, if possible.
  7. Describe how other GitLab Duo features are affected:
    • Is GitLab Quick Chat functional?
    • Is Code Suggestions working?
    • Does GitLab Duo Chat in the Web IDE return responses?
  8. Perform extension isolation testing as described in the GitLab for VS Code extension isolation guide. Try disabling (or uninstalling) all other extensions to determine if another extension is causing the issue. This helps determine if the problem is with our extension, or from an external source.