I have vsc version 1.63.2. I'm getting the following notification:
"File changes watcher stopped unexpectedly. A reload of the window may enable the watcher again unless the workspace cannot be watched for file changes."
When I click the reload button, the issue is temporarily fixed and Source Control shows changes to my files. Git in CLI is working fine; git log --raw shows changes to my files correctly. I've tested brand new and old repositories and workspaces. The problem occurs in all of them. Any help troubleshooting this is greatly appreciated!
I just ran into this issue today and found my solution by viewing the "Window" logs using the "Developer: Open Log File..." command from the Command Palette.
In my case, the problem was that I had added a folder to my workspace that I had since deleted on the file system. The log in question looked something like:
... [error] [File Watcher (parcel)] Unexpected error: Invalid handle (EUNKNOWN) (path: \path\that\no\longer\exists)
... [error] [File Watcher (parcel)] restarting watcher after error: Invalid handle
Hopefully viewing this log helps you find out what's breaking in your specific case.
I also encountered this problem. I was using VSCode and opening a folder in it on WSL Ubuntu 20.04. The solution for me was to install the VS Code Remote - WSL extension.
I hope this will be useful for someone.
TLDR : on Windows 10, if you have Cygwin64 installed and you got a Git For Windows update, check Git for Windows path comes before Git from Cygwin path in environment variables.
Long version : Just got into the same error today. The Git Lens extension was not working anymore.
I'm on Win 10, so there is no way (at least I didn't find one) to increase the limit of watchers like on linux. My VS Code is v1.66.2, Git Lens extension is v12.0.6.
In my case, the logs said :
... [error] [File Watcher (parcel)] Unexpected error: Invalid handle (EUNKNOWN) (path: cygwin\g\path\that\exists)
Notice that ENOSPC !== EUNKNOWN
So I searched everywhere with little to no success, except here where Gordon Christopher Weeks's answer actually hinted me towards that logs.
Then I remembered several things :
I have a terminal installed that's called cygwin64 and that allows me to use some linux utilities otherwise not available on Win (like rsync);
two days ago, I authorized an update for Git for Windows (2.35.2);
when I installed cygwin, the tutorial I followed told me about following a certain sequence in the Windows path environment variable
So I checked the path variable, noticed the Git update deleted the initial path to git and put it in the last place. I only had to move it up, before the cygwin64 path to git.exe (a git utility is included with cygwin) and everything's back to normal.
Hope this helps and so you won't waste the time I did !
[Possible quick solution] First thing to check is to see if you are tracking a WSL folder in a Visual Studio Code Explorer workspace AND you switched VS Code back to windows (was in a WSL distro).
If so, then right-clicking on it and selecting "remove from workspace" will also remove it from the file change watcher.
Refresh the file change watcher (bell icon, lower right corner of window) to see if it cleans up the problem.
This was the issue I had with the system.
Visual Studio Code source control panel is empty when I click on it. Nothing to expand and nothing to click on.
Things I've tried:
Uninstalled/Reinstalled Git
Uninstall/Reinstalled VS Code
Removed extensions folder
Open your project with cmd.
> cd your-folder-location
> code . -n
It worked for me
Dude, just lost an hour because my SCM in VSCode randomly stopped showing anything today. I restarted everything, tried git init, everything on the forums. Made sure Git built in extension is enabled, mine was already enabled so I was totally lost.
All I had to do was disable and then reenable the built in Git extension. and it fixed it.
Go to Extensions.
Filter by "built in".
Click the gear icon by Git, and click disable.
Then click it again, and click enable.
Here is a screenshot reference
In my case, somehow, the Source Control Repositories option, available under the 3 dots ... on the SOURCE CONTROL tab, was no longer selected.
All I had to do was press the ... and select Source Control Repositories, then select the correct repo, and all the changes were again listed.
I had a similar issue. It seems vs code has two source control extensions. When I clicked View -> SCM it opened an extension with changes displaying.
source control extension 1
source control extension 2
I had this problem 2-3 times for the last 2 years (OS -> Linux Mint). The changes on any file didn't appear to the source control nor have they been marked on the line I've edited. When manually go to "Source control" and click on the refresh button they appear but the lines that I had change didn't light up (there were no visual marking on the files after editing them). This happened when I switched to a different branch while the workspace was open to the 2 monitors at the same time. Or when working on several projects (opened 2-3 or more VS Code instances). The scariest thing was that it didn't work not only for one repository(project) but for all of them. I've read alot on the subject and tried everything that I found and think of. There is some issue with git path mapping or something.
The thing that I tried:
reload VS Code
restarting VS Code
disable all extensions
enable/disable all git related options in (file -> preferences -> settings)
deleting (folders and files) and cloning the repository
updating git
removing and installing git
restarting PC (don't judge me I was desperate)
But the only solution that worked for me was:
open VS Code (if open, don't close it)
go to the directory where you keep your repositories (not from VS Code but from you file explorer).
go one folder above it (if you are in .../{{some folder}}/{{you repos}}, go to ../{{some folder}})
then open you repositories containing folder (/{{you repos}}) by right click -> open with VS Code
wait until everything loads. The Source Control will mark alot of changes, don't worry about it.
then close VS Code (all windows (instances), because it will open a new instance)
after that go to the directory where you keep your repositories again and right click and open with VS code the repository of you choice. Now at this point the Source control will start working properly.
What worked for me was going to my "code" folder where I keep all my repos, right-clicking on the folder containing the repo I want and opening that folder with VS Code.
The VS Code window for this specific repo was closed. I did have another window for a different repo open. As soon as the window opened, the changes showed up in source control and I was able to commit, push and everything else like normal.
I faced this problem when I opened a repo in a directory inside symlink.
My solution: just open this directory in original destination without any symlinks
I had this problem in a repository not as a problem from config but because I had a coverage folder with thousands of files not tracked and it seemed to slow the process of checking that out too much.
So I added that folder to .gitignore and it started working again.
Restating my Vscode And Giving time to load properly Solved my Problem
I had the same problem. What I did was:
Open another folder with File -> Open Folder...
Close the VSC
Open VSC
Open the original folder with File -> Open Folder...
After this I saw that the source control started loading and my changes came back.
Hope this works for you.
I couldn't see any changes in while trying git status. I opened changed files in text editor and they were not changed either. That lead me to conclusion that changes can't be seen by the system (and therefore by git).
The Autosave option was disabled, simply saving the changes helped.
That was my beginning with VSC, in Pycharm never had such problem.
I had this problem, because I was changing files one folder down from where I opened Visual Studio Code.
Solution- open Visual Studio Code without a location, File/Open Folder - open the folder I am directly working out of.
Unstaged changes now show in the direct folder I'm working in. Unstage changes previously auto-staged by Visual Studio Code when working on a nested project directory to see them (open a Terminal and run git reset).
I encountered the same issue, and I fixed that by removing the files.watcherExclude property in settings.json file.
Because the value of files.watcherExclude became { "**/**/*": true } somehow.
// settings.json
// remove or comment next line
// files.watcherExclude: { "**/**/*": true }
For me, the files were in WSL (Windows subsystem for linux) but I was not opening the folder as such.
in the bottom left, click the green >< symbol, then click "reopen folder in WSL"
VSC remote mode image
presto.
Go to View -> Terminal
cd to root folder, and run git status and see if you have any errors
I had a unsafe repository fatat error, as my repo was on a network drive. Did as suggested by git to add an exception and it fixed the issue.
close vscode
moved local Code config folder as backup (~/.config/Code/)
reopen vscode (this will still show problem)
close and reopen vscode (this will show db re-write issue but it will re-create config folder.)
this solved my problem. this reset many of my settings but It can be checked from config backup.
In setting check Git: Autorefresh
I experience this problem when I right click a folder and open it up with VS code. Instead now I start VS code from the start menu and after that I use File -> Open Folder option.
I experienced this issue with VSCode V1.70.1, all I did is just closing VSCode completely and open a new instance and I could find git changes appears simultaneously as expected.
If running into this issue on a Mac, make sure you are running your instance of Visual Studio Code from your Applications folder and not your Downloads folder. I managed to fire up an instance from the wrong folder and this prevented my Source Control from being able to properly load git info and also caused Visual Studio updates to fail. More on the issue can be found here.
Here is another possible solution for Linux users:
In my case, it was only not showing lines changed with the file open. Source control tab was showing fine.
I have a symlink from /var/www to /mnt/{hdd-uuid}/www. When I created my workspace, it was using the path /var/www/project-folder, instead of the full path, and this was giving me the error.
I opened my .code-workpsace file in another text editor and changed the references in the JSON from ../../../../var/www/project-folder to /mnt/{hdd-uuid}/www/project-folder, then reopen VS Code. Close all file tabs open and, when you open again a modified file it will show the lines changed.
It is possible that you need to trust the repo again.
Try opening project or folder which contains git files. Later try opening your wanted folder. This sorted the issue for me.
Double-check git is actually installed on your system. I just did a fresh install of Windows 11 the other day, and although one of the development tools I installed thereafter downloaded and supposedly installed git in Windows, actually, it never installed it. Fail!
I fixed this issue by toggled-on the AutoSave feature in VSCode via File > AutoSave. I noticed that the badge on the github does not show up until the file is actually saved first.
What worked for me was that I was forgetting to save, so just enabled autosave option.
File > Auto Save (check)
Open Visual Studio code -> View -> Appearance -> Show activity bar
When i try to clone a repository to desktop the default app for cloning has suddenly became TortoiseGit instead of GitHub. Anyone with a fix?
The following fix is a permanent solution for this issue that also withstands TortoisGit-updates/repairs.
It adds GitHubDesktop's protocol-associations the way described in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/default-programs.
Add to the registry (You can save this content as .reg file and double-click it to auto-import these keys into registry):
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GitHubDesktop]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GitHubDesktop\Capabilities]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GitHubDesktop\Capabilities\UrlAssociations]
"github-windows"="github-windows"
"x-github-client"="x-github-client"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications]
"GitHubDesktop"="Software\\GitHubDesktop\\Capabilities"
Reboot or on a windows-server sign-out and log-in.
The next time a project is cloned from github, a message-box popped-up asking to pick an app.
GitHubDesktop will now also be available in the Windows settings: Choose default apps by protocol. So it can be recovered with Windows settings, if TortoisGit (or another app) was chosen as default handler for GitHub-clone.
I also opened a new error at GitHubDesktop-development: https://github.com/desktop/desktop/issues/8258
There was a bug in 2.6.0 which made TortoiseGit the default if the github handler was enabled on installation.
To fix this, go to the default programs settings in Windows, open the file-type associations dialog and set github-windows and x-github-client back to the official github client. Maybe you have to update to TortoiseGit 2.7.0 first.
cf. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/change-file-associations-windows
You could try whether the hard way works: (Store this as a .reg file and import it, you need to madjust the paths)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\github-windows]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\github-windows]
"URL Protocol"=""
#="URL:github-windows"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\github-windows\shell\open\command]
#="\"C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\AppData\\Local\\GitHubDesktop\\app-1.4.2\\GitHubDesktop.exe\" --protocol-launcher \"%1\""
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\x-github-client]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\x-github-client]
"URL Protocol"=""
#="URL:x-github-client"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\x-github-client\shell\open\command]
#="\"C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\AppData\\Local\\GitHubDesktop\\app-1.4.2\\GitHubDesktop.exe\" --protocol-launcher \"%1\""
change windows registry is not working.
I have met the same problem and the registry is all right,but github desktop wont come out.
As a software developer,I used url protocol once.I cannt understand why Windows setting is not related to the ROOT registry . I would appreciate a comment.
here is how i solve the problem:
After uninstall tortoise and reinstall github. Chrome works fine.
When you install tortoise,be careful with this setting:
but even if you unchecked this,x-github-client is registed to tortoisegit client again.
You can check it in your windows setting of default apps - choose default apps by protocal.
So i think this is a bug for tortisegit.
I use tortoisegit 2.7.0 and win10 1809.
If you really want github desktop to popup , you should not install tortoisegit
This is based on tobias.loew answer:
If you don't have this line at the start:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
Script won't compile
Create github.reg file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GitHubDesktop]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GitHubDesktop\Capabilities]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GitHubDesktop\Capabilities\UrlAssociations]
"github-windows"="github-windows"
"x-github-client"="x-github-client"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications]
"GitHubDesktop"="Software\\GitHubDesktop\\Capabilities"
Put this in a file called github.reg and then double click it.
I've noticed that, despite always closing it before I quit, despite opening other files as well, Visual Studio Code will always re-open a particular file when I launch the app. This is still the case after upgrading to the latest version - 0.7.0 at the time of writing.
Is there a setting I'm missing, or something that needs to be cleared out / blown away?
I'm running on Windows Server 2012 R2.
This issue has been fixed for the next release and only shows up when you work in file mode and not folder mode (that is when you are not actually opening a full folder inside VS Code).
To workaround this, use the -n option when you run VS Code. -n will force to open VS Code empty without any file or folder opened.
If a file is modified in Visual Studio, the files are automatically checked out from Team Foundation Server. However, sometimes there are files not modified in VS, is there command to check out those modified files only?
If you download the Team Foundation Server power tools, you can use the "tfpt online" command line.
That said, I would try and avoid this way of working. TFS much prefers to know about files that you are checking out before you start editing them and your interaction with TFS will be much happier if you can do this.
The same power tools can optionally install Windows Explorer integration for TFS which will allow you to check the files out easily outside of Visual Studio.