The VS Code Server failed to start error with recent upgrade and also with message flood of "Waiting for server log..."

Question

After recent upgrade to 1.86.0 version of vscode, remote-ssh extension doesnt work as expected and throws "Could not establish connection to ---" error.

Some more log snippets from Output window:

[13:46:24.025] Resolver error: Error: The VS Code Server failed to start
    at g.ServerInstallError (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:460179)
    at d (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:453522)
    at t.handleInstallOutput (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:455792)
    at t.tryInstall (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:581100)
    at async c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:540958
    at async t.withShowDetailsEvent (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:544264)
    at async k (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:537923)
    at async t.resolve (c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:541635)
    at async c:\Users\lpthomas\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-0.108.0\out\extension.js:2:807794
[13:46:24.032] ------




[13:46:25.301] "install" terminal command done
[13:46:25.301] Install terminal quit with output: 

Answer 1

Same problem, sloved.

Solution:

Downgrade you vscode version to version 1.8.5.X, from this link vscode 1.8.5

Reason:

The version 1.8.6 updated yesterday has a bug about remote SSH. Vscode official explaniation:

In other words, for the time being we recommend having a separate installation of VS Code 1.85 specifically for connecting to those remote machines affected by this issue. We still highly recommend using the latest 1.86 version for all other work that does not involve those remote machines.

See full official explaniation here github.

Reminder: Do NOT enable vscode auto-upgrade

In case it upgrade to v1.8.6 as long as you restart vscode or your OS, and it will make your remote SSH fail again.

Do it by:

In vscode, File-Preferences-Settings, search for "update", then disable "Update: Enable Windows Background Updates", change "Extensions: Autop Update" to "False", chang "Update: Mode" to "none".

Answer 2

It looks like you have an unsupported OS on the server side.

Please, check this https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/linux#_tips-by-linux-distribution.

You can try to build the mentioned packages manually as described in the article, but I'm not sure if it helps

Answer 3

So far it has run on a Ubuntu 16.04 server without any problems. After updating to version 1.86.0 I have the same problems.

In my case, the problem seems to be the version of glibc. In Ubuntu 16.04 glibc version is 2.23.

Base requirement according VSC homepage is version 2.28.

I'm just wondering if the minimum requirements have been changed for version 18.6.0? Since, as I said, it has worked without any problems up to now.