ghost saves trash all the code

[SecurityArsenal]

Type: Bug

This has happened twice today. I am working doing commits and all is good. Then I lookup and VScode says 26 files to be saved. I have been working on all of 8 files. I commit what I have and restart VScode doesn't matter what I do it doesn't go away it rolls back the code like 5 hours earlier for everything. Even if I save the changes which most of the phatom saves are all empty so it just ends up blowing away all my code. This a very big issue and I have seen it twice today. I even applied the two updates from today. I am paying for the Pro+ and this is not usable if this is going to happen. This is not even an AI agent issue this is the application just deciding to revert most of my code to some strange point in time and I can't make it stop, I can't get out of it. Once it seems to do this I am just SOL. I don't know how to reporoduce this. I am just using VScode as normal. This just started doing this I think yesterday. I don't know what more I can tell you I tried to repair the issue, but hopefully someone else documented this issue better than me, becuase I am done I am not touchting the product until it is fixed.

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.102.0-insider (ed787a5, 2025-06-16T18:16:54.725Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100
Modes:
Remote OS version: Linux x64 6.1.0-37-amd64

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz (16 x 2304)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	63.78GB (4.03GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id 74051435-aa2d-49ef-91cd-866fb43a4e86
Screen Reader	no
VM	50%

Item	Value
Remote	SSH: thc
OS	Linux x64 6.1.0-37-amd64
CPUs	Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2660 v2 @ 2.20GHz (12 x 0)
Memory (System)	39.17GB (28.20GB free)
VM	0%

Extensions (15)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
remote-containers	ms-	0.418.0
remote-ssh	ms-	0.121.2025053015
remote-ssh-edit	ms-	0.87.0
remote-wsl	ms-	0.99.0
vscode-remote-extensionpack	ms-	0.26.0
remote-explorer	ms-	0.6.2025051209
remote-server	ms-	1.5.2
errorlens	use	3.26.0
vscode-todo-highlight	way	1.0.5
copilot	Git	1.335.1627
copilot-chat	Git	0.29.2025061601
debugpy	ms-	2025.8.0
python	ms-	2025.8.0
vscode-pylance	ms-	2025.6.1
jinjahtml	sam	0.20.0

A/B Experiments

vsliv368cf:30146710
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vsc_aacf:30263846
pythonvspyt551cf:31249598
vscod805cf:30301675
c4g48928:30535728
2i9eh265:30646982
962ge761:30841072
dsvsc014:30777825
dsvsc015:30821418
h48ei257:31000450
pythontbext0:30879054
cppperfnew:30980852
dwnewjupytercf:31046870
pythonrstrctxt:31093868
nativeloc1:31118317
e80f6927:31120813
dwcopilot:31158714
5b1c1929:31184661
6074i472:31201624
dwoutputs:31242946
customenabled:31248079
hdaa2157:31222309
copilot_t_ci:31222730
g012b348:31231168
pythoneinst12:31251391
bgtreat:31252123
c7cif404:31309980
pythonpulldiag:31287486
6gi0g917:31259950
61ibe868:31282443
996jf627:31264550
pythonrdcb7:31268811
usemplatestapi:31297334
jdghv92:31317040
747dc170:31275146
pythoncompactctx:31296835
6518g693:31302842
generatesymbolt:31280541
convertfstringf:31280702
923gi514:31310909
j97ad248:31306657
fd45d811:31326677
gce3e431:31315077
0g1h6703:31329154
82j33506:31327384
28dd7998:31328949
048e0538:31329543

[UncleMcNutz]

mines been doing that too, it so far hasnt effected my code, only instruction files for code agents, but its pretty annoying

[SecurityArsenal]

It just did it again. I thought I would test it one more time.. It doesn't give me any other options to deal with it forcing me to save or delete all the changes to 36 files when I was only working with 3 files. Lots of the files it just deleted everything in the code and is writing empty files. What a mess.

[bpasero]

/gifPlease

[vs-code-engineering]

Thanks for reporting this issue! Unfortunately, it's hard for us to understand what issue you're seeing. Please help us out by providing a screen recording showing exactly what isn't working as expected. While we can work with most standard formats, .gif files are preferred as they are displayed inline on GitHub. You may find https://gifcap.dev helpful as a browser-based gif recording tool.

If the issue depends on keyboard input, you can help us by enabling screencast mode for the recording (Developer: Toggle Screencast Mode in the command palette). Lastly, please attach this file via the GitHub web interface as emailed responses will strip files out from the issue.

Happy coding!

[SecurityArsenal]

The only thing I see is the explorer icon shows 23 documents need to be saved But I have only been working with 3 files. That is all. It just pops up in the middle of working with an agent to refactor code in a file. So it must be coming from Copilot when using Agent mode. I tried to reboot, clear the chat, updated VScode, commit on each page change. It doesn't matter. When it decides to show that all the sudden 23 files have been modified that is all I get. I look into them and they are all old files from various stages. this is new like in the past day. I have never seen this issue before, and I have used VScode with agent mode a lot in the past month. Not sure where all my changes go when this happens. Because they are just gone. I can't find in the 3 files I am working on and have been saving as I go, just not a commit. So not sure any picture can explain this issue. It is just strange that the agent all the sudden decides to replace 23 files 20 of which I have not even opened in a few days. Why it would just start pulling code some it just empties the file, other are just old versions.

[bpasero]

Moving to Rob as this seems to be related to using Copilot in Agent mode.

[SecurityArsenal]

I have not seen it happen again since the last update I did. So maybe the two updates you guys did today resolved it. I will let you know if it happens again. I can see something changed because the AI agent mode is much cleaner in it edits and reporting. It had a delay before. So maybe that was causing some kind of issue.

[SecurityArsenal]

Not fixed. It just did it again. only editing 2 files then it pops 17 files. The other thing is the 17 files in the Explorer show unsaved, are not reflected in the commit. If I try to save the files it breaks everything the files have all kinds of different versions in them. If I discard them then it break the current files I am working on. This is a huge issue and it keeps happening! I even tried to work on very small tasks and commits to see if that helped, but it didn't.

[SecurityArsenal]

And it happened again. Editing 1 file pops up with 26 files to save. Found if I do a commit only then close all tabs (discard changes) and don't save. Then close the chat and save any pending changes that are not listed in the Explorer then the code seems to be ok. But if you don't do it in that order it will destroy all the files it marked in the explorer to save and this leaves your code a mess. I hope this gets fixed soon!

[SecurityArsenal]

Did the updates today. Still having this issue. It did it again today.