Terminal not in a good state initially on Windows Insider builds

[ricardosantos9521]

Issue Type: Bug

Initial header of any terminal(powershell, exe) appears transparent, only after execution an command the terminal header starts to appear again.

https://imgur.com/a/5KgBNvA

Steps to reproduce:
open terminal on vscode in a latest insider build 1809

VS Code version: Code 1.26.1 (493869e, 2018-08-16T18:38:57.434Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.17751

[Tyriar]

@ricardosantos9521 haven't seen this one before, does it show again when you resize the terminal panel? That will force a redraw.

Could you also try changing the value of terminal.integrated.rendererType to see if it shows up then?

[ricardosantos9521]

@Tyriar Nop the problem still ocurres.

PS: This only happens in windows insider builds (redstone 5).

https://imgur.com/a/grzLARr

[GordonSmith]

Just a "me too" here. This is what I see:

1. Open new terminal instance: Looks good - but no blinking cursor:
   
2. As soon as you start to type, terminal goes blank and resets somewhere near the top:
   
3. Pressing enter on the command all seems to be good again:
   

[MeikTranel]

@Tyriar, got the same issue. Same OS background. Using RS5 Insider Builds

The whole terminal experience in VSCode on Windows Insiders is pretty rough right now. Output Buffers overwriting and regular terminal inputs like CTRL+Backspace printing command characters... issues like that have been increasingly visible to me since RS5.

Specs for reference:

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.28.0-insider (a3f9f2e, 2018-09-07T05:20:29.346Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.17755

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz (8 x 4008)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled checker_imaging: disabled_off flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on native_gpu_memory_buffers: disabled_software rasterization: enabled video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Memory (System)	31.94GB (23.59GB free)
Process Argv	C:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code Insiders\Code - Insiders.exe D:\Development\wallboard
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (33)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
yaml	ada	0.0.9
cake-vscode	cak	0.11.4
path-intellisense	chr	1.4.2
vscode-markdownlint	Dav	0.20.0
vscode-eslint	dba	1.5.0
docs-article-templates	doc	0.1.2
docs-authoring-pack	doc	0.1.1
docs-markdown	doc	0.1.4
docs-preview	doc	0.3.12
xml	Dot	2.3.2
gitlens	eam	8.5.6
tslint	eg2	1.0.38
vscode-solution-explorer	fer	0.2.33
dotnet-test-explorer	for	0.5.2
beautify	Hoo	1.4.2
rest-client	hum	0.19.1
theme-monokai-pro-vscode	mon	1.1.8
DocFX	ms-	0.1.3
csharp	ms-	1.15.2
PowerShell	ms-	1.8.4
debugger-for-chrome	msj	4.10.0
gradle-language	nac	0.2.3
chef	Pen	0.7.0
vscode-docker	Pet	0.2.0
java	red	0.30.0
vscode-icons	rob	7.25.0
vscode-coverage-gutters	rya	2.1.1
code-spell-checker	str	1.6.10
msbuild-project-tools	tin	0.2.39
vscode-java-debug	vsc	0.12.2
vscode-java-pack	vsc	0.3.0
vscode-java-test	vsc	0.8.0
vscode-maven	vsc	0.10.0

[Tyriar]

@bitcrazed FYI, not sure if there have been any changes in this area on your side that could be causing this?

[bitcrazed]

Not that I know of. @zadjii-msft Are you aware of anything that could cause this issue?

[zadjii-msft]

Honestly I have no idea. I'm not really sure how winpty gets at the console to get that text.

I'd certainly have a better idea if it were conpty 😝

[Tyriar]

@bitcrazed @zadjii-msft I've also noticed some weirdness on Windows Insiders where the shell is blank at the start, hitting enter will then show the prompt.

[Tyriar]

This is what I see:

Resizing panel reveals:

Pressing enter:

[zadjii-msft]

Yikes, that's certainly pretty bad. No idea why that might be, and we're too close to the final signoff on this Windows version to be able to fix that for this release :(

Presumably this'll go away when node-pty picks up conpty, so for RS4 and below they'll still work fine, and RS5+ will get fixed by conpty. There'll just be this awkward middle phase where RS5 is broken.

I still don't know why this might be happening in the first place - maybe @rprichard might know more?

[rprichard]

I can reproduce it, but I don't know what's going wrong yet. When I debug it by setting the WINPTY_SHOW_CONSOLE=1 environment variable, I see the same sort of broken output in the console window that I see in the terminal window. If there's a HKCU\Console entry for the path to the winpty-agent.exe binary, then the problem doesn't reproduce. Somehow the lack of that entry, combined with winpty's startup code, is leaving the console in a bad state when the cmd/powershell process starts.

FWIW: I'm thinking of having winpty itself use conpty when it can: rprichard/winpty#152. I'm happy with node-pty using conpty directly, though.

[rprichard]

If there's a HKCU\Console entry for the path to the winpty-agent.exe binary, then the problem doesn't reproduce.

winpty uses SetConsoleWindowInfo during startup, and if that call reduces the height of the console window, then starting cmd/powershell later breaks. I have a non-winpty test case that I'll attach to a console bug report. (It sounds like it's too late to fix in Windows, though.)

I also opened rprichard/winpty#156 to track the problem.

[GoaLitiuM]

Same issue here, persists in latest insider build 17760.1.

[jpalo]

Same here on 17763.1 with VS Code 1.27.2, but has been several earlier Windows Insider builds. I usually just press enter once to see the command prompt in terminal, or lately I've just ignored the fact that there is no prompt and just type in the command, as it works nicely.

[ericblade]

noting also occurs in ConsoleZ cbucher/console#501

[MeikTranel]

Same goes for zeit/Hyper. After the active dev windows insider ring was lifted onto 19H1, i can also report that the issue persists with the 19H1 prerelease, too.

[Tyriar]

Upstream issue: microsoft/terminal#270

For people experiencing this issue, the way I work around it in the meantime is to just press enter which shows the prompt. You can also just type a command and it will run fine, it's just that the initial prompt doesn't display correctly.

[szerner]

I have this issue too on my Windows 10 Pro 1809, Build 17764.1, when opening a new terminal window.

Actually it depends on the size resp. height of the terminal window, whether or how the issue shows up:

• Terminal window maximized: no issue with new terminals
• Terminal height below around 22 lines: no cursor, when typing jumps to top with a number of spaces before it
• Teminal height below around 12 lines: no text and no cursor at all (cursor shortly flashes before disappearing)

After pressing ENTER everything is ok.

[aarcoraci]

Guys, this may not be related to VS at all. I'm also a user of Android Studio and when I open the terminal tab in the lower panel I get the same issue.

edit:
ALSO, I think my preferences for CMD and PowerShell are a bit messed up

[MeikTranel]

It's related to XTerm.js, winpty and the windows console since 1809. We've got that far already.

[zadjii-msft]

Before I get 100 more pings on this thread: as stated in microsoft/terminal#270, the issue is a bug in the console codebase. It's already fixed internally, and bubbling it's way out to Insiders. Should be fixed in 3-4 weeks.

[Tyriar]

I'm locking this for now as we know about the problem and it's fixed upstream. It will just take some time to get to us.

[Tyriar]

ConPTY support has landed in VS Code, this uses a new backend for the terminal on Windows 10 build number 18309+, this should fix many bugs in the terminal on Windows as we're adopting Microsoft's official pty API. For earlier versions winpty will still be used a many bugs will still remain (unless they're fixed in that project).

If you find any issues with ConPTY please report them to https://github.com/Microsoft/console (the team who own ConPTY) or this repo (if you think it's an integration issue). You can opt out of conpty by adding this setting:

"terminal.integrated.windowsEnableConpty": false

Note that this will hit stable Windows 10 in version 1903, the first release of 2019.