"Illegal Characters in Path" problems after editing VSCode path in Windows

[xinaesthete]

So I foolishly changed a setting for the VSCode path to point at the actual absolute path of the exe in Program Files (x86) and it seems to have rather borked my Unity installation.

I now get lots of exceptions like

System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
at System.IO.Path.IsPathRooted (System.String path) [0x00024] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Path.cs:508 
at System.IO.Path.InsecureGetFullPath (System.String path) [0x000dd] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Path.cs:357 
at System.IO.Path.GetFullPath (System.String path) [0x00000] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Path.cs:289 
at UnityEditor.Utils.Paths.AreEqual (System.String pathA, System.String pathB, Boolean ignoreCase) [0x0003a] in C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\Utils\Paths.cs:87 
at UnityEditor.VisualStudioIntegration.UnityVSSupport+<Initialize>c__AnonStoreyBF.<>m__230 (KeyValuePair`2 kvp) [0x00000] in C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\VisualStudioIntegration\UnityVSSupport.cs:38 
at System.Linq.Enumerable+<CreateWhereIterator>c__Iterator1D`1[System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair`2[UnityEditor.VisualStudioVersion,System.String]].MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair`2[UnityEditor.VisualStudioVersion,System.String]].AddEnumerable (IEnumerable`1 enumerable) [0x0001a] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:128 
at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair`2[UnityEditor.VisualStudioVersion,System.String]]..ctor (IEnumerable`1 collection) [0x00025] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:65 
at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[KeyValuePair`2] (IEnumerable`1 source) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at UnityEditor.VisualStudioIntegration.UnityVSSupport.Initialize (System.String editorPath) [0x0006b] in C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\VisualStudioIntegration\UnityVSSupport.cs:38 
at UnityEditor.VisualStudioIntegration.UnityVSSupport.Initialize () [0x00000] in C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\VisualStudioIntegration\UnityVSSupport.cs:20 
at UnityEditor.SyncVS..cctor () [0x00082] in C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\SyncProject.cs:40 
UnityEditor.EditorAssemblies:SetLoadedEditorAssemblies(Assembly[])

and now I can't open the preferences dialog; it appears black and I get a load more exceptions logged:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object UnityEditor.PreferencesWindow.OnGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/PreferencesWindow/PreferencesWindow.cs:267) System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222) Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:232) System.Reflection.MethodBase.Invoke (System.Object obj, System.Object[] parameters) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:115) UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName, System.Object obj) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:187) UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:180) UnityEditor.HostView.OnGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:76)

I've tried poking at the registry a bit to unset offending unescaped backslashes etc but it seems the damage has been done. I guess reinstalling Unity (possibly deleting relevant keys in registry in the process) is fairly likely to fix it...

[reapazor]

Hmm this seems like a bad thing for sure, i just pushed something that should have the right path by default ...

However, if setting it manually is screwing it up its something i should prolly handle.

You set it from the preferences tab and it died after that?

[xinaesthete]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what killed it. Looking in my registry, I had lots of keys with mangled bits of the path name spliced onto the end of key name...

I might see if I can recreate the problem some time if that'll help, but it's a bit of a nuisance having to reinstall.

I have now reinstalled Unity (removed registry entries manually first) and it's working fine. At the moment, I have that install configured to use VS but I'm using VSCode on Mac and quite liking it, so it would be nice to use on both for a bit more consistency.

[xinaesthete]

(btw, when I say "pretty sure", I really mean "based on my fairly fuzzy memory that seems to make most sense")

[reapazor]

In the future you don't need to reinstall Unity ... use regedit :)
Alas, I'll see sometime this week about a fix.

[xinaesthete]

I did use regedit, but didn't quite manage to sort it.

[xinaesthete]

Having said that, at least now if I wanted to debug it, I'd be able to make a backup copy of my un-corrupted registry first.

[reapazor]

Looks like someones latest fixed this by not needing it by default.

[DanielMcPherson]

Not sure if anyone is still reading this, but I had the same problem. Reinstalling Unity and even updating to Unity 2017 makes no difference. Does anyone have any idea what the offending registry keys are that I should delete, or how to search for them?

Thanks.

[kepiz]

any idea how to solve this?

[LtFarfetchd]

A heads up to anyone reading in 2019 or beyond - this issue doesn't seem to be solved. For me, the preferences dialogue for VSCode contained a title but nothing else - I couldn't modify the path to VSCode and correct the error. Since those preferences are stored in the registry though, you can go and delete them.
If you know the reg binary you need to change it to you can just do that. Otherwise, the easy solution that worked for me was to just force the plugin to wipe the pref itself. So long as you do that somewhere it will definitely be called, you're good. In my case, I just put a call to EditorPrefs.DeleteKey("VSCode_CodePath") in the CodePath get of VSCode.cs.

My guess would be that the long-term fix is to have the plugin perform a check for validity on the path as it tries to fetch it. If it isn't valid, wipe the pref and notify the user.