Extension starts a debug session upon VS Code startup and blocks

[guillaumedavidphd]

Describe the bug
The extension starts a debug session upon VS Code startup on its own. Manually terminating the debug session crashes the extension and a message appears asking to restart MATLAB.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Start VS Code
2. Wait for it to fully load, and check out the "Run and Debug" tab
3. See that a debug session is in progress, blocking other features such as "Extensions restart"

Expected behavior
A debug session should not be started automatically, blocking other features.

Useful Information

• OS Version: Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
• VS Code Version: 1.96.2
• MATLAB version: R2022a
• MATLAB extension version: 1.3.0

[philipb314]

Thank you for reporting this issue. We will be looking into the issue that occurs when terminating the debug session.
One thing to note is that there is also a known issue with the latest v1.3 extension release for MATLAB R2022a specifically you might also run into.
Additionally, to prevent that debugger session starting automatically you can uncheck the setting "matlab.automaticallyStartDebugger" for the extension.

[guillaumedavidphd]

Thanks. Just to clarify, the issue is not about what happens when terminating the debug session. The issue is that a debug session starts with the extension and blocks other VS Code features.

[jmgate]

I'll second this issue. Connecting to MATLAB should not automatically start a debugging session within VS Code. That's unexpected behavior, from a user perspective, and should not happen. As noted above, it prevents the user from restarting extensions without first closing the MATLAB connection. Additionally, it prevents the user from starting a different debug session. Consider a code base with multiple languages. I want to be connected to MATLAB to do work on the MATLAB side, but then I need to debug some Python elsewhere in the code base. I can't do that without first closing the MATLAB connection and losing all the state I've built up.

I'll also add on some more problematic behavior. This may be a separate issue, but I suspect it's the same root cause. Sometimes (not every time, and I've not been able to determine what triggers this) connecting to MATLAB doesn't work properly. I'll see the "MATLAB: Establishing connection" and then "MATLAB: Connected" messages at the bottom of the window, and I see the debug session started and the debug console automatically opens, but when I run "MATLAB: Open Command Window", the MATLAB terminal session will pop up but not behave correctly. Sometimes it's blank, and I never have the ability to type anything. Other times I see the >> prompt, but I can't type anything. No amount of waiting appears to help in either case. The only solution is some seemingly random combination of closing and reopening the MATLAB connection, or closing and reopening VS Code, often multiple times before I get a MATLAB connection that allows me to type at the command window.

FWIW, I'm reverting to version 1.2.7 until these issues can be resolved. The current version of the extension is unusable.

[jmgate]

Thanks for addressing this so quickly 😀