Some windows command-line programs hang rather than run

[VanL]

Summary: Most (but not all) windows command line programs hang when run from inside WSL. GUI programs (code.exe, notepad.exe, calc.exe, etc) all launch as expected. Powershell launches, cmd.com launches, a few others. Most hang until a Ctrl-C stops the process. (They could be running and the I/O streams are just not being properly redirected back to the bash shell)

Your Windows build number:

16299.125

Environment: Ubuntu 16.04, installed from store. Running bash (with some bash-it customizations). I have the command-not-found-handle hooked so that if an executable is not found with the bare name, the windows-specific suffixes (.exe, .com, .bat, .cmd) are tried instead. I have tried disabling the command-not-found handle; no change.

I'm using the hyper shell, but this also happens from the vanilla shell. As an aside, "which" doesn't always find the windows binaries, but the GUI ones launch anyway.

What you're doing and what's happening:

Here is an example terminal session.

vanl@VXPS in ~
○ → echo $PATH
/opt/anaconda3/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/c/Windows:/c/Windows/System32:/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/c/Windows/System32/wbem:/c/Windows:/c/Windows/System32:/c/Windows/System32/wbem:/c/Window
s/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/c/Program Files/PuTTY:
...[snip]...
:/c/Program Files/Microsoft VS Code/bin:/c/Users/VanL/AppData/Local/Sysinternals:/c/Users/VanL/AppData/Local/bin:/c/Libraries/Anaconda3/Scripts:/snap/bin:/opt/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/cargo/bin

# Linux python works:

○ → python
Python 3.6.3 |Anaconda, Inc.| (default, Oct 13 2017, 12:02:49)
[GCC 7.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

^C

# Try Windows Python (separate installation)

○ → ls -l /c/Libraries/Anaconda3/python.exe
-rwxrwxrwx 2 root root 93696 Oct 15 06:30 /c/Libraries/Anaconda3/python.exe

○ → /c/Libraries/Anaconda3/python.exe
^C

# Hangs, no output. However, some programs work:

○ → powershell
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

PS C:\Users\VanL> ^C

# or:

○ → /c/Libraries/Anaconda3/Scripts/conda.exe
usage: conda [-h] [-V] command ...

conda is a tool for managing and deploying applications, environments...[output snipped]

What's wrong / what should be happening instead:

I should see the windows python interactive prompt.
Python 3.6.3 |Anaconda, Inc.| (default, Oct 15 2017, 03:27:45) [MSC v.1900 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

Strace of the failing command, if applicable: Here

[cylonid]

I can confirm this for the python.exe console on Bash. This issue started since I updated from Creators Update to Fall Creators Update, so it already used to work in the past.

Python itself does work, piping a code file into the interpreter ("python.exe < code.py") is possible.

[therealkenc]

Like #2370 (message) but @benhillis should say the official word.

[benhillis]

@therealkenc is correct, this is the same issue that node.exe and others are hitting. Working on a change that should get this working. Closing this issue as a duplicate.