Add debug logging for file dialog default path selection

[Copilot]

Users report files.dialog.defaultPath setting not taking effect but the cause is unclear. The setting is only used when no context-specific path (last active file, workspace root) exists, making it difficult to diagnose without visibility into the path selection logic.

Adds debug-level logging to trace default path resolution:

• defaultFilePath() - Logs whether path comes from last active file, workspace root, or preferred home
• defaultFolderPath() - Logs whether path comes from workspace root, last active file, or preferred home
• preferredHome() - Logs setting values (userLocalValue/userRemoteValue) and validation failures (path not absolute, path doesn't exist)

Example log output:

[FileDialogService] Preferred home: preferLocal=false, userLocalValue=undefined, userRemoteValue=/custom/path
[FileDialogService] Default folder path using parent of last active file: file:///home/user/.config/settings.json

Original prompt

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This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>The files.dialog.defaultPath setting is not taking effect</issue_title>
<issue_description>Whenever I hit ctrl+k+o to open a directory I get a specific directory as default which is not the one I have set in the files.dialog.defaultPath setting. In my setup, I'm connecting over HTTP to my dev machine, and have set the setting in the remote settings. I have made sure that it's not set in the user/workspace setting, and I've also searched for the directory that appears in all settings files, and it's not there.

Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 7d842fb
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Embedder: server-distro

<agent_instructions>Add logging so we can figure out what's going on and where this path is coming from. It should be debug level.</agent_instructions>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

@TylerLeonhardt What is the command that is running for this keybinding? Can you open the Keyboard Shortcuts (ctrl+k, ctrl+s) and then click this one

and tell me what the ctrl+k+o resolves to</comment_new>
<comment_new>@alexr00
Sorry for the stale issue @TylerLeonhardt!

@dan1994 the setting files.dialog.defaultPath is only used when we can't determine a better, context specific, path to use. It will only be used when you:

• have no folder or workspace open
• have not opened any files</comment_new>
  <comment_new>@alexr00
  Can you try disabling all extensions? Command "Extensions: Disable All Installed Extensions", then reload. I'm wondering if an extension is opening a file behind the scenes. Also, can you share a gif?</comment_new>
  <comment_new>@alexr00
  /gifPlease</comment_new>
  <comment_new>@alexr00
  That was very helpful, thanks! It's using the path of your settings file. We probably shouldn't do that.</comment_new>
  <comment_new>@alexr00
  If you see it go for other paths, please do post screen recordings of those too.</comment_new>
  <comment_new>@alexr00
  I've tried to repro this, but I haven't been able to. I think you may have an extension which is silently opening a file. Does the issue persist if you disable all extensions?</comment_new>
  <comment_new>@alexr00
  I tried what seems to be your setup (run code server and connect in a browser) and I still can't repro. I'll add logging so we can be sure where the path is coming from.</comment_new>

• Fixes The files.dialog.defaultPath setting is not taking effect #272259

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[vs-code-engineering]

📬 CODENOTIFY

The following users are being notified based on files changed in this PR:

@bpasero

Matched files:

• src/vs/workbench/services/dialogs/browser/abstractFileDialogService.ts

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds debug-level logging to help diagnose why the files.dialog.defaultPath setting is (or isn’t) being applied when determining default paths for file/folder dialogs.

Changes:

• Log which source is selected for defaultFilePath() (last active file/workspace root/preferred home).
• Log which source is selected for defaultFolderPath() (workspace root/last active file/preferred home).
• Log preferredHome() resolution inputs and validation failures for files.dialog.defaultPath.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

src/vs/workbench/services/dialogs/browser/abstractFileDialogService.ts:130

• preferredHome() logs userHome without awaiting it. When preferLocal is false, pathService.userHome({ preferLocal }) returns a Promise<URI>, so the debug log will print [object Promise] and defeats the purpose of this diagnostic logging. Consider awaiting userHome before logging/returning so the log always contains the resolved URI.

		const userHome = this.pathService.userHome({ preferLocal });
		this.logService.debug(`[FileDialogService] Preferred home using user home: ${userHome}`);
		return userHome;