VS Code connect to WSL Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, fail with error: Could not fetch remote environment

Question

A few days ago I was working just fine with VS Code connected to WSL Ubuntu 20.04, then I did some updating on WSL, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and VS Code and now I can not connect to WSL 20.04, and I always got those two messages, even when no folder/workspace is selected/open.

Could not fetch remote environment

Failed to connect to the remote extension host server (Error: Connection error: Unauthorized client refused.)

When I try to open a folder it shows the folder structure but it always said that: The path does not exists. And does not show any file in it but I can follow the folder structure up and down just fine.

And on the other hand if I launch WSL with an older Ubuntu 18.04 distro, it works just fine.

I imagine there is some security setting or access list that is wrong, but I can not figure it out, and web searching has not help either.

Any idea what to do to get it working again ?.

Answer 1

Just in case somebody else run into this problem. The way I solved was to remove all the .vscode* folders/files on the WSL filesystem. Apparently something got screw up on the upgrade.

I have not test it fully, because I moved to directly using a remote ssh agent on the Test system. But it seems to work, as I can now open the wsl window and it does not report any error.

Answer 2

For me, turning off the proxy will work.

or add 127.0.0.1 in the exception list.

Answer 3

I had the same error. And solved it by just shutting down the wsl using command

wsl --shutdown

Answer 4

I had the same issue, after updating the version(1.52.1). I did uninstall the ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl and installed it again and shutdown the WSL and close the vscode. Then started the WSL and open the VS-code again solved the issue.

Answer 5

What worked for me on Win10:

opens Ubuntu CLI -> type in code .

It'll download the VSCode server and then open VSCode itself with no errors.

I tried the same on CMD or Powershell but it didn't work.

Answer 6

I've tried these methods but it doesn't work:

• wsl --shutdown
• Reinstall VScode
• Remove .vscode-server in WSL (rm -rf ~/.vscode-server)

Finally I found the problem, the problem was with the latest version of the WSL extension, downgrading the WSL extension worked for me.

I downgraded the extension version from v0.79.5 to 0.79.4, and after reloading the window everything was back to normal.

Answer 7

I ran to the same problem today, my solution was to rollback to previous VScode version. I know there might be multiple root causes, this is one of the them.

Answer 8

Another (additional) symptom to check: Can WSL connect to the internet (eg via apt update)?

I had compressed my AppData folder, including C:\Users\<yourname>\AppData\Local\Temp and this somehow broke the connection between WSL and the outer world. Uncompressing the Temp folder solved the problem for me.

Answer 9

Lowering down the version of Remote WSL extension: ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl worked out for me.There might be some issues with the latest version.

Answer 10

sudo apt update

shoud work fine.

Answer 11

Seems things got messed up with the update. Fixed it by reinstalling the Remote WSL extension: ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl and reloading as you will be instructed to do.

Before this though, I deleted (rm -rf) the contents of /home/<your_username>/.vscode-server/ bin/ and data/

Answer 12

On Windows OS restarting the computer can usually resolve strange issues.

Because sometimes there maybe other processes still using the files or connection.

Answer 13

Same problem, just quite the proxy software (Charles etc.) and restart the vscode, it will work fine