Fails to find environments after VScode updates

[david-cortes]

Almost every time VScode gets updated, the next time it gets launched, jupyter & related will fail to find Python environments from conda / mamba in newly launched jupyter interactive windows, until the window is reloaded manually (Developer: Reload Window), or until VScode is exited and launched again. Environments are still found on interactive windows that were left there from a previous session.

Note that this is in a setup that doesn't have the python environments extension installed.

Environment data

• VS Code version: has happened with multiple versions throughout the past couple months
• Jupyter Extension version (available under the Extensions sidebar): both latest and pre-release version associated with those
• Python Extension version (available under the Extensions sidebar): 1.37.2026061901
• OS (Windows | Mac | Linux distro) and version: Debian 12
• Python and/or Anaconda version: conda 24.11.3
• Type of virtual environment used (N/A | venv | virtualenv | conda | ...): conda
• Jupyter server running: Local

Steps to reproduce:

[NOTE: Self-contained, minimal reproducing code samples are extremely helpful and will expedite addressing your issue]

1. Install VScode from maybe 3 months ago or so.
2. Update to a newer VScode version.
3. Launch VScode.
4. Launch an interactive jupyter window.
5. Try to find kernels from a conda installation.

Expected behaviour

Should find the kernels.

Actual behaviour

Finds only system python, until the next relaunch of VScode, or until the window is reloaded, or until the jupyter extension is reloaded.

Oddly, it didn't happen in the VScode that was released just today, but has happened consistently for several months of updates.

Logs

Output for Jupyter in the Output panel (View→Output, change the drop-down the upper-right of the Output panel to Jupyter)

XXX

[eleanorjboyd]

Hello! We are now rolling out a new extension, the Python Environments extension, which we built to improve all environment related items for Python. Could you give this new extension a try and see if it fixes the issue for you? Info on how to enable it can be found here: microsoft/vscode-python-environments#581. Thanks!