Visual Studio Code missing dirty file indicator and highlight tabs doesn't work

Question

When I have a dirty file in VS Code, I do not get the bullet in the file tab nor do I get the highlight bar above the tab. I turned on Highlight Modified Tabs in the settings with no effect. I also tried changing themes in case it was a color issue. I don't have any extensions that would interfere with these settings.

Has anyone experienced this? Do I need to completely uninstall VS Code?

Answer 1

I had the same issue and just solved it with this answer:

That was a hint. I realized what was the problem. Kind of weird. I had modified the settings.json file manually, setting auto save to off, but I realized that under the File menu at the top, Auto Save was marked as active. My files were not auto saving, but VS detected as if it were active. Unchecking Auto Save in the File menu did the trick.

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/23950

I clicked File > [unchecked] Auto Save

This fixed it for me.