VS Code Remote - Can't run 'code' command in WSL Ubuntu 18 or WSL 2 Ubuntu 20 - wrong path

Question

I'm having an issue when I try to run the code command from Visual Studio Code in WSL Ubuntu. I get the following error:

$ code .

/mnt/c/Users/Name/.vscode/extensions/ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl-0.64.2/scripts/wslCode.sh: 63: /mnt/c/Users/Name/.vscode/extensions/ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl-0.64.2/scripts/wslCode.sh: /home/barry/.vscode/bin/899d46d82c4c95423fb7e10e68eba52050e30ba3/bin/remote-cli/code: not found

When I run the following, it installs the VS Code Server and the command works as expected:

$ /mnt/c/Users/Name/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft\ VS\ Code/bin/code .

When I run which -a code, I can see I have two paths related to this command and I believe the correct one is /mnt/c/Users/Name/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin/code, but I don't know how to remove the first one or how it even related two paths to this command in the first place?

barry@RandomName:~$ which -a code
/mnt/c/Program Files/Microsoft VS Code/bin/code
/mnt/c/Users/Name/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin/code

Can anyone help please?

Answer 1

I've had this issue and it was solved doing:

1. Open Terminal on Windows and Type wsl
2. You will be on the wsl env
3. Type rm -rf ~/.vscode-server
4. Type logout to leave the wsl env
5. Then type wsl --shutdown
6. Try to Open VSCode and connect with WSL.

Answer 2

Ran into the same problem 5 min ago and this post from thesteve0 worked for me:

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/6294#issuecomment-1031974516

Quoting from the original post:

1. Open VS Code on Windows
2. Open Extensions and then search on WSL
3. It should say the extension needs to be reloaded - go ahead and reload it
4. Open WSL and type code
5. This should force another upgrade of code and this time it should launch.