disable extensions not working for extension debugging

[SimonSiefke]

• VSCode Version: 1.37.0-Insider
• OS Version: Ubuntu 18.10

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Download https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-extension-samples/tree/master/helloworld-minimal-sample
2. Add --disable-extensions to launch.json as described in https://code.visualstudio.com/api/working-with-extensions/testing-extension#disabling-other-extensions-while-debugging:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Run Extension",
      "type": "extensionHost",
      "request": "launch",
      "runtimeExecutable": "${execPath}",
      "args": [
        "--disable-extensions",
        "--extensionDevelopmentPath=${workspaceFolder}"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

Additional information:

• calling code-insiders --disable-extensions from the command line works as expected
• --disable-extensions in launch.json has worked in version 1.35, it stopped working in 1.36

[iansan5653]

I am seeing the same behavior. It launches Code with an editor called --disable-extensions, and all extensions remain enabled.

System Information

Version: 1.37.0-insider (user setup)
Commit: 9296aaa
Date: 2019-07-09T05:26:27.407Z
Electron: 4.2.5
Chrome: 69.0.3497.128
Node.js: 10.11.0
V8: 6.9.427.31-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.15063

Screenshot

Note how it's throwing a warning as it overwrites the installed extension with the version being tested.

Launch Configuration

{
  "name": "Extension Tests",
  "type": "extensionHost",
  "request": "launch",
  "runtimeExecutable": "${execPath}",
  "args": [
    "--disable-extensions",
    "--extensionDevelopmentPath=${workspaceFolder}",
    "--extensionTestsPath=${workspaceFolder}/out/test"
  ],
  "outFiles": [
    "${workspaceFolder}/out/test/**/*.js"
  ],
  "preLaunchTask": "npm: watch"
}

[iansan5653]

I just tried running the tests using the vscode-test module with launchArgs: ["--disable-extensions"] and that did succesfully disable the extensions, so this appears limited to just running as a debug task with type: "extensionHost".

[Septh]

Until this is fixed, using --disable-extensions=1 seems to do the trick:

  "args": [
    "--extensionDevelopmentPath=${workspaceFolder}",
    "--disable-extensions=1"
  ],

[weinand]

Please try and verify the fix in the next Insiders build.

[SimonSiefke]

works great, thanks!