cscode remote development tools don't work

[lovettchris]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

OS/Web Information

• Web Browser:
• Local OS: Azure Linux
• Remote OS:Azure Linux
• Remote Architecture:
• code-server --version: code-server: v4.111.0
  Code: 1.111.0
  Commit: a6d80dc

Steps to Reproduce

Build azure container using this Dockerfile:

ARG BASE_IMAGE=mcr.microsoft.com/vscode/devcontainers/python:latest
FROM ${BASE_IMAGE}

RUN mkdir -p /root/workspace

RUN curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | bash \
  && apt-get autoremove \
  && apt-get clean \
  && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

RUN curl -fsSL https://code-server.dev/install.sh | sh

# Preinstall VS Code extensions so code-server comes ready to use.
COPY vscode-extensions.txt vscode-extensions.txt
RUN while read -r extension; do \
  code-server --install-extension "$extension"; \
 done <vscode-extensions.txt && \
 rm vscode-extensions.txt

CMD ["bash", "-c", "exec code-server --auth none --bind-addr 0.0.0.0:8000 --disable-update-check --app-name MSRHUB-CODE-SERVER /root/workspace"]

using vscode-extensions.txt containing:

ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh
ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-edit
ms-vscode-remote.vscode-remote-extensionpack

Then run it. You can see the remote developer tools icon, but when you click it you get no menu of choices, supposedly because the remote development tools themselves refuse to load in anything but official microsoft vscode versions. Would be cool if you could fix this. Would be very handy for debugging things in Azure virtual private networks.

Expected

Supposed to get a menu of remote connection options like this:

Actual

Empty popup

Logs

Extension host (remote) logs:

2026-03-14 00:16:40.401 [info] Extension host with pid 2533 started
2026-03-14 00:16:40.401 [error] Error: EEXIST: file already exists, open '/root/.local/share/code-server/User/workspaceStorage/-5a6b36f1/vscode.lock'
2026-03-14 00:16:40.401 [info] Lock '/root/.local/share/code-server/User/workspaceStorage/-5a6b36f1/vscode.lock': Could not acquire lock, checking if the file is stale.
2026-03-14 00:16:40.402 [info] Lock '/root/.local/share/code-server/User/workspaceStorage/-5a6b36f1/vscode.lock': The lock does not look stale, elapsed: 766 ms, giving up.
2026-03-14 00:16:40.416 [info] Lock '/root/.local/share/code-server/User/workspaceStorage/-5a6b36f1-1/vscode.lock': Lock acquired.
2026-03-14 00:16:40.546 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.github-authentication, startup: false, activationEvent: 'onAuthenticationRequest:github'
2026-03-14 00:16:40.546 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.emmet, startup: false, activationEvent: 'onLanguage'
2026-03-14 00:16:40.623 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.git-base, startup: true, activationEvent: '*', root cause: vscode.git
2026-03-14 00:16:40.664 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.git, startup: true, activationEvent: '*'
2026-03-14 00:16:40.664 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.github, startup: true, activationEvent: '*'
2026-03-14 00:16:40.937 [info] Eager extensions activated
2026-03-14 00:16:40.937 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.debug-auto-launch, startup: false, activationEvent: 'onStartupFinished'
2026-03-14 00:16:40.937 [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension vscode.merge-conflict, startup: false, activationEvent: 'onStartupFinished'

Screenshot/Video

No response

Does this bug reproduce in native VS Code?

Yes, this is also broken in native VS Code

Does this bug reproduce in VS Code web?

Yes, this is also broken in VS Code web

Does this bug reproduce in GitHub Codespaces?

Yes, this is also broken in GitHub Codespaces

Are you accessing code-server over a secure context?

• I am using a secure context.

Notes

No response