"The specified task cannot be tracked" before debugging

[yanghanlin]

Issue Type: Bug

After having today's update of VSCode installed, I cannot succesfully debug my C/C++ program any more.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Navigate to a file that needs ro run preLaunchTask before debugging, such as a .cpp file;
2. Press F5 or select Debug > Start debugging to start debugging.

Expected:

The task (in the case of .cpp file, it is to compile the current file) that should be run before launching is successfully executed, and the program is launched for debugging.

Actual:

There pops up a dialog that reads

The specified task cannot be tracked.

And the task that should be run are actually not executed.

Additional info:

When I have not installed this update and everything works well, the terminal panel will pop up and it can be seen that the tasks are being run. However, after this update, when I start debugging, the terminal panel does not pop up, which may indicate that the task needed are actually not being run.

I almost disabled all the extensions (only leaving the language pack and the cpptools extension) and the problem still occurs.

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.36.0-insider (6520c22, 2019-06-19T05:19:10.147Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.18917

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz (8 x 1800)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on native_gpu_memory_buffers: disabled_software oop_rasterization: disabled_off protected_video_decode: enabled rasterization: enabled skia_deferred_display_list: disabled_off skia_renderer: disabled_off surface_synchronization: enabled_on video_decode: enabled viz_display_compositor: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	7.92GB (1.20GB free)
Process Argv
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (2)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
vscode-language-pack-zh-hans	MS-	1.36.0
cpptools	ms-	0.24.0-insiders

[vscodebot]

(Experimental duplicate detection)
Thanks for submitting this issue. Please also check if it is already covered by an existing one, like:

• Change debugging tab to be tasks tab (#38969)

[isidorn]

@alexr00 can you please look into this?

[yanghanlin]

This issue may be the duplicate of #75774.

[alexr00]

@yanghanlin What happens if run the task from the command palette?

[alexr00]

Also, what does your launch.json and tasks.json look like? I created a C++ project, added a build task, and added a launch config that uses the build task as a preLaunch task. It all works as expected for me. If you have a repo I can clone to reproduce that would really help.

My task:

{
            "label": "build",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "msbuild",
            "args": [
                "project.vcxproj",
                "/property:GenerateFullPaths=true",
                "/t:build",
            ],
            "group": "build",
            "problemMatcher": "$msCompile"
        }

My launch config:

        {
            "name": "(Windows) Launch",
            "type": "cppvsdbg",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "Debug\\project.exe",
            "args": [],
            "stopAtEntry": false,
            "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
            "environment": [],
            "externalConsole": true,
            "preLaunchTask": "build"
        }

[yanghanlin]

@alexr00 If I attempt to run the task from the Command Palette, the task will not be executed either, and the terminal panel does not pop up as well. (I did not disable the extension cpptools, as I set the problem matcher as $gcc which can only be recognized by this extension.) This behavior is the same as described in #75774, therefore I think this issue is a duplicate of it.

[yanghanlin]

@alexr00 I will try to reproduce it and pack them into a repo. Please wait a minute.

[yanghanlin]

@alexr00 I have reproduced the error again and packed the necessary files into the repository YangHanlin/vscode-troubleshooting.

I can confirm that the same problem occurs in this directory with the current Insiders build, and it works well with the stable build (1.35.1) of VSCode.

You can reproduce the error by:

1. Clone the repo;
2. Open the directory in VSCode;
3. Navigate to the file hello-world.cpp and attempt to start debugging or run the task Compile current file.

Note that I am using g++ and gdb in Mingw-w64 as my toolchain. I am sorry that I don't know how to modify the configuration to use MSVC :-(

PS: During the time I tried to set up this repo, the VSCode received another update. Unfortunately, the tasks cannot run either after the update; and more unfortunately, as I attempt to start debugging, VSCode will not show the error dialog; instead, VSCode will close without any warning or error message.

(I've tried again, and VSCode (today's Insider build) does not suddenly closes now and still gives the error essage The specified task cannot be tracked. So the sudden "crash" I previously saw after the today's update may have nothing to do with this issue and may be more of a performance issue.)

[alexr00]

Yes, this is a duplicate of #75774

[vscodebot]

Thanks for creating this issue! We figured it's covering the same as another one we already have. Thus, we closed this one as a duplicate. You can search for existing issues here. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!