visual studio code 1 fails to launch on ubuntu using xrdp

Question

I've installed vscode 1.0 on ubuntu 14.4 LTS. It works fine if I log in locally with unity desktop and type the "code" command in the terminal.

However, when I rdp into the box I have to use xfce4 desktop because xrdp apparently doesn't work with unity, and when I try to launch it from the command line there I get no errors in the terminal but the UI never appears.

I did previously install an older version of vscode and did not uninstall that prior to installing 1.0 in case that could be a factor.

when I type

code --version

it correctly reports 1.0.0

anyone have any ideas to solve this? I really want to be able to work using rdp from my windows 10 machine

UPDATE: this problem seems to only occur using rdp, if I login locally with xfce4 it works as expected just as with unity desktop. My ubuntu box an intel nuc5ppyh with latest bios, I think maybe code is launching on a not visible display output. Previously the box was configured to mirror to an hdmi output at I use this also connected to a tv. I've tried disabling the hdmi output from the bios and messing around with xrandr but still cannot get it working over rdp. I'm not a linux expert but still think it might actually be loading code in a non visible display output but not sure how to troubleshoot the problem

Solution 1

This is happening due to an Electron bug, see issues tracking the bug below:

• Electron issue
• VSCode issue
• Atom issue

Solution 2

The suggested command from the second link above helps:

sudo sed -i 's/BIG-REQUESTS/_IG-REQUESTS/' /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1

Solution 3

The libgconf-2-4 package might be missing preventing the application to launch. This might help:

sudo apt-get install libgconf-2-4

Comments

[Joe Audette]

I could not get the workarounds mentioned in those links to work for me, in the end I uninstalled xrdp and installed tigervnc on the ubuntu box and now I'm able to use tightvnc viewer from my windows 10 machine and vscode does work for me with this combination

[stevieb]

This single fix allowed me to run vscode on my AWS instance over xrdp without any other changes.

[cerebrou]

Amazing solution!

[Anon]

It's actually due to a BIG-REQUESTS bug in whatever is acting like an X server e.g. some X implementations (e.g. Xming) or programs acting like X and resending the X display (e.g. xrdp, x2go, vncserver etc). The Arctica Project devs narrowed down a 2007 big requests bug fix in Xorg (link to the Xorg commit containing the big requests fix) and fixed it in their version of x2go. Modern TigerVNC (which builds against Xorg) is also fine.