[Terminal] Reloading VS Code window sends interrupt signal to long-running tasks in tmux during Python environment activation

[gbdjxgp]

After activating the Python environment, every time I create a new terminal, it tries to input Ctrl+C followed by source xxx/activate. I understand the intention behind this is to activate the corresponding virtual environment, but isn't it inappropriate to casually send Ctrl+C like this?
My terminal was running a long-term task inside tmux at that time. However, after I reloaded the VS Code window, the Python plugin sent Ctrl+C into my tmux session, which caused my task that had been running for nearly 24 hours to fail.

[gbdjxgp]

Anthony Kim (@anthonykim1) Jannis Leidel (@jezdez) Harald Kirschner (@digitarald) João Moreno (@joaomoreno) Hey, can someone help me with this issue?

[gbdjxgp]

This design is really like poop. Do I have to wait for a few seconds after creating a new terminal to complete the source before I can proceed with subsequent operations? Moreover, as long as I create a new terminal and perform tmux Attach operations faster, this ctrl-c signal will be sent to the background program that has been running for a long time

[gbdjxgp]

#1375 #1288 #947 microsoft/vscode-python#23893 microsoft/vscode#298146 #1325 microsoft/vscode-python#25885 microsoft/vscode-python#25868 #640 microsoft/vscode-python#25744 microsoft/vscode-python#24589

[gbdjxgp]

Anthony Kim (@anthonykim1) Karthik Nadig (@karthiknadig) Eleanor Boyd (@eleanorjboyd) could one of you please take a look at this issue?

This problem is not limited to "Reload Window". Creating a new terminal can trigger the same behavior as well. The core issue is that environment activation goes through the executeCommand(...) path, and VS Code may send Ctrl+C before running the activation command. In tmux or any reused long-running shell session, that can kill unrelated user processes.

That is fundamentally unsafe behavior for terminal activation. An extension should not be sending Ctrl+C into an existing terminal session just to activate an environment.

A few questions:

1. Is anyone actively working on this issue?
2. If not, is anyone available to help review and land a fix?
3. More broadly, this behavior seems to have existed for quite a while. Was there a specific reason it remained unresolved despite the risk of interrupting user workloads?

[mateusscheper]

Same for me, but I'm using Kiro IDE. The AI agent runs something in a new terminal, the extension cancels it and the agent never gets the result. We really need a fix.

[gbdjxgp]

Same for me, but I'm using Kiro IDE. The AI agent runs something in a new terminal, the extension cancels it and the agent never gets the result. We really need a fix.

You can try Python Environments 1.37.2026072401—at least with that version I haven't run into that damn Ctrl-C issue (though it still randomly does source xxx and hits Enter anyway).

[thephet]

I am having the same issue, which just killed a tmux term which was working for 1 week.

[anthonykim1]

Please enable shell startup , it should activate environment without inserting source activate , so you wont end up with keyboard interrupt.

Guidance:
Please set python-envs.terminal.autoActivationType to shellStartup in your settings.
Also add "python.useEnvironmentsExtension": true, to your settings.json.