I am facing an issue where VS Code becomes unresponsive as soon as I try to open the terminal. Here’s what I have tried so far:

• Reset VS Code settings (via settings.json)
• Ran command --disable-extensions but still not responding
• Tried command --disable-gpu but no change
• Fully uninstalled VS Code, deleted all related folders, and reinstalled
• Checked PowerShell (PowerShell works fine in Command Line)
• Ran VS Code as Administrator

Even after all these attempts, VS Code crashes whenever I try to open the terminal (Ctrl + ~).

System Details:

• OS : Windows 10 (Version 10.0.19045.5371)
• VS Code Version : (1.97, fresh install)

Since VS Code freezes, I checked Developer Console (Ctrl + Shift + I) but couldn't find anything useful.

Has anyone faced a similar issue? How can I fix this?

I am facing an issue where VS Code becomes unresponsive as soon as I try to open the terminal. Here’s what I have tried so far:

• Reset VS Code settings (via settings.json)
• Ran command --disable-extensions but still not responding
• Tried command --disable-gpu but no change
• Fully uninstalled VS Code, deleted all related folders, and reinstalled
• Checked PowerShell (PowerShell works fine in Command Line)
• Ran VS Code as Administrator

Even after all these attempts, VS Code crashes whenever I try to open the terminal (Ctrl + ~).

System Details:

• OS : Windows 10 (Version 10.0.19045.5371)
• VS Code Version : (1.97, fresh install)

Since VS Code freezes, I checked Developer Console (Ctrl + Shift + I) but couldn't find anything useful.

Has anyone faced a similar issue? How can I fix this?

• visual-studio-code
• terminal

• Please provide enough code so others can better understand or reproduce the problem. – Community Bot Commented Feb 7 at 19:24
• I experienced a similar issue, turned out it was the terminal window loading on startup. Set "terminal.integrated.hideOnStartup" to "always" and VS Code loaded fine. – Schalk Commented Feb 10 at 8:31

2 Answers 2

A possible solution, see these issues: Opening terminal crashes the Application on newer version(1.97.0) and VSCode freezes when opening a terminal. Apparently a bug in v1.97.

Already fixed in the Insiders Build - and I see there is a vscode v1.97.2 update expected later the week of 2/10/2025.

v1.97.2 update with the fix was released on 02/13/2025.

There is a suggested temporary "fix" in the meantime:

Disable this setting: `Terminal › Integrated: Gpu Acceleration`

Or you could downgrade to vscode v.1.96.

Possibly this is broken again in 1.98.0, which I suspect it might be since I'm seeing the issue again on this version.

In contrast to the previous answer, I changed this setting from "auto" to "on" and it seems to be working correctly.