🐛 client: couldn't create connection to server (Error: spawn unknown)

[JesseOgunlaja]

VS Code version

1.100.3

Extension version

3.2.0

Biome version

2.26

Operating system

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux

Description

Installed biome.exe from https://github.com/biomejs/biome/releases/download/@biomejs/biome@2.2.6/biome-win32-x64.exe
Put the biome.exe in a folder which was in my path.
Installed the biome vs code extension and ran biome init in my codebase.

However everytime I open VS code it says biome client: couldn't create connection to server
I then look at the full output and it says

Error: spawn UNKNOWN
    at ChildProcess.spawn (node:internal/child_process:420:11)
    at Object.spawn (node:child_process:777:9)
    at c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:22294:48
    at BiomeLanguageClient.createConnection (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:19665:29)
    at BiomeLanguageClient.start (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:19202:33)
    at Session.start (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:22489:5)
    at Biome.start (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:22728:7)
    at Extension.startInstances (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:23279:7)
    at Extension.start (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:23142:5)
    at Extension.init (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:23106:5)
    at activate (c:\Users\24OgunlajaJ\.windsurf\extensions\biomejs.biome-3.2.0-universal\out\main.js:23288:3)
    at JC.n (file:///c:/Program%20Files/Windsurf/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/api/node/extensionHostProcess.js:119:14106)
    at JC.m (file:///c:/Program%20Files/Windsurf/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/api/node/extensionHostProcess.js:119:14069)
    at JC.l (file:///c:/Program%20Files/Windsurf/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/api/node/extensionHostProcess.js:119:13525)

However when I go to biome(global) in the output tab
there's no errors however when I go to the biome output tab specific to the folder I'm in biome(my-website) LSP it then has all these errors.

The same thing happens when I explicitly set the lsp.bin to the place where biome.exe is.
I got the same errors when installing it globally with npm.

Biome works when saving a file outside of the codebase I'm currently in (if I edit my global user settings.json biome will format fine, because biome(global) works but for actual files in my codebase don't work)

Steps to reproduce

1. Install biome.exe from https://github.com/biomejs/biome/releases/download/@biomejs/biome@2.2.6/biome-win32-x64.exe
2. Put in a folder which is in your PATH env variable
3. Install VS Code extension and run biome init
4. Try and use the extension in VS Code

Expected behavior

Expected it to detect the global install like it does in the biome(global) tab

Does this issue occur when using the CLI directly?

Not sure / Not applicable

Link to a minimal reproduction

No response

Logs

[JesseOgunlaja]

I fixed it with this

"biome.runFromTemporaryLocation": false,

Would still like to know why this error happened so leaving it open

[nhedger]

If you set VS Code's logging level to Debug, and see the biome(my-website) LSP tab, it should give us more information about what is happening. Looks like Windows cannot start the executable when it's being copied to the temp location.

I remember someone having the same issue because they had a policy on their machine that prevented running binaries from inside the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\workspaceStorage folder. They was also another instance where that folder was read-only.

[JesseOgunlaja]

I changed logging level to debug but no change in the detail of the error in the output tab.

I've got a similar policy but it stops everything from AppData being run on my computer, and the only place where cmd,exe and bat can be run properly is in Program files and I imagine the temporary location chosen by biome is outside of that and that's why it doesn't work.

[nhedger]

Yep, that would be it.

In that case setting biome.runFromTemporaryLocation to false is currently the only way to make this work.

Is this a commonly used policy ? You're only the second person that I see using this. If that's the case, we may consider introducing a setting for customizing the temp dir.

[JesseOgunlaja]

I wouldn't say it's very common, the only reason I'm encountering it, is because I'm on a school computer.
However, big corporations could have something like this incorporated to prevent malware but I'm not sure how commonly something like that is used.

Overall, it's not the biggest of problems but the most annoying thing is the error message lacking so much detail. If it had said problem with permissions in X folder I'd have known what to look for. Nevertheless, introducing customisable temp dirs wouldn't be too much hassle to create.