terraformls is installed despite it already being installed outside neovim

[djmattyg007]

Problem description

I've already installed terraformls using winget:

winget install Hashicorp.TerraformLanguageServer

And I even created a symlink from terraform-ls to terraformls.

But whenever I delete ~\AppData\Local\nvim-data\mason and re-run neovim (and run LazyHealth), Mason re-downloads terraformls.

I also have the same problem with the Lua language server. I've installed it with winget:

winget install LuaLS.lua-language-server

And lua-language-server.exe is in my PATH, but Mason downloads it itself anyway.

Why do you think this is an issue with mason-lspconfig.nvim?

Because there are notifications and log messages that clearly says the following:

[mason-lspconfig.nvim] installing terraformls
[mason-lspconfig.nvim] installing lua_ls

Neovim version (>= 0.7)

NVIM v0.11.3
Build type: Release
LuaJIT 2.1.1741730670

Operating system/version

Windows 11 24H2

I've manually reviewed the Nvim LPS client log (:LspLog) to find potential errors

• Yes

I've recently downloaded the latest plugin version of mason.nvim, mason-lspconfig.nvim, and nvim-lspconfig

• Yes

Affected language servers

all

Steps to reproduce

See problem description

Actual behavior

See problem description

Expected behavior

Mason should be able to utilise the software I've already downloaded with my package manager, rather than installing its own copy.

LspInfo

==============================================================================
vim.lsp:                                                                    ✅

- LSP log level : WARN
- Log path: C:/Users/matthew/AppData/Local/nvim-data/lsp.log
- Log size: 1 KB

vim.lsp: Active Clients ~
- No active clients

vim.lsp: Enabled Configurations ~

vim.lsp: File Watcher ~
- file watching "(workspace/didChangeWatchedFiles)" disabled on all clients

vim.lsp: Position Encodings ~
- No active clients

LspLog

There are some lines about `lua-language-server.exe` (the one I have installed via winget) being unable to open `bootstrap.lua` (no such file or directory).

Healthcheck

==============================================================================
mason:                                                                    9 ⚠️

mason.nvim ~
- ⚠️ WARNING mason.nvim version v1.11.0
  - ADVICE:
    - The latest version of mason.nvim is: v2.0.1
- ✅ OK PATH: prepend
- ✅ OK Providers:
    mason.providers.registry-api
    mason.providers.client
- ✅ OK neovim version >= 0.7.0

mason.nvim [Registries] ~
- ✅ OK Registry `github.com/mason-org/mason-registry version: 2025-08-19-painless-peen` is installed.

mason.nvim [Core utils] ~
- ⚠️ WARNING unzip: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: unzip failed with exit code - and signal -. unzip is not executable
- ✅ OK wget: `GNU Wget2 2.1.0 - multithreaded metalink/file/website downloader
`
- ✅ OK curl: `curl 8.13.0 (Windows) libcurl/8.13.0 Schannel zlib/1.3.1 WinIDN
`
- ⚠️ WARNING gzip: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: gzip failed with exit code - and signal -. gzip is not executable
- ✅ OK tar: `bsdtar 3.7.7 - libarchive 3.7.7 zlib/1.2.13.1-motley liblzma/5.4.3 bz2lib/1.0.8 libzstd/1.5.5
`
- ✅ OK pwsh: `7.5.2 Microsoft Windows 10.0.26100 Win32NT
`
- ✅ OK 7z: `7-Zip 25.01 (x64) : Copyright (c) 1999-2025 Igor Pavlov : 2025-08-03
`

mason.nvim [Languages] ~
- ⚠️ WARNING cargo: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: cargo failed with exit code - and signal -. cargo is not executable
- ⚠️ WARNING Ruby: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: ruby failed with exit code - and signal -. ruby is not executable
- ⚠️ WARNING RubyGem: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: gem.cmd failed with exit code - and signal -. gem.cmd is not executable
- ⚠️ WARNING Composer: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: composer.bat failed with exit code - and signal -. composer.bat is not executable
- ⚠️ WARNING PHP: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: php failed with exit code - and signal -. php is not executable
- ✅ OK node: `v22.18.0
`
- ✅ OK Go: `go version go1.25.0 windows/amd64`
- ⚠️ WARNING julia: not available
  - ADVICE:
    - spawn: julia failed with exit code - and signal -. julia is not executable
- ✅ OK luarocks: `luarocks 3.11.1
`
- ✅ OK python: `Python 3.13.7
`
- ✅ OK java: `openjdk version "17.0.16" 2025-07-15 LTS
`
- ✅ OK JAVA_HOME: `openjdk version "17.0.16" 2025-07-15 LTS
`
- ✅ OK javac: `javac 17.0.16
`
- ✅ OK npm: `10.9.3`
- ✅ OK pip: `pip 25.2 from C:\Users\matthew\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python313\Lib\site-packages\pip (python 3.13)

`
- ✅ OK python venv: `Ok`

mason.nvim [GitHub] ~
- ✅ OK GitHub API rate limit. Used: 0. Remaining: 60. Limit: 60. Reset: 19/08/2025 3:20:03 PM.
  Install and authenticate via gh-cli to increase rate limit.

Screenshots or recordings

No response