"Interrupting timed out... restart?" dialog leads to accidental restarts

[svank]

Applies To

• Notebooks (.ipynb files)
• Interactive Window and/or Cell Scripts (.py files with #%% markers)

What happened?

I often run code that takes a while to clean up and stop after receiving an interrupt. When the interrupt doesn't succeed after some number of seconds, VS Code shows a popup (pictured below) asking if I'd like to restart the kernel instead. When the pop-up appears, it steals focus (even if I'm in another window, waiting for the post-interrupt cleanup to finish) and the keyboard focus is on the "Restart" option. Twice now, it's stolen focus while I'm typing, and a push of Enter or Space has restarted my kernel, losing my state. Besides the state-loss risk, I've generally found this pop-up to be more annoying than helpful, as I know the interrupt will complete soon and I never want to restart as an alternative. I think that (a) the keyboard focus should default to "Cancel", not "Restart", and (b) it would be nice to have an option to disable this popup, for use-cases such as mine.

VS Code Version

Version: 1.106.2 Commit: 1e3c50d64110be466c0b4a45222e81d2c9352888 Date: 2025-11-19T16:56:50.023Z Electron: 37.7.0 ElectronBuildId: 12781156 Chromium: 138.0.7204.251 Node.js: 22.20.0 V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0 OS: Linux x64 6.5.0-45-generic

Jupyter Extension Version

2025.9.1

Jupyter logs

13:22:17.464 [info] Interrupt kernel execution
13:22:17.464 [info] Interrupt requested ~/Documents/Research/Sun/PUNCH/notebooks/polarized-stray-light2.ipynb
13:22:17.464 [info] Interrupt kernel execution
13:22:17.464 [info] Interrupting kernel: python3
13:22:27.473 [info] Interrupt requested & sent for ~/Documents/Research/Sun/PUNCH/notebooks/polarized-stray-light2.ipynb in notebookEditor.

Coding Language and Runtime Version

Python 3.13.2

Language Extension Version (if applicable)

v2025.18.0

Anaconda Version (if applicable)

No response

Running Jupyter locally or remotely?

Remote