Refreshing virtual environments keeps on spinning due to missing pyenv

[ehendrix23]

Within Visual Studio Code, at the bottom I keep on seeing "Refreshing Virtual Environments" with it spinning.

I've been able to narrow it down to the "Python Environments" extension. It was installed however I did not have "python.useEnvironmentsExtension" in my settings file.

Following is debug output for "Python Environments":

2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [debug] Python-envs extension version: 1.14.0
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [info] 
=== Python Envs Configuration Levels ===
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [info] {
  "section": "Python Envs Configuration Levels",
  "defaultEnvManager": {
    "workspaceFolderValue": "undefined",
    "workspaceValue": "undefined",
    "globalValue": "undefined",
    "defaultValue": "ms-python.python:venv"
  },
  "defaultPackageManager": {
    "workspaceFolderValue": "undefined",
    "workspaceValue": "undefined",
    "globalValue": "undefined",
    "defaultValue": "ms-python.python:pip"
  }
}
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [debug] TerminalEnvVarInjector: Initializing environment variable injection
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [debug] TerminalEnvVarInjector: Updating environment variables for all workspaces
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [debug] TerminalEnvVarInjector: Env file injection disabled for workspace: <workspace>
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [debug] TerminalEnvVarInjector: Environment variable injection completed
2025-12-12 08:11:21.598 [info] [pet] Starting Python Locator /Users/<myid>/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.vscode-python-envs-1.14.0-darwin-arm64/python-env-tools/bin/pet server
2025-12-12 08:11:21.599 [debug] Finder - refreshing all environments
2025-12-12 08:11:21.600 [info] getAllExtraSearchPaths completed. Total unique search directories: 0 Paths: []
2025-12-12 08:11:21.600 [info] [pet] configure: Sending configuration update: {"workspaceDirectories":["<workspace>"],"environmentDirectories":[],"poetryExecutable":"poetry","cacheDirectory":"/Users/<myid>/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/ms-python.vscode-python-envs/pythonLocator"}
2025-12-12 08:11:21.600 [debug] Finder - refreshing all environments
2025-12-12 08:11:21.601 [debug] Finder - refreshing all environments
2025-12-12 08:11:21.601 [debug] Finder - refreshing all environments
2025-12-12 08:11:21.614 [debug] Finder - refreshing all environments
2025-12-12 08:11:21.614 [debug] Finder - refreshing all environments

And following is the debug output from "Python":

2025-12-12 08:11:21.612 [debug] Testing: Setting up watcher for <workspace>
2025-12-12 08:11:21.612 [info] Native locator: Refresh started
2025-12-12 08:11:21.621 [debug] Dump environment variables {
    "COMMAND_MODE": "unix2003",
    "HOME": "/Users/<myid>",
    "HOMEBREW_CELLAR": "/opt/homebrew/Cellar",
    "HOMEBREW_PREFIX": "/opt/homebrew",
    "HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY": "/opt/homebrew",
    "INFOPATH": "/opt/homebrew/share/info:",
    "LANG": "C.UTF-8",
    "LOGNAME": "<myid>",
    "MallocNanoZone": "0",
    "OLDPWD": "/",
    "OSLogRateLimit": "64",
    "PWD": "/",
    "SHELL": "/bin/zsh",
    "SHLVL": "0",
    "SSH_AUTH_SOCK": "<listener>",
    "TMPDIR": "/var/folders/2n/4r5lk3vj50g4zbw4434kkynm0000gn/T/",
    "USER": "<myid>",
    "VSCODE_CODE_CACHE_PATH": "/Users/<myid>/Library/Application Support/Code/CachedData/618725e67565b290ba4da6fe2d29f8fa1d4e3622",
    "VSCODE_CRASH_REPORTER_PROCESS_TYPE": "extensionHost",
    "VSCODE_CWD": "/",
    "VSCODE_ESM_ENTRYPOINT": "vs/workbench/api/node/extensionHostProcess",
    "VSCODE_HANDLES_UNCAUGHT_ERRORS": "true",
    "VSCODE_IPC_HOOK": "/Users/<myid>/Library/Application Support/Code/1.10-main.sock",
    "VSCODE_NLS_CONFIG": "{\"userLocale\":\"en-us\",\"osLocale\":\"en-us\",\"resolvedLanguage\":\"en\",\"defaultMessagesFile\":\"/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/out/nls.messages.json\",\"locale\":\"en-us\",\"availableLanguages\":{}}",
    "VSCODE_PID": "70553",
    "XPC_FLAGS": "0x0",
    "XPC_SERVICE_NAME": "application.com.microsoft.VSCode.1033250394.1033250430",
    "_": "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron",
    "__CFBundleIdentifier": "com.microsoft.VSCode",
    "__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING": "0x1F5:0x0:0x0",
    "ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE": "1",
    "VSCODE_L10N_BUNDLE_LOCATION": "",
    "APPLICATION_INSIGHTS_NO_DIAGNOSTIC_CHANNEL": "true",
    "PATH": "/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/System/Cryptexes/App/usr/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/local/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/appleinternal/bin:/opt/pmk/env/global/bin:/Applications/Wireshark.app/Contents/MacOS:/usr/local/laps"
}
2025-12-12 08:11:21.622 [info] > pyenv which python
2025-12-12 08:11:21.622 [info] cwd: .
2025-12-12 08:11:21.661 [debug] Error: Command failed: pyenv which python
/bin/sh: pyenv: command not found

    at genericNodeError (node:internal/errors:983:15)
    at wrappedFn (node:internal/errors:537:14)
    at ChildProcess.exithandler (node:child_process:418:12)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:531:35)
    at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1101:16)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:304:5) {
  code: 127,
  killed: false,
  signal: null,
  cmd: 'pyenv which python'
}
2025-12-12 08:11:21.861 [debug] Received shell integration sequence for zsh

Issue thus seems to stem from pyenv not being on my Mac but I did not see anywhere requirements for this to be installed separately. Disabling "Python Environments" extension stopped the "spinning".

[eleanorjboyd]

Thank you for reporting this issue! Yes clearly something is going wrong.

@karthiknadig looking into this a bit it seems we might have some items activating in the Python extension that we don't want given the environments extension is in use. From the logs, I can see that the Python extension is searching for the pyenv executable (as it is in those logs) which when I traced it up the stack to this. Here we autoSelectInterpreter - > autoselectInterpreterWithLocators -> this.envTypeComparer.initialize(resource); -> const preferredPyenvInterpreter = await getActivePyenvForDirectory(cwd);. which then is where we look for pyenv, so that is the path I followed.

Do we expect autoSelectInterpreter to be activating when the python envs ext is enabled? Wondering on a higher level if I should disable this logic or if there is any interpreter logic that is kept in the python ext

[karthiknadig]

The autoSelectInterpreter should fallback to envs extension during the transition. Eventually, it should be removed in favor of env extensions selection system.