Claude Code not working in VS Code

Three version numbers decide most of this

Three numbers settle the majority of these reports: the VS Code version, the extension version, and whether the window you are in is a local one or a remote one. The extension's prerequisites ask for VS Code 1.94.0 or later, and the steps for a blank panel ask for the extension at 2.1.309 or later. The extension's version appears in the Extensions view beside its name, which is where Anthropic's own instructions send you to read it.

A remote window matters because it changes what runs where. In a WSL, SSH or dev container window the extension runs on that machine, and Anthropic's one WSL-specific instruction makes that concrete: when a certificate file is involved, it says to save the file and edit the settings on that system, not on your local computer.

Remote windows also carried the fault in the October 2026 blank-panel wave. VS Code 1.141.1, published on October 13, blanked webviews in remote windows whose name carries a capital letter, a WSL distro called Ubuntu among them, and 1.141.2, published the next day, fixed it. So on a remote window, check the editor's version before you touch the extension.

One number you do not need is an API key. Anthropic's prerequisites name any paid Claude subscription or a Claude Console account, and say no API key is required for the extension to work.

The panel is blank or could not load

The documented meaning of blank is exact: the panel opens and shows nothing at all, not even the prompt box. Anthropic's steps for that state run in one order, and the log at the end of it has two doors: one for a panel still blank on 2.1.309 or later, and one for a notice whose own steps did not help.

1. Update the extension to 2.1.309 or later in the Extensions view.
2. Run Developer: Reload Window from the Command Palette. That restarts the extension host, which is the cheapest thing to try before reading a log.
3. If a Claude Code couldn't load notice appears, work through the steps it lists, in its order.
4. If the panel is still blank on 2.1.309 or later, open the log with Claude Code: Show Logs and report the issue with a copy of that log.
5. If the notice's steps did not help, click Show logs in the notice and report from there.

The version comes first because this panel has had blank and frozen states fixed in it repeatedly. 2.1.309 itself fixed the panel staying blank after the editor cached an incomplete copy of its files, and the changelog records 2.1.285 fixing a Claude tab that stayed blank after an extension restart instead of saying how to recover, and 2.1.301 fixing a conversation that crashes or freezes the panel being reopened on every reload.

What Anthropic's page does not carry is a webview error you can look up. The words webview and 401 appear nowhere on it, so a console line naming webview/index.js has no documented entry to match. For that case the reports below are the better lead.

Nor is there a setting to turn the panel off and on again. The extension's settings table covers permissions, where Claude opens, autosave, timestamps and the process wrapper, and none of it touches the webview, which is the other reason the documented route is a window reload and then the log.

A blank panel in a WSL window after a VS Code update

Reports filed on October 13 and 14, 2026 describe the same scene. The Claude Code panel is empty in a WSL window, no prompt box and no session history, while the extension activates and signs in normally. The webview never renders, and the failed requests name the extension's own files:

GET https://vscode-remote+wsl-...vscode-resource.vscode-cdn.net/home/<user>/.vscode-server/extensions/anthropic.claude-code-2.1.296-linux-x64/webview/index.js net::ERR_ABORTED 401 (Unauthorized)
GET .../webview/index.css net::ERR_ABORTED 401 (Unauthorized)

Read that as an extension fault and you will spend an afternoon on it. The same fault was filed against VS Code, where it reproduced with every extension disabled and took the built-in Markdown preview down with it, because resources served from vscode-resource.vscode-cdn.net returned 401 in that window.

That makes it an editor bug, and the release dates fit. VS Code 1.141.0 shipped on October 7, 1.141.1 on October 13, and 1.141.2 on October 14. The report against VS Code lists 1.140.0 as working on the same machine with only the downgrade changed, and 1.141.2 as the fix.

Two commenters on that Claude Code issue reached the same conclusion. One reported rolling back to 1.140.0 as a temporary fix; another reported 1.141.2 as the release that clears it. Microsoft's own fix backs both: pull request #341508 went into release/1.141 on October 14, 2026 at 10:57 UTC, and its commit 9b730787 is contained in the 1.141.2 tag. The VS Code issue itself was closed that morning without a comment, and its milestone is 1.142.0.

The mechanism is in Microsoft's own summary of the fix: webview resource URLs carry the remote authority in an HTTPS hostname, the browser lowercases that hostname, and the remote-OS lookup compared the two with strict equality, so it rejected otherwise valid resources with 401. The authorities the fix names are wsl+Ubuntu and wsl+FedoraLinux-44. A commenter on the second report, #101865, traced the same path and drew the boundary that fits the reports: distros with an all-lowercase name should not be affected, because their authority survives the lowercasing unchanged.

The workarounds people tried before the release landed are worth knowing so you do not repeat them. Clearing the service worker cache, starting with --disable-gpu, running wsl --shutdown, and deleting ~/.vscode-server/bin all left the panel blank, which is what you would expect when the broken part is the editor's resource loader and not your extension state.

The fix is to update VS Code. 1.141.2 came out on October 14, 2026, 1.142.0 followed the same day, and 1.143.1 is the newest in the release list as we read it. If you cannot update, downgrading to 1.140.0 restores the panel. This one was never the extension's to fix.

The Spark icon is missing, or the extension will not install

When the extension will not install, Anthropic names three checks: a VS Code version of 1.94.0 or later, permission for VS Code to install extensions, and an install straight from the VS Code Marketplace.

When it installs but the Spark icon never appears, five things are worth checking in this order. The icon shows in the Editor Toolbar only while a file is open, so a window holding just a folder shows nothing. VS Code must be 1.94.0 or later, which Help > About reports. A Developer: Reload Window from the Command Palette restarts the extension host. Anthropic's fourth step is to turn other AI extensions off temporarily, naming Cline and Continue. And the extension does not work in Restricted Mode, so the workspace has to be trusted.

There is a route that does not need a file open: click the Claude Code item in the Status Bar at the bottom right of the window, or open the Command Palette and type Claude Code. Both reach the panel when the toolbar icon cannot.

Where the view opens is worth a check too, since a view that opens somewhere you were not looking reads as one that did not open. The preferred location setting defaults to panel, which in VS Code means a new editor tab, and terminal mode is off by default, so an unchanged install opens the graphical view as a tab.

claude is not found in VS Code's terminal

This one surprises people because the extension plainly works. Anthropic's note is direct: the extension bundles a private copy of the CLI for its chat panel, and installing it does not put claude on your shell PATH. Typing claude in a terminal needs the standalone CLI install.

On Windows the extension goes further and refuses rather than guesses. When the terminal is PowerShell and it cannot find the installed claude on PATH, it blocks the launch and says so:

Failed to run Claude Code: Error: Could not locate the Claude CLI on PATH. Launching by name in a PowerShell terminal would run a 'claude' from the open folder instead of the installed CLI, so the launch was blocked. Make sure the Claude CLI's install directory is on your system PATH (not only your PowerShell profile), then restart VS Code and try again. VS Code reads PATH when it starts, so PATH changes take effect only after a restart.

1. Open a PowerShell window outside VS Code and run where.exe claude. No path printed means the CLI is not on PATH at all, so install it or add its directory.
2. Set the PATH entry as a user or system environment variable. A line in your PowerShell profile never reaches the extension, because the extension does not run your profile.
3. Restart VS Code. The extension checks the PATH that VS Code captured when it started, so a change made while it is running does not count.

Once claude runs in VS Code's terminal, it is not the same surface as the panel, and knowing the difference saves a second report. The panel gives you a subset of the commands and skills: type / to see what it has. The ! shortcut for running a shell command and tab completion exist in the CLI and not in the panel.

The two also keep each other installed. If you run claude in VS Code's terminal, Claude Code reinstalls the extension automatically, and the setting that stops it is Auto-install IDE extension in /config.

When the panel opens and then stalls

Several documented states look like a broken panel and are not, and each has its own remedy. They differ by what is on the screen, which is the quickest way to tell them apart.

A resumed conversation that starts blank

A conversation you resume, or one that comes back after a reload, can sit blank while its Claude Code process starts. After about a second, Waiting for your plugins… appears in the empty space, and the messages arrive once the process starts. Anthropic's upper bound is 20 seconds, and the advice is to do nothing.

The panel freezes or says Something went wrong on every reload

That pattern, a crash, a freeze, or only Something went wrong each time you reload and the conversation returns, is the one Anthropic ties to a version. Update the extension to 2.1.301 or later, then reload the window or restart VS Code.

A conversation that was not reopened

A new chat with a notice above its prompt box means the panel left your conversation closed on purpose, because its last two opens did not finish:

“Fix the login bug” was not reopened. It did not finish opening the last 2 times, and opening it again may stop Claude Code from responding here.

An open counts as unfinished when the panel crashes or stops responding while loading the conversation, or when you reload or close the window within about three seconds of it opening. Nothing is lost. Click Open it anyway, or pick the conversation from session history, and later reloads carry it again.

This conversation is still open somewhere else

This notice replaces the prompt box when another process still holds the conversation:

This conversation is still open somewhere else. Using it in two places at once can mix up its messages. If the extension restarted recently, a Claude process from before the restart may still be finishing. It usually ends on its own within about 10 minutes. This notice stays until you choose Open here anyway.

Those leftover processes usually end within about ten minutes, and waiting that long then clicking Open here anyway is the documented route. Version 2.1.307 widened the notice to cover a process left over from an extension restart, so on an older build the same scene may have shown something else.

Claude Code never responds at all

When nothing is wrong on screen and prompts do not answer, Anthropic's three steps are to check the internet connection, start a fresh conversation to see whether the first one is the problem, and run claude in a terminal to read the more detailed error it prints.

Error messages on the screen

A panel that printed an error is further along than a blank one, because the text names where to look. These are the ones the extension itself prints.

Claude Code process exited with code 1

The exit code alone does not say what failed. Anthropic's advice is to follow the View output logs link shown with the error, and to run claude in a terminal in the same project, where the underlying failure usually reproduces with its real message. On Windows there is one variant that is not a failure at all: the native build can exit with code 4294967295 right after a turn completes, and since 2.1.273 the extension closes that session quietly instead of showing the error. Before 2.1.273 it showed the error at every turn boundary even though nothing was lost.

The connection to Claude Code ended before this message completed

Send the message again. The next message starts a fresh claude process that resumes the conversation. If it keeps happening, run claude in a terminal in the same project, where a process that keeps dying usually shows its real error.

Sign-in errors right after you signed in

Two sign-in rows sit in the extension's own troubleshooting table, and both send you to the install and login page: API Error: 403 Request not allowed after you sign in, and being asked to sign in again after you already have. The 403 points at the account rather than the editor, while the second is the expired token case. OAuth error: Invalid code is not on the extension's page at all; it is on that login page, where it means the code expired or was cut short between the browser and the paste, and retrying while the browser is still open is the fix.

The rest of the message family has its own pages here: the Claude Code error messages guide carries the messages people paste most often, and the login errors guide covers the sign-in path in order.

Open reports worth knowing about

Not every report on this surface is a blank panel, and knowing which ones are still open saves you from chasing a fix that does not exist yet. All four below were open when we read the tracker on October 26, 2026.

• A black panel on extension 2.1.296, where the extension host looks healthy and the webview's script fails with a SyntaxError, reported with 2.1.295 working. This is close enough to the blank-panel family to try the version steps above first.
• Sign-in answering Request failed with status code 400 in the extension, with the CLI reading Invalid code on the same machine. That one belongs to the account path rather than the panel, and our login errors guide walks it.
• Shift and drag of a file from the Explorer into the chat, which stopped working for the reporter after a VS Code update. The panel itself still renders, so none of the checks above apply.
• A mod's hooks and commands running while nothing the mod draws appears. That is the mod surface rather than the extension's own panel, and our mods guide covers what a mod is meant to draw.

Treat every one of these as a report from a user and not as documented behaviour. A feature request or an open report describes what happened to one person on one build, which is a lead rather than a rule.

JetBrains, IntelliJ and the other editors

The JetBrains side is built differently, and that difference explains most of its failures. The plugin runs the claude command inside the IDE and connects to it, and it bundles no copy of the CLI, so both pieces have to be installed. When claude is not on PATH, the plugin shows a Cannot launch Claude Code notification instead of a panel.

If it is installed and features are still missing, Anthropic's checks are to run Claude Code from the project root, confirm the plugin is enabled in the IDE's settings, restart the IDE completely, possibly more than once, and install the plugin on the remote host when you are in remote development.

Two message shapes cover the rest. No available IDEs detected from the /ide command means the plugin is not installed or enabled, or the IDE needs a full restart, or you expected an automatic connection without running /ide and did not launch claude from the IDE's terminal. A command not found reply when you click the Claude icon means the CLI is missing or the plugin's configured command path is wrong.

On WSL2 the same message has a second, documented cause, which matters on a page about editor problems: NAT networking or Windows Firewall can block the connection between WSL2 and the IDE running on the Windows host, while WSL1 is not affected. The fix Anthropic recommends is a firewall rule admitting your WSL2 subnet, and the alternative is switching WSL2 to mirrored networking.

The recent reports against the plugin are narrower than a dead panel. Two open issues describe the tab the toolbar button opens rather than the plugin failing: its title stays fixed at Claude Code instead of following the session, and dictation software cannot paste into it although a tab started by typing claude accepts the same text.

Cursor takes the same extension as VS Code, through Anthropic's own install link, so the checks above apply there. For every editor, the remote question stays the same: the October blank-panel wave hit remote windows whose name carries a capital letter, such as a WSL distro called Ubuntu, and it was fixed in the editor.

Why Omniscio is not the fix here

We make Omniscio, a desktop app for running several agent sessions side by side, and this is one of the pages where it does not help. Omniscio is a standalone desktop application, and it ships no extension for VS Code, Cursor or JetBrains. Installing it cannot make a webview render or clear a 401.

One thing it does touch is the CLI. The first-run setup offers to install Claude Code for you, and it first tries Anthropic's own install script, then npm, then winget on Windows. That puts a claude where Omniscio can spawn it for its own sessions. It is not the same question as the PATH VS Code's extension reads, and it does not change editor settings for you.

It is an Electron app with its own windows, not a plugin inside someone else's editor. Its diff viewer is built on Monaco, the same editor engine VS Code uses, which is why a diff there looks familiar, and its Open in editor button hands a file to whatever your system opens that file type with, which is often VS Code. Those two points of contact are the closest the two get.

So the honest summary is that every fault on this page belongs to Anthropic's extension and to VS Code, and none of them is ours to repair. If you arrived here hoping for an Omniscio setting that fixes the panel, there is not one, and we would rather say that than sell you something that does not exist.

Sources

Anthropic's Claude Code documentation, read in its Markdown form on October 26, 2026, with the changelog's newest release at 2.1.310, dated October 23, 2026:

• Use Claude Code in VS Code: the prerequisites, the install checks, the panel-blank steps, the Spark icon checks, the notices that replace the prompt box, the extension-versus-CLI comparison and the settings table. Read October 26, 2026.
• Errors: Could not locate the Claude CLI on PATH, Claude Code process exited with code N, and The connection to Claude Code ended before this message completed. Read October 26, 2026.
• Troubleshoot installation and login: the PATH checks, 403 Forbidden after login and OAuth error: Invalid code. Read October 26, 2026.
• JetBrains IDEs: how the plugin runs the CLI, its plugin-not-working, IDE-not-detected and command-not-found sections, and its WSL2 networking and firewall section. Read October 26, 2026.
• The changelog: the 2.1.285, 2.1.301, 2.1.307 and 2.1.309 notes, and the newest release, 2.1.310. Read October 26, 2026.
• Reports in Anthropic's Claude Code issue tracker: the blank-panel reports and their comment threads. Read through GitHub's API on October 26, 2026.
• microsoft/vscode#341474: the editor-side report for blank webviews in WSL remote on 1.141.1, its note that the built-in Markdown preview was blank too with every extension disabled, and its close on October 14, 2026. Read October 26, 2026.
• microsoft/vscode#341508: Microsoft's fix, merged into release/1.141 on October 14, 2026, with its own statement of the mechanism. Read October 26, 2026.
• VS Code releases: the publication dates of 1.141.0, 1.141.1, 1.141.2, 1.142.0 and 1.143.1. Read October 26, 2026.

Omniscio's own source and library, for what this page says about this app:

• The diff viewer in the library: that it is built on Monaco, the editor engine VS Code uses. Read October 26, 2026.
• Our own package.json: that Omniscio is a standalone desktop application, that it is an Electron app, and that its build produces desktop installers for Windows, macOS and Linux with no IDE-extension target. Read October 26, 2026.
• First-run and startup fixes in the library: that the first-run setup offers to install Claude Code. Read October 26, 2026.
• Our own source, for the diff viewer's Open in editor button handing the file to the system's default app, and for the installer trying Anthropic's own install script first, then npm and winget. Read October 26, 2026.

Common questions

Why is the Claude Code panel blank in VS Code?

Anthropic's first step is to update the extension to 2.1.309 or later in the Extensions view, then run Developer: Reload Window from the Command Palette. If a Claude Code couldn't load notice appears, work through the steps it lists in order. If the panel is still blank, open Claude Code: Show Logs and report the issue with that log. In a WSL window whose distro name has a capital letter, such as Ubuntu, check the VS Code version first: 1.141.1 broke webviews there and 1.141.2 fixed it.

Does the Claude Code extension need the CLI installed?

Not for the chat panel. The extension bundles its own copy of the CLI for the panel. Typing claude in VS Code's own terminal does need the standalone install, because installing the extension does not put claude on your PATH. The JetBrains plugin is the other way round: it runs the claude command and bundles no copy of it.

Why did the Claude Code panel go blank in WSL after a VS Code update?

Because VS Code 1.141.1 broke webviews in remote windows whose name carries a capital letter, such as a WSL distro called Ubuntu, and the Claude Code panel was one of the casualties. That build returned 401 for the extension's own webview files and left the built-in Markdown preview blank with every extension disabled. VS Code 1.140.0 worked and 1.141.2, published on October 14, 2026, fixed it, so update VS Code rather than the extension.

Why is the Spark icon not showing in VS Code?

The icon appears in the Editor Toolbar only while a file is open, so a window with just a folder open shows nothing. Anthropic's other checks are VS Code 1.94.0 or later, a Developer: Reload Window, other AI extensions such as Cline or Continue switched off, and a trusted workspace, because the extension does not work in Restricted Mode. The Claude Code item in the Status Bar opens the panel without a file open.

Why does the extension say it cannot find the Claude CLI on PATH?

On Windows, when the terminal is PowerShell, the extension blocks the launch rather than risk running a claude from the open folder. Run where.exe claude outside VS Code, set the PATH entry as a user or system environment variable instead of in your PowerShell profile, then restart VS Code. The extension does not run your profile, and it reads PATH only when VS Code starts.

What does it mean when Claude Code says the conversation is still open somewhere else?

Another Claude process still holds that conversation, often one left over from an extension restart. Those usually end within about ten minutes. Click Open here anyway to continue in this window, or close the conversation where it is open, for example by exiting claude in a terminal or closing its tab in another window.

Does the extension work in JetBrains, Cursor and other editors?

The JetBrains plugin is a separate piece that runs the claude command, so it installs alongside the standalone CLI and shows Cannot launch Claude Code when claude is not on PATH. Cursor takes the same extension, from Anthropic's own install link. The troubleshooting on this page is written for VS Code, and a remote window behaves differently from a local one.

Is there an Omniscio extension for VS Code?

No. Omniscio is a standalone desktop application that runs agent sessions in its own windows, and it ships no VS Code, Cursor or JetBrains extension, so installing it cannot repair a panel that will not render. It can install the Claude Code CLI for its own sessions, which is a separate question from the PATH your editor reads and changes nothing in VS Code.