Terminal only offers 8 bit color

[lunndal]

Type: Bug

When I disable or uninstall the PowerShell extension, choose any PowerShell Terminal Default Profile and restart VS Code, the terminal only displays 8 bit color when running the supplied test script. When running the same script in the Windows PowerShell terminal, outside of VS Code, the result is as expected.

Edit: I'm running VS Code and the external PowerShell window inside a Remote Desktop session. It does not seem to matter for the external window, but maybe it bears an impact on how VS Code handles colors?

Colors in use

$ wmic path Win32_VideoController get VideoModeDescription
VideoModeDescription
1250 x 1188 x 4294967296 colors

(Edit2: Screenshot corrected. Thanks @Tyriar)

Code to test

$esc = "$([char]0x1b)"
$out = (232..255) | ForEach-Object { "$esc[48;5;$($_)m $esc[0m" }
$out -join ""

settings.json

{
    "http.proxy": "http://aaa.bbb.ccc:NNNN",
    "http.proxyAuthorization": null,
    "http.proxyStrictSSL": false,
    "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
    "terminal.integrated.tabs.enabled": false,
    "terminal.integrated.enableMultiLinePasteWarning": true,
    "terminal.integrated.localEchoStyle": "dim",
    "workbench.colorTheme": "Visual Studio Dark",
    "terminal.integrated.minimumContrastRatio": 1,
    "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": {
        "PowerShell": {
            "source": "PowerShell",
            "icon": "terminal-powershell"
        },
        "Command Prompt": {
            "path": [
                "${env:windir}\\Sysnative\\cmd.exe",
                "${env:windir}\\System32\\cmd.exe"
            ],
            "args": [],
            "icon": "terminal-cmd"
        },
        "Git Bash": {
            "source": "Git Bash"
        },
        "Windows PowerShell": {
            "path": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe"
        }
    },
    "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "PowerShell",
    "terminal.integrated.gpuAcceleration": "off"
}

VS Code version: Code 1.82.2 (abd2f3d, 2023-09-14T05:55:25.390Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.17763
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6240 CPU @ 2.60GHz (2 x 2594)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: unavailable_software canvas_oop_rasterization: disabled_off direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: disabled_software multiple_raster_threads: disabled_off opengl: disabled_off rasterization: disabled_software raw_draw: disabled_off_ok video_decode: disabled_software video_encode: disabled_software vulkan: disabled_off webgl: unavailable_software webgl2: unavailable_software webgpu: unavailable_software
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	8.00GB (1.61GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id a9d6709a-eae5-4b26-98ad-c63feee23ee3
Screen Reader	no
VM	100%

Extensions (2)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
xml	Dot	2.5.1
markdown-all-in-one	yzh	3.5.1

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pythontb:30283811
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pythonptprofiler:30281270
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[Tyriar]

The screenshot shows you're using the PowerShell extension here, not a regular powershell terminal. Does it all work fine if you create it using standard pwsh?

[lunndal]

The screenshot shows you're using the PowerShell extension here, not a regular powershell terminal. Does it all work fine if you create it using standard pwsh?

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I seem to have attached the wrong screenshot. As mentioned I disabled the PowerShell Extension and the result comes out the same with or without the extension. I have updated the original post.

Edit: I'm running VS Code and the external PowerShell window inside a Remote Desktop session. It does not seem to matter for the external window, but maybe it bears an impact on how VS Code handles colors?

Colors in use

$ wmic path Win32_VideoController get VideoModeDescription
VideoModeDescription
1250 x 1188 x 4294967296 colors

Here is the correct screenshot:

[Tyriar]

@lunndal could you try enabling trace logging and get the Terminal log when you run this command? That will tell us what pwsh (or conpty) is telling us to print to see if it's an upstream issue or not.

[lunndal]

Sure thing!

terminal.log

[Tyriar]

I see this line:

2023-09-21 14:37:55.521 [debug] [15782cd] parsing data "  �[0;37;40;100m              �[0;37;47;8m      �[0;7m  �[0m�[0K�[?25l

This ends up running essentially this:

Write-Host "  `e[0;37;40;100m              `e[0;37;47;8m      `e[0;7m  `e[0m"

I was just writing up a detailed explanation of how to look into this but then I realized you're on an old version of Windows 10. Unfortunately that version of Windows does not ship conpty which is the new, much improved pty emulator developed by the Windows Terminal team:

You will need up upgrade Windows to fix this as we depend on the OS component.

[lunndal]

There might be some misunderstanding here. I'm on Windows Server 2019 Standard (10.0.17763 Build 17763), as the screenshot in the OP shows. Also, in the screenshot you can see that the Windows PS Terminal in the OS, outside of VS Code, does not have this problem.

[Tyriar]

@lunndal that's expected, it works in Windows Terminal because they ship their own version of conpty in product, separate to the one distributed with Windows. We would like to do the same but they don't ship a package yet that we can embed (tracked in microsoft/node-pty#490)

[lunndal]

@Tyriar I see. But is conpty enabled terminal supported in VS Code on Windows Server 2019 Standard (10.0.17763 Build 17763), as I am running?

[Tyriar]

@lunndal it's only available in build 18309+, and that's also quite an old version as this point

[lunndal]

EDIT: Tested and working on 2022. Thanks again for your help!

One last question before I let you go, @Tyriar :

Is this feature supported on Server 2022 LTSB?

[Tyriar]

@lunndal I'm not too familiar with Windows Server, typically it's based on the build number of Windows, so if that version is above 18309 I would expect it to work.