VSCode will silently never auto-update if it is not explicitly moved from the "Downloads" directory to "Application"

[xhluca]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes/No

Related issue: microsoft/pylance-release#6710 (comment)

• VS Code Version: 1.89 -> 1.95
• OS Version: MacOS 14.5

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Install vscode, but forget to move it from "Downloads" to "Applications"
2. Vscode will never update automatically, making it fall behind over time.
3. Try to update manually will run into an error (see below)
4. Eventually, extensions installed on remote ssh server (which uses the same version as your local) will start subtly failing, sometimes it simply fails to boot. For example: Pylance does not boot properly and fails to highlight text when used on an SSH remote pylance-release#6710

The current error message:

Cannot update while running on a read-only volume. The application is on a read-only volume. Please move the application and try again. If you're on macOS Sierra or later, you'll need to move the application out of the Downloads directory. This might mean the application was put on quarantine by macOS. See this link for more information.

What needs to be done, specifically, is to move from Downloads to the "Application".

Suggestion

It would be good to update the error message to explicitly say:

Move the file "Visual Studio Code" from "Downloads" to "Applications"

The link could be updated to a more relevant link, which explains how to "unquarantine" VSCode: https://stackoverflow.com/a/65422671/13837091

That error message could appear as a popup if the extension tries to automatically update but fails. Right now, the popup only appears AFTER you try to manually update with Code: Check for updates....

[vs-code-engineering]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code, the latest stable release is 1.95.3. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[xhluca]

Thank you Mr. Bot, I am indeed talking about the issue with automatically updating from an older version to the latest version.