Python interpreter option goes missing

[wangruoyuyuyu]

Type: Bug

I reinstalled Windows recently and installed VSCode and this extension,and installed Python 3.13 interpreter on the Microsoft Store.
Then I tried to select this interpreter,but nothing happened,even though I tried a few times. Then I restarted the IDE,and the extension stopped working,even the interpreter selecting button disappeared.
I tried to reinstall the extension and the IDE,but nether of them worked.
Normal:

Abnormal:

Extension version: 2025.18.0
VS Code version: Code 1.106.0 (ac4cbdf48759c7d8c3eb91ffe6bb04316e263c57, 2025-11-11T16:02:25.943Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2667 v4 @ 3.20GHz (16 x 3193)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: unavailable_off raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off trees_in_viz: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: unavailable_off vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	31.86GB (15.92GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id c8d40a1a-bbd1-495d-ab2a-b5dbec86d18a
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

A/B Experiments

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control_gpt5applypatchexclusively:31412085
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[LeiZhang-116-4]

I experienced the same bug last week, which appears similarly to this issue microsoft/vscode-python#25554. Rolling the Python extension back to 2024.16.0 and earlier works for me.

[wangruoyuyuyu]

I experienced the same bug last week, which appears similarly to this issue #25554. Rolling the Python extension back to 2024.16.0 and earlier works for me.

That works. Thanks.

[anthonykim1]

Maybe its related to environment extension rollout. I see env extension icon on first but not the second screenshot.

[eleanorjboyd]

can you try adding python.useEnvironmentsExtension: true to your user settings and see if that changes anything?

[DominiqueFuchs]

This is wild to me - this completely broke Python debugging and invocation functionality on a new VS Code installation today, spent half a day on this.

can you try adding python.useEnvironmentsExtension: true to your user settings and see if that changes anything?

No, this did not help. Just activated the extension that did then spin endlessly (!) trying to discover interpreters and environments.

It's not only a visual/UX bug, though. It literally broke python invocation without any helpful logs in the Python or Extension Host section. Even manually setting the interpreter, be it via command pallette or the python.defaultInterpreterPath, did not help. Running the debugger or using the run button on a Python file simply yielded absolutely nothing.

I experienced the same bug last week, which appears similarly to this issue microsoft/vscode-python#25554. Rolling the Python extension back to 2024.16.0 and earlier works for me.

Can confirm this works. Sadly pretty old, but at least it works again. Thanks a lot for the hint, I only unsuccessfully tried the last version from 4 weeks ago this morning.

[github-actions]

Hey @eleanorjboyd, this issue might need further attention.

@wangruoyuyuyu, you can help us out by closing this issue if the problem no longer exists, or adding more information.