Error acquiring .NET runtime - VSCode Ubuntu 20.10

[mrcteacher]

Repro steps:

1. Dotnet 5.0
2. Run dotnet new blazorwasm -p
3. Open VSCode
4. Click [Yes] on the message that includes additional assets
5. Start debug [Launch and Debug Standalone Blazor WebAssembly App]

 Error!
The "args" argument must be of type object. Received type string ('--info')

There's a red status button - Error acquiring .NET runtimes!

Extension Version: 1.0.0
Error Message: The "args" argument must be of type object. Received type string ('--info')
Error Stack: TypeError [ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE]: The "args" argument must be of type object. Received type string ('--info')
at normalizeSpawnArguments (child_process.js:425:11)
at Object.spawnSync (child_process.js:575:16)
at Object. (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:67942)
at Generator.next ()
at /home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:64437
at new Promise ()
at n (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:64211)
at /home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:67865
at Object. (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:1:195071)
at Generator.next ()
at /home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:1:193638
at new Promise ()
at n (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:1:193412)
at Object.t.callWithErrorHandling (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:1:195019)
at Object. (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:67839)
at Generator.next ()
at /home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:64437
at new Promise ()
at n (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:64211)
at /home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.vscode-dotnet-runtime-1.0.0/dist/extension.js:157:67797
at S._executeContributedCommand (/snap/code/60/usr/share/code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/services/extensions/node/extensionHostProcess.js:86:106770)
at S._doExecuteCommand (/snap/code/60/usr/share/code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/services/extensions/node/extensionHostProcess.js:86:105915)
at S.executeCommand (/snap/code/60/usr/share/code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/services/extensions/node/extensionHostProcess.js:86:105821)
at Object.executeCommand (/snap/code/60/usr/share/code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/services/extensions/node/extensionHostProcess.js:95:21932)
at Object. (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.blazorwasm-companion-1.0.0/dist/acquireDotnetInstall.js:29:35)
at Generator.next ()
at fulfilled (/home/anonymous/.vscode/extensions/ms-dotnettools.blazorwasm-companion-1.0.0/dist/acquireDotnetInstall.js:9:58)
at runMicrotasks ()
at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:97:5)

[mrcteacher]

App runs fine, but cannot debug

[sfoslund]

@captainsafia I believe this is an issue with how the blazor extension is calling into the ensureDotnetDependencies command: https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore-tooling/blob/main/src/Razor/src/Microsoft.AspNetCore.Razor.VSCode.BlazorWasmDebuggingExtension/src/acquireDotnetInstall.ts#L23. We expect the arguments passed in IDotnetEnsureDependenciesContext to be of type cp.SpawnSyncOptionsWithStringEncoding, and you're passing a string: https://github.com/dotnet/vscode-dotnet-runtime/blob/976e80efc036f326c58163d39fbfbd1c24064e46/vscode-dotnet-runtime-library/src/IDotnetEnsureDependenciesContext.ts

Also, I would suggest wrapping this call in some sort of try catch to produce a better error message and since a failure on this command does not necessarily mean that the rest of the install has failed.

[captainsafia]

@sfoslund You can transfer this issue to the aspnetcore repo for tracking there.

[ghost]

Thanks for contacting us.
We're moving this issue to the Next sprint planning milestone for future evaluation / consideration. Because it's not immediately obvious that this is a bug in our framework, we would like to keep this around to collect more feedback, which can later help us determine the impact of it. We will re-evaluate this issue, during our next planning meeting(s).
If we later determine, that the issue has no community involvement, or it's very rare and low-impact issue, we will close it - so that the team can focus on more important and high impact issues.
To learn more about what to expect next and how this issue will be handled you can read more about our triage process here.

[kattunga]

Is there any known workarround?
By the moment the only solution that I found is to use a combination of code-insiders with a previous c# extension (version 1.23.9)

[captainsafia]

@kattunga We'll have a fix for this out soon!