When reopening VS Code, recent chat sessions can’t be opened.

[DeepCoach]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: This bug should be caused by the extension—GitHub Copilot Chat.

• VS Code Version: 1.111.0
• OS Version: Windows _NT x64 10.0.26200

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Close the VSCode client (I’m using a remote host connected via SSH).
2. After reopening, I found that recent chat sessions couldn’t be opened. This issue has happened more than once. Strangely, sessions that couldn’t be opened when I encountered the same issue before became openable again after a few days.

[DeepCoach]

I’ve been encountering this issue since version 1.110.1

[michele-barone]

Same here with VS Code 1.117.0
I closed the conversation window, pinned the chat and now it is empty also if it is in list.

[dongshunyao]

If anyone in this thread sees Log file is missing an initial entry or Malformed session data in <path> in the window log (Help → Toggle Developer Tools → Console), that specific flavor is the on-disk corruption tracked in #308730 — the session file lost its kind:0 first line — and it's repairable: https://github.com/dongshunyao/vscode-copilot-chat-doctor (run with -DryRun first; it reports exactly which session files are damaged without changing anything). If the files are missing entirely or the error differs, it's likely a different cause.

[chrmarti]

Thanks for the report. This is covered by #299231, which tracks chat sessions becoming inaccessible after VS Code is reopened and already contains confirmed reproductions and restoration logs. The Remote-SSH context and observation that sessions may recover after several days are useful additional details for that investigation.

/duplicate of #299231