Auto Attach for node js not working, Breakpoints not hit

[jameswestbv]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

• VS Code Version: 1.66.0
• OS Version: Linux x64 5.13.0-37-generic (Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Launch any node.js file from the terminal
   Debugger should auto attach (it does on Windows) and hit the break point - but it doesn't on Ubuntu

Ubuntu.mp4

Version: 1.66.0
Commit: e18005f
Date: 2022-03-30T05:50:41.156Z
Electron: 17.2.0
Chromium: 98.0.4758.109
Node.js: 16.13.0
V8: 9.8.177.11-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 5.13.0-37-generic

---

Expected behaviour on Windows 11 - same version of VS Code

Windows.mp4

Version: 1.66.0 (system setup)
Commit: e18005f
Date: 2022-03-30T05:50:14.623Z
Electron: 17.2.0
Chromium: 98.0.4758.109
Node.js: 16.13.0
V8: 9.8.177.11-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22000

[connor4312]

Can you please run echo $NODE_OPTIONS in your terminal and let me know what/if anything is printed?

[jameswestbv]

james@dev-api-101:~/test$ echo $NODE_OPTIONS
--require /home/james/.config/Code/User/workspaceStorage/83b135b3ec7cd3dbb3f565ff7bcfca1d/ms-vscode.js-debug/bootloader.js

[philippe-wm]

Same issue on Mac OS Monterey, M1 Pro. Switching Node from 16 Arm to 14 x86 doesn't help.

I can run with --inspect-brk and then use "Debug: Attach to Node Process" to debug.

[Platonn]

Same for me. It doesn't attach automatically.
VS Code 1.72.0. Mac OS Monterey v12.1. Macbook 2020 M1. Node v16.17.0

[Platonn]

Now I figured out what was wrong. I had some custom NODE_OPTIONS exported in my .bashrc. When I removed it, the Auto Attach feature started to work:

export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=8192"

I discovered that by enabling AutoAttach in VSCode, the VSCode is setting NODE_OPTIONS and VSCODE_INSPECTOR_OPTIONS, e.g.:

NODE_OPTIONS=--require "/Users/<User>/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/ms-vscode.js-debug/bootloader.js" --max-old-space-size=8192 ${env:NODE_OPTIONS}
VSCODE_INSPECTOR_OPTIONS=${env:VSCODE_INSPECTOR_OPTIONS}:::{"inspectorIpc":"/var/folders/8s/2dg05wjn62s42zzbvwm2by2w0000gn/T/node-cdp.10069-11.sock.deferred","deferredMode":true,"waitForDebugger":"","execPath":"/Users/<User>/.nvm/versions/node/v16.17.0/bin/node","onlyEntrypoint":false,"autoAttachMode":"always"

So my NODE_OPTIONS from my .bashrc overwritten the value set by VSCode. And that's why Auto Attach feature didn't work.

--
Finally, instead of removing my custom NODE_OPTIONS from .bashrc I just concatenated my options with whatever was set before (in this case: by VSCode), by including variable $NODE_OPTIONS as part of the string value:

export NODE_OPTIONS="$NODE_OPTIONS --max-old-space-size=8192"

[WookashWackomy]

@Platonn You've just saved an hour or two for me! I did not think that VSCode might make use of NODE_OPTIONS for debugging purposes...

[connor4312]

@jameswestbv do you have capabilties set on your Node binary? You may be hitting nodejs/node#37588

[jameswest368]

@connor4312 Yep - that seems to be it.

Doesn't seem like anyone is in a hurry to fix it - probably one of those things that people think that setcap shouldn't really be used and things should run purely unprivileged... 🥱

So either change your code to not need setcap or, in my case, or give it a bit of this

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_unprivileged_port_start=0

🙊

[connor4312]

Thanks. Apologies for the slow response, I forgot about that issue at the time and this fell off my queue. Closing as a dupe of that one..