Summary

VS Code renderer crashes with:

The window terminated unexpectedly (reason: 'crashed', code: '5')

This happens during heavy Copilot Chat usage in a Remote-SSH workspace on macOS.

Impact

• Frequent interruption while coding.
• Current observed history: 13 renderer code-5 crashes between 2026-02-13 19:08:17 and 2026-02-19 18:06:09.

Environment

• VS Code: 1.109.3 (b6a47e94e326b5c209d118cf0f994d6065585705)
• OS: macOS (Darwin arm64 25.2.0)
• Copilot Chat: github.copilot-chat@0.37.6 (enabled, required for workflow)
• Copilot Labs: github.copilot-labs@0.17.1121 (disabled)
• Remote SSH: ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh@0.122.0

Repro (high-level, consistent in this setup)

1. Open a Remote-SSH workspace.
2. Use Copilot Chat heavily (including tool/terminal-oriented interactions) for ~15-60 min.
3. During periods of remote extension-host instability (unresponsive/responsive churn), continue chat/tool usage.
4. Renderer eventually terminates with code: 5.

Expected

VS Code window remains stable.

Actual

Renderer crashes (CodeWindow: renderer process gone (reason: crashed, code: 5)), extension host then exits cleanly because renderer closed the port.

What I already tested

• github.copilot-labs disabled (still reproduces).
• Kept github.copilot-chat enabled (required for workflow).
• Issue persists.

Latest crash (most useful sample)

• Main log:
  • 2026-02-19 18:06:09.300 [error] CodeWindow: renderer process gone (reason: crashed, code: 5)
• Crash dump at same timestamp:
  • 4829f379-b4ef-4519-a384-16a8fb9de262.dmp
  • Crashpad xattr indicates uploaded (upload_count=1, uploaded=1)

15-minute pre-crash signal counts (latest crash window)

Window analyzed: window32 log directory (.../logs/20260213T171853/window32/renderer.log)

• potential listener LEAK detected: 2
• InstantiationService has been disposed: 6
• tool-path markers (didExecuteTool/$invokeTool/LanguageModelToolsService): 8
• terminal OSC path markers (OscHandler/OscParser): 6
• remote unresponsive events: 20
• remote responsive events: 20
• before fetch request errors: 1

Representative log snippets

• Listener leak right before crash window:
  • 2026-02-19 18:05:52.478 [error] ... potential listener LEAK detected ...
• Remote churn right before crash:
  • 2026-02-19 18:06:05.145 [info] Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
  • 2026-02-19 18:06:06.231 [info] Extension host (Remote) is responsive.
• Renderer/tool/terminal stack signals observed repeatedly in this window:
  • InstantiationService has been disposed
  • stack frames include aFt.didExecuteTool, $invokeTool, OscHandler
• Extension host behavior at crash time (secondary consequence, not root):
  • Extension host terminating: renderer closed the MessagePort
  • Extension host with pid 66706 exiting with code 0

Crash history (timestamps)

2026-02-13 19:08:17.821
2026-02-13 20:07:38.320
2026-02-13 20:53:35.217
2026-02-13 21:46:54.517
2026-02-13 22:42:25.014
2026-02-13 23:12:22.149
2026-02-14 00:20:00.717
2026-02-15 16:07:40.995
2026-02-15 16:53:32.670
2026-02-15 17:46:13.331
2026-02-15 20:33:56.470
2026-02-19 16:26:15.378
2026-02-19 18:06:09.300

Notes for triage

• This appears renderer-side and correlated with Chat/tool execution path + remote churn.
• Happy to provide additional sanitized excerpts or narrowed repro if maintainers want a specific trace level / logging config.

Disclaimer: I used OpenAI's Codex with GPT-5.3-Codex to draft this issue body and organize logs/evidence. I haven't reviewed the content carefully.