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Consider investigating symlink issue again #1843
Description
I hope it is not inappropriate for me to open an issue for an old-timer in hope that, as much time has passed, it can be re-investigated.
Java tests still do not work when the workspace path contains a symlink. It has been discussed numerous time in this repository, and determined at the time that the fault relied in vscode itself (and thus that the java-specific developers could do nothing about it). But the references, as far as I can tell, point to a now six years old (and very short) diagnostic.
Here are my reasons for re-opening.
First, I find it hard to believe that really the platform code makes it fundamentally impossible for java to make tests work because the platform would be somehow handling symlinks incorrectly (note that I could not find any problem with symlinks in vscode apart with the java extension, although I often program in python and R and use many other extensions and almost all my workspaces are under symlinks).
Second, it seems that nobody is working on this issue any more. The original bug report in the platform repository got closed by a bot (!); I tried to open a bug report in the platform repository but it attracted no attention. I suspect that the pf developers do not really believe that there is anything fundamentally flawed in their handling of symlinks (which leads us back to my first point). If the developers here still think that there is a problem in the pf approach, maybe they could comment there? I suspect that this would have more impact.
In any case, as I wrote there, I find it quite puzzling that such an advanced piece of software as vscode does not work with symlinks. It would be nice if this bug could be given some serious investigation!
Activity
github-actions commentedon Mar 2, 2026
Hi Olivier Cailloux (@oliviercailloux), I'm an AI Support assistant here to help with your issue. While the team reviews your request, I wanted to provide some possible tips and documentation that might help you in the meantime.
Current Status
There is no built-in fix in the Java extensions yet, but you can consider:
High-confidence References
JUnit tests not found on symlinked project folder (no tests shown, error “Failed to get workspace folder for the test item”).
• URL: JUnit tests not found on symlinked project folder #630
Windows symlink directory bug (Java extension uses internal sun.nio.fs API; fails on JDK 16+). Short‐term workaround: add:
• URL: Projects containing windows symlink directories are not recognized, nothing works redhat-developer/vscode-java#2264 (comment)
Other references with low confidence
• URL: Diagnostics do not work on symlinked files redhat-developer/vscode-java#2326
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