Amazon Q authentication fails on VS Code 1.118.1 on Windows, but works after downgrading to VS Code 1.109.0

[felipemuchulski]

Summary

Amazon Q authentication does not complete on VS Code 1.118.1 on Windows.

The extension gets stuck during authentication and never creates a valid connection. After downgrading VS Code to 1.109.0, using the same Amazon Q extension version and the same AWS account, authentication works correctly.

This suggests a compatibility issue between newer VS Code versions and the Amazon Q authentication flow on Windows.

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Environment where it fails

• OS: Windows
• VS Code version: 1.118.1
• Amazon Q extension version: 2.0.0
• AWS Toolkit extension: tested both installed and not installed
• Authentication type: IAM Identity Center / Company account
• Browser: Microsoft Edge
• Network: no proxy configured
• AWS config: tested with and without .aws/config
• Regions tested: sa-east-1 and us-east-1

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Environment where it works

• OS: Windows
• VS Code version: 1.109.0
• Amazon Q extension version: 2.0.0
• AWS Toolkit extension: not installed
• Same AWS account
• Same IAM Identity Center Start URL
• Same authentication flow

After downgrading from VS Code 1.118.1 to VS Code 1.109.0, Amazon Q authentication started working again.

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Symptoms

On VS Code 1.118.1:

• Amazon Q gets stuck during authentication.
• Sometimes the UI shows Authenticating in browser....
• AWS/Amazon Q connection is never created.
• AWS: Add New Connection / connection-related commands either do nothing or do not complete.
• Amazon Q logs repeatedly show No connection found and PENDING_CONNECTION.

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Relevant log excerpts

connection isValid=false
connection isValidCodewhispererCoreConnection=false
connection isExpired=false
secondaryAuth isExpired=false
connection isUndefined=true