VS Code Debug Cell button disappears arbitrarily in Jupyter Notebook view

Question

I am developing a Python script in a Jupyter Notebook (ipynb file) in Visual Studio Code.

Arbitrarily, the "Debug Cell" run option disappears and I have not found a way yet to debug a specific notebook cell in a different way. I am just able to run the cell, but there is no way to debug the cell.

According to the VS Code documentation on "Jupyter Notebooks in VS Code - Debug a Jupyter Notebook" there should be this arrow visible, which allows to click on "Debug Cell".

After restarting VS Code the Debug option is usually again visible.

What am I doing wrong that this "Debug Cell" option becomes invisible for me or is this probably a bug? Has anyone else noticed this issue yet?

Answer 1

It is a known bug in VS Code and is still an open issue on their GitHub. (2+ years..)

The suggested workaround is to use 'Developer: Reload Window' from the command palette. It is only marginally faster than restarting VS Code altogether and you will lose workspace variables, remote connections, etc.