IntelliSense not working in VS Code

If IntelliSense is not working in VS Code on your Windows 11 or Windows 10 computer, then this post is intended to help you with solutions you can apply to easily resolve the issue on your system.

IntelliSense not working in VS Code

If you find IntelliSense or Autocomplete has stopped or not working, the language service may not be running on your Windows 11/10 computer. You can try the following suggestions in the order presented below to resolve the issue.

1. Install Extension
2. Restart VS Code
3. Update VS Code
4. Use Up and Down Arrow Keys
5. Reinstall VS Code

Let’s see the aforementioned suggestions in detail.

1] Install Extension

VS Code ships with a bunch of auto-complete features for some common keywords of programming languages. For more auto-complete features and a rich experience, you will have to install an extension specifically for that language.

Do the following:

Keep in mind that a particular language extension may not support all the VS Code IntelliSense features. You can review the extension’s README to find out what is supported. If you think there are issues with a language extension or you are still missing IntelliSense features after installing a language extension, open an issue in the repository of the language extension.

Read: Best C++ Extensions for Visual Studio Code

2] Restart VS Code

If IntelliSense is not working as it should on your Windows 11/10 PC, you can try restarting VS Code and this should solve the issue. Restarting the program can be really effective and time saving in some cases. If the issue persists, you can try restarting your computer altogether.

3] Update VS Code

In some cases, you may encounter this issue after you update VS Code. However, if this isn’t the case for you, we suggest updating VS Code and see if that helps. To perform this task, do the following:

• Open up VS Code.
• Click on the settings icon (gear icon) at the bottom left.
• Then, select Check for updates.

This will check for updates and tell you if any new update is available, and will download and install the latest bits for you. After it’s installed, you will need to restart the VS Code program.

This method is usually effective as with all software running on your system; if you are facing some issues in form of bugs or errors from the program. Updating your softwares regularly helps keep your PC, software and general user experience secure and also helps to fix the issues, bugs or some serious errors in the software.

Read: Visual Studio 2022 is now generally available

4] Use Up and Down Arrow Keys

If you are only getting one line as suggestion when typing text in the suggestion box, this can be caused by a variety of reasons but simple issue to fix. Actually, in some latest updates, many affected users reported that only one line is shown as suggestion. But it was also noted that using the up and down arrow keys will allow you get to select other suggestions as well.

You have to use the up and down arrow keys to select the one you want and click enter to add it. In order to see all the suggestions at once, move the mouse to the bottom of the box. Once your mouse pointer turns into an expand pointer, hold it down from the bottom and drag below to see all other suggestions.

5] Reinstall VS Code

As a last resort, if all the suggestions above didn’t work for you, re-installing the VS Code program is the most logical step which you can take towards solving the VS Code IntelliSense problem on your Windows 11/10 computer.

Hope this helps!

Read: How to disable VS Code Auto Update

Why is VS Code suggestions not working?

If you’re coding in JavaScript or TypeScript and finds that VSCode IntelliSense does work but does not behave properly, it’s likely that you’ve selected the wrong language mode. TypeScript and JavaScript share the same language service, so you need to select the right language.

How do I fix VS Code IntelliSense?

Here are the general solution you have to apply for fixing the IntelliSense issue with Visual Studio Code.

• Use Keyboard Help.
• Check Settings.
• Restart VSCode.
• Update VSCode.
• Select Correct programming Language Mode.
• Updates Old Language Extension.
• Reload the Extension.
• Reinstalling VSCode.

How does IntelliSense work in Visual Studio?

It works by recording text input and interpreting it upon syntax file. If IntelliSense in Visual Studio 2019 stopped working, the issue could be related to NuGet. In this case, to resolve the issue, just delete the contents of the packages folder. Close all instances of Visual Studio 2019. Delete the contents of the packages folder at the root of your local machine.