Terminal unexpectedly "scrolls" to the top

[eekcoopuw]

Type: Bug

When I have a long terminal scrollback, this sometimes (often) happens:

After getting some new terminal output, I'm looking at a terminal prompt at the bottom of the screen. But when I try to scroll up with the scroll wheel or the PGUP key, it doesn't scroll up. Then I notice that the vertical scrollbar indicator is randomly at the top of its trough, instead of the bottom where it should be. And consistent with that, if I now hit PGDN the terminal window re-renders the second-from-the-top page, as if the scroll position really was at the top and it just hadn't rerendered yet. Once I have "reset" it in that manner, it starts to behave properly like a scrollbar.

This has been true for many months now, through several VS Code upgrades.

What I want: For the scroll bar to behave like any other scroll bar. If I get some new terminal output and it is showing me the last lines of output, I expect the scroll bar to act consistent with that. If the terminal window is displaying the last lines of output, then PGUP should take me to the previous screenful of output, whereas in this condition it simply doesn't change anything.

VS Code version: Code 1.100.0 (Universal) (19e0f9e, 2025-05-07T12:48:53.763Z)
OS version: Darwin arm64 24.4.0
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Apple M3 Pro (11 x 2400)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	6, 6, 7
Memory (System)	18.00GB (0.07GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id b8d5f70c-51e2-4c88-a504-d4ee24e37442
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (17)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
meld-diff	dan	1.5.1
docker	doc	0.6.0
gitlens	eam	17.1.0
copilot	Git	1.322.0
copilot-chat	Git	0.27.0
groovy	Mel	1.0.0
vscode-docker	ms-	1.29.6
black-formatter	ms-	2025.2.0
debugpy	ms-	2025.8.0
python	ms-	2025.6.1
vscode-pylance	ms-	2025.5.1
remote-containers	ms-	0.413.0
makefile-tools	ms-	0.12.17
vsliveshare	ms-	1.0.5948
rewrap	stk	1.16.3
svelte-vscode	sve	109.8.0
graphviz-interactive-preview	tin	0.3.5

(1 theme extensions excluded)

A/B Experiments

vsliv368:30146709
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vscod805cf:30301675
binariesv615:30325510
c4g48928:30535728
azure-dev_surveyone:30548225
962ge761:30959799
h48ei257:31000450
pythontbext0:30879054
cppperfnew:31000557
dwnewjupytercf:31046870
pythonrstrctxt:31112756
nativeloc2:31192216
5fd0e150:31155592
dwcopilot:31170013
6074i472:31201624
dwoutputs:31242946
customenabled:31248079
hdaa2157:31222309
copilot_t_ci:31222730
e5gg6876:31282496
pythoneinst12:31285622
bgtreat:31268568
4gafe986:31271826
9gig6300:31307012
31787653:31262186
3e8i5726:31271747
pythonpulldiag:31298645
996jf627:31283433
pythonrdcb7cf:31303019
usemplatestapi:31297334
0aa6g176:31307128
7bj51361:31289155
747dc170:31275177
aj953862:31281341
generatesymbolt:31295002
convertfstringf:31295003
gendocf:31295004

[vs-code-engineering]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code, the latest stable release is 1.100.2. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[janmalec]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code, the latest stable release is 1.100.2. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

For me the update to 1.100.2 did not resolve the issue.

base ❯ code --version 1.100.2 848b80aeb52026648a8ff9f7c45a9b0a80641e2e arm64

[meganrogge]

When this happens, have you resized your terminal?

Maybe related #238273

[eekcoopuw]

This happens without resizing my terminal. I'll keep my window open all day and not resize it at all and it will happen several times.

I can confirm, too, that it happened to me today on VSCode 1.100.2.