Positron on Workbench: opening folder causes onUnload browser dialog to show

[sharon-wang]

System details:

Positron and OS details:

• Main as of 56424f5
• Positron 2025.01.1-7 (b1e37c5)

I think this is likely from the 1.96 merge.

Interpreter details: any

Describe the issue:

In Positron on Workbench, @Trevor-Reid noted that the following popup shows every time the folder is changed:

I was able to reproduce this issue in a local dev build of Positron Server Web as well.

This popup shows even though there may not be any pending changes that could be lost.

I tagged this as a sharp-edge because it is quite easy to run into this popup: any folder change, tab close or tab refresh, and possibly other actions too.

Steps to reproduce the issue:

In Positron Server Web or Positron on Workbench, either

• do an action that results in a folder being opened, such as:
  • Open Folder
  • Creating a new project via the Project Wizard
  • Clicking on a folder/workspace in the Recent section of the Welcome page
• or, do one of the following to navigate away from the tab:
  • Refreshing the page
  • Closing the tab

Then, the popup as shown above appears.

Expected or desired behavior:

Previously, this "Changes you made may not be saved" dialog did not appear when opening a folder and there are no pending changes in an editor.

Were there any error messages in the UI, Output panel, or Developer Tools console?

Developer Tools console:

INFO [lifecycle] onBeforeUnload triggered and handled with veto support
ERR [lifecycle] Long running operations before shutdown are unsupported in the web (id: positron.runtimeStartup.clearWorkspaceSessions)

These messages look to be coming from https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/blob/main/src/vs/workbench/services/lifecycle/browser/lifecycleService.ts.

[Trevor-Reid]

Also an easy way to see is to reload the page as well as opening a folder.