Software developer Birchlabs recently highlighted a common technical warning encountered by users performing multi-process debugging within Visual Studio Code (VSCode). The alert, specifically "incompatible copy of pydevd already imported," indicates a conflict with the pydevd debugger component, which is widely utilized in Python development environments. This UserWarning typically appears when debugpy, VSCode's default Python debugger, encounters another instance of pydevd already loaded.
The pydevd debugger is a core component for Python debugging, integrated into various IDEs like PyCharm and VSCode via debugpy. The warning often arises because debugpy bundles its own version of pydevd, leading to conflicts if a separate or older pydevd instance is present in the Python environment or system path. This issue has been a recurring topic in developer forums and GitHub repositories for the VSCode Python extension.
Birchlabs' tweet provided a direct solution to suppress this specific warning, stating: > "incompatible copy of pydevd already imported: /usr/local/lib/python3.x/dist-packages/pydevd_plugins/extensions/pydevd_plugin_omegaconf.py can be silenced with env: PYTHONWARNINGS=ignore::UserWarning:debugpy._vendored.force_pydevd". This environment variable instructs Python to ignore the particular UserWarning originating from debugpy's vendored pydevd module, preventing it from cluttering the debug console.
While silencing the warning provides immediate relief for developers, it does not resolve the underlying version conflict. Such workarounds are common in software development to improve user experience while core issues are addressed in future updates. The VSCode Python extension team has previously released updates and rollbacks to address similar debugging-related issues, indicating ongoing efforts to ensure seamless debugging for Python developers. This specific UserWarning has been a known point of discussion within the microsoft/vscode-python and microsoft/debugpy GitHub communities, with developers often seeking ways to manage or eliminate these notifications.