`Failed to set up event listener: Unexpected token W in JSON at position 0` error

[bwateratmsft]

Originally from #3724 (comment)

/cc @brainz80

[bwateratmsft]

@brainz80 can you share the output from this command?

docker events --filter type=container --filter event=create --format "{'Type':{{json .Type}},'Action':{{json .Action}},'Actor':{{json .Actor}},'Time':{{json .Time}},'Raw':{{json .}}}"

In a separate terminal, try starting a container, e.g. docker run hello-world, to cause some events to be fired.

[scottross8]

I have a similar problem except that my message is "Failed to connect. Is Docker running? Error: Invalid container JSON" The filter in the docker events command above generates an invalid JSON message (wrong quotes.) In my case I am using podman (named docker but it is podman). Podman doesn't seem to pass the Actor nor Action fields. I changed the format to only show the raw message:

$ docker events --filter type=container --filter event=create --format '{"Raw":{{json .}}}' | jq
{
  "Raw": {
    "ID": "557b660937639152190968ff7f107eafeeee3d5a7bc6a2322b6fc8cef70e954f",
    "Image": "docker.io/library/busybox:latest",
    "Name": "frosty_swartz",
    "Status": "create",
    "Time": "2022-11-29T11:15:58.935745953-07:00",
    "Type": "container",
    "Attributes": null
  }
}

If this is enough of a different problem, and it would help you in tracking the issues, I will create a new issue for you.

[bwateratmsft]

Podman's JSON output is different enough that it fails our parsing. We are looking into the right way to address that; tracking it currently in microsoft/vscode-containers#51. Unfortunately it's just not possible for Podman to work with the explorer view right now in 1.23.0, but you can roll back to 1.22.2 with the palette command "Extensions: Install Specific Version of Extension...".

[brainz80]

@bwateratmsft Just ran

docker events --filter type=container --filter event=create --format "{'Type':{{json .Type}},'Action':{{json .Action}},'Actor':{{json .Actor}},'Time':{{json .Time}},'Raw':{{json .}}}"

together with docker run hello-world this is what I got:

{'Type':"container",'Action':"create",'Actor':{"ID":"7b83c178504c5242127a0b873c92be8096e2d00cd63d3d40ac5d6f7fc30f9565","Attributes":{"image":"hello-world","name":"flamboyant_hugle"}},'Time':1669794567,'Raw':{"status":"create","id":"7b83c178504c5242127a0b873c92be8096e2d00cd63d3d40ac5d6f7fc30f9565","from":"hello-world","Type":"container","Action":"create","Actor":{"ID":"7b83c178504c5242127a0b873c92be8096e2d00cd63d3d40ac5d6f7fc30f9565","Attributes":{"image":"hello-world","name":"flamboyant_hugle"}},"scope":"local","time":1669794567,"timeNano":1669794567962070900}}

Shouldn't the keys the surrounded with "" and not '' in valid JSON? Is the above query what is being used also in the extension?

[bwateratmsft]

The above query is a simplified version of what the extension uses. You're correct, valid JSON should use " for keys instead of '. I'm not sure how we missed this, though the JSON parser we're using (just simple JSON.parse()) doesn't seem to mind this.

My suspicion is that some warning or error message was printed to stdout when this command was run, which the parser tried to parse and of course failed. We use this docker events feature to cause the relevant views in the explorer to refresh; we also refresh once a minute and on certain configuration changes. There's also the manual refresh ability too. So, we expect even with this error that the explorer view will work, it just won't auto-refresh (except once a minute or on manual refresh).

If you restart VSCode, does this error occur again and show up in the output log, when you open the explorer view?

[brainz80]

@bwateratmsft I restarted my entire computer. The problem persists :(

[brainz80]

I believe I found the problem.

I took a look into VSCode:s Process Explorer.
Found this:

powershell.exe -c "docker events --since 1669900632 --until 1669900932 --filter 'type=container' --filter 'type=image' --filter 'type=network' --filter 'type=volume' --filter 'event=create' --filter 'event=destroy' --filter 'event=die' --filter 'event=kill' --filter 'event=pause' --filter 'event=rename' --filter 'event=restart' --filter 'event=start' --filter 'event=stop' --filter 'event=unpause' --filter 'event=update' --filter 'event=delete' --filter 'event=import' --filter 'event=load' --filter 'event=pull' --filter 'event=save' --filter 'event=tag' --filter 'event=untag' --filter 'event=remove' --filter 'event=prune' --format '{\\\"Type\\\":{{json .Type}},\\\"Action\\\":{{json .Action}},\\\"Actor\\\":{{json .Actor}},\\\"Time\\\":{{json .Time}},\\\"Raw\\\":{{json .}}}'"

Running powershell.exe tries to load my profile which outputs errors - because of uninstalled modules. I'm using pwsh.exe (Powershell 7). Should this command be run with -NoProfile flag to prevent this from happening?