Copilot & VSCode with Multiple Accounts

[bbatsche]

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I have two GitHub accounts. There is my personal GitHub account which is what I use for virtually all day to day tasks, and there is my enterprise GitHub account which has access to Copilot. If I were to initially launch VSCode I can authenticate the extensions in a careful order such that the Copilot extension uses my enterprise account, and the other extensions & setting sync use my personal account. However, on subsequent launches of VSCode it appears that only authentication for my personal account is used and the Copilot extension fails. I then have to sign out of GitHub from VSCode and repeat the sign in process again, being careful of the order again.

Is there some way for me to explicitly tell the Copilot extension to use a particular GitHub account, separate from my other extensions?

[kasajian]

We need a way to configure the CoPilot extension to use a different GitHub account than the account used by VS Code for other things such as sync'ing. They're not going to be the same.

I use my personal account for sync'ing, but I want to use my corporate enterprise account for CoPilot because the company I work for pays for it. Currently, I cannot use CoPilot VSCode for this reason, although this works fine in Visual Studio.

[vernou]

@kasajian , I try to do this in Visual Studio. Can you explain how use a account to sync and a other account to Copilot?

[Akash1134]

Hi @bbatsche ,

Thanks for highlighting this - I've shared this feedback with my team internally.

[testacode]

Not working for me, I would like to be able to login to my work account for github and my personal github account for copilot. My job doesn't pay me for copilot, I'm paying it myself so I don't want to be paying copilot for the work account.

[karamanolev]

This seems like a completely reasonable workflow and is also an issue for me. Please find a reasonable way to get it resolved.

[KidiIT]

Hello @bbatsche,
I’ve a good solution to this, sorry for being inactive lately and I’m trying to get back to my normal schedule. To start with, this issue seems so serious to be but on my end, I’ve not experienced such issues before. I’ve three GitHub accounts. One for personal, one enterprise and one organization account.
I know this issues is a general one. However, I’m going to try my best to share with y’all what I think and from my experience should be the solution to this.
Furthermore, you can simply solve the issue by firstly making sure your vscode is properly syn with the right extension on your editor. For instance, I’ll share a screenshot below which I saw here but I’ll make some few corrections on it. Secondly if you’ve multiple accounts here’s what to do to remotely connect your accounts to the copilot extension on vscode.

In reference to the screenshot, you’ll see:

1. Turn on cloud changes
2. Turn on remote Tunnel Access
   Please these are the two most important things you should know as a developer using copilot software. Why are you using such features? This will enable the copilot to understand and occasionally perform any tasks you want from your personal account
   And all your accounts will be linked to your personal account.You can check out my profile and see a quick example of that. This doesn’t stop your copilot to focus some projects and leave others. That’s a NO because once properly linked your copilot will attend to all repositories that connect to your project or personal accounts.

• please note: connecting your three or two GitHub accounts to your vscode will be very hard to tell the copilot when, how and which account to switch on. That’s why you’ve to use the remote settings. And make sure you already have your codeQL set up to enable your workflow to be updated and keep your project or repository running.
  if I’m given the opportunity to advise on this particular issue. From my own perspective, I’ll advise to keep or look up for the remote settings on vscode and how it works. This will enable you to understand how collaborative copilot can be when it comes to vscode.
  please feel free to tag me or reach out for further assistance and explanation for the community to understand and support other developers. @KidiIT

thank you for listening and happy coding from KIDI’S TECH your friend🫶❤️

[aryothaz]

How come this is still an issue? Can you please fix this? It's a pain in the ass to sign in each time with the described method... just let me select the account i have with copilot!

[GuiMend]

Not ideal, but fixes the problem:

• VS code is updated (current Version: 1.87.2 (Universal))
• Install this specific version of GitHub Copilot v1.161.0 (There may be a more recent version that works, but this one is stable)

I'm already logged in with both accounts, and this worked without losing any configs or having to log out and log back in.

[kaioker]

can confirm same issue. any updates on this?

[inoa-dmpassy]

Ok, I just cancelled my copilot subscription, not being able to use other extensions due to this limit makes it not worth it.

I'd gladly subscribe again when this feature become available

[kasuteru]

Can confirm this is still a problem

[gowerc]

Not sure whats changed but I can now no longer have the GitHub Pull Requests extension and Co-pilot extension using different accounts. Well it's weird VScode is claiming they are signed in separately but Co-pilot refuses to work whilst my personal account is signed into GitHub Pull Requests :(

[WuerzburgerMaetschke]

same here! frustrating

[raphael-theriault-swi]

Just chiming in to note that this used to work fine in the past, only ran into the issue after having to reinstall VSCode

[AachoLoya]

April 2024, still not fixed!

[den-is]

Same issue:
I had personal and corporate account enabled for a long time.
Today when I've opened Copilot Chat panel, message was shown "Register to 30 day trial" or something similar.
In the end I had to logout from both account.
Relogin with my personal login, which has Copilot, + authorized Github Pull Requests extension. Copilot started to work.

But now I don't know how to add my corporate account. And authorize Github Pull Requests against it too.
I'm using separate account per project/corp.

Control Panel: Github Pull Requests: Sign in to Github has no effect, no activity, tries nothing.

[vihuvac]

I am facing the same issue, I logged out of the account that does not have Copilot, and now I do not have an option to log in again with that account in VSCode, I just can be logged in with a single account. 👀

[Nghiauet]

Turn out it is problem of copilot extension it self not the problem of new vs code.
I turn back to the copilot version 1.165.0 and it work perfectly with 2 account.
( reinstall by click to drop down menu next to uninstall button)

(I down vs code version to 1.85.1 but it still not work)

[WarpedPixel]

Rolling back the version here is easily done in the vscode UI, find the co-pilot extension, click on the down arrow next to uninstall and select install specific version. I have to use copilot version 1.161.0 for the two accounts to work together.

[esponges]

thanks for the clear steps @WarpedPixel . That solved my issue for inline suggestions, however chat is not working yet. But I guess having inline suggestions for the moment is enough while this (hopefully) gets solved.

[Yunesss]

Rolling back to 1.161.0 on the copilot fixed it and rolling back to 0.11.0 on chat fixed it too

[bsaunders27]

Thanks! Confirming the rollback on copilot works re: anyone who still needs evidence that this isn't user error 🙃

[dmytro-kuzmin]

Rolling back to 1.161.0 on the copilot fixed it but no way to find any version of chat (( 0.11.0 doesn't work

[timreach]

For me what fixed it was unsubscribing from Copilot and using this as a chance to explore competing products. This kind of stuff I can tolerate from a FOSS extension but not something I pay a subscription for. Really foundational stuff to be breaking and not mending as a matter of urgency.

[benkinesso]

Best part is Copilot and VS Code are just pushing the responsibility to one another to fix this issue. VS Code claims they rather support it when Github has better multi account support while Copilot says VS Code doesn't support multi auth properly. This has been going on for 2 years + now.

Link: microsoft/vscode#127967 (comment)

[Yunesss]

Rolling back to previous versions seems to fix the copilot issue. I commend you for moving on to other FOSS solutions.
This problems seems to come from extensions handling of the VSC authentication.

[timreach]

not sure there are other options that are themselves FOSS but there are free trials elsewhere I've been meaning to explore (which it would feel crass to mention specifically but it's easy to find yourself if you're interested!)

[siebtel]

At least is not only me with the same problem. Up to give them visibility that this is a recurrent error and needs to be addressed ASAP. It doesn't matter who fix, VSCode or Copilot, just fix it. Both are microsoft enterprises now, talk to each other, I contact when something is wrong with another completely company and I wouldn't mind to help, get access to code, fix it, commit and open a PR.

[NeelkanthTandel20CE]

Was facing the same issue
Downgrading Github copilot to 1.162 worked :)

[soluml]

This is still an issue as of 1.172.0 (works fine if I switch to 1.162.0). @Akash1134 are there plans to address this issue? It's been going on for quite some time.

[soluml]

@Akash1134 and any other maintainers who are paying attention to this issue. Just wanted to let you know I've canceled my subscription and I'll be evaluating alternatives. I've really liked Copilot but I need to be logged in to multiple Github accounts while on my work machine and I refuse to stay on an old version of Copilot indefinitely.

[yawumi]

Goodness, why can't such a basic function be supported? The user experience is so terrible.

[18019300070]

sign out？----------------------------顺祝商祺 !******************************************致礼！李尔欣/LearE-mail : ***@***.***:18019300070qq:230739928  ¤╭⌒╮ ╭⌒╮ ╱◥██◣ ╭╭ ⌒╮祝您工作愉快！心想事成！      ︱田︱田田| ╰---------------------------------------------------╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬       ------------------ 原始邮件 ------------------发件人：Brooks Travis ***@***.***"时　间：2024/02/23 16:00:52 周五收件人：communitycommunity ***@***.***"抄送人：18019300070 ***@***.***", Manual ***@***.***"主　题：Re: [community/community] Copilot & VSCode with Multiple Accounts (Discussion #58082)Everything looks like this should work (trusted extensions under the correct GitHub logins), but then copilot just quits working and I have to sign out of my personal account to get it to work again.—Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[toritsejuFO]

Terrible that something such as this hasn't been fixed or even given the attention it deserves.

[Nghiauet]

Vscode 1.86 suck also.

[dinghar]

I'm trying to switch to just using my work account and I even logged out from my personal account, uninstalled the extension, cleared caches, removed the .vscode directory, uninstalled VSCode altogether, yet still when I try to use it, it finds my personal account history and crashes. Yikes.

[Sof2222]

Have the same issue.. opened this ticket here:
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/107980#discussioncomment-8447928
but closed it as I realised it wasnt the issue with the student account but with vscode and copilot with multiple accounts..

Would really like a solution as while I also pay for gpt plus, copilot actually has way better answers than gpt plus for anything but python (am sick of how poor gpt plus is)

[Simon-Guillet]

Same thing here. I have a Copilot licence, but I can't use it and push to a private repository of a work account.
It used to work, but I disconnected and now it's gone.

[Akash1134]

Hi All,

Sorry for the trouble caused. This issue is caused by VS Code not properly supporting multiple auth sessions.

From Solution: Cannot read properties of undefined:

• ⚠️ Both VS Code and the extension need to be updated, as the latest release of Copilot Chat requires the latest release of VS Code.
• Double-check you have VS Code 1.86 and Copilot Chat 0.12 and there are no blue notification dots for Restart to update!
• Update your VS Code (Command: Check for Updates...) + Copilot Chat extension (Command: Extensions: Update All Extensions). Close and re-open VS Code just to make sure, as this applies any pending updates.

Ref:
microsoft/vscode-copilot-release#857
microsoft/vscode#203850
microsoft/vscode#127967

Thanks!

[ZhiliangWu]

I can log in two accounts now, but the Copilot doesn't pick up the correct account.

"No access to GitHub Copilot found. You are currently logged in as <personal_github_account>"

[benkinesso]

I suppose this means we're just stuck awaiting for VS code to support this for those of us with multiple accounts? For me, the main organization account that is used for cloning and git operations does not have the copilot license and it doesn't make sense for me to log in the secondary organization account as the primary just to make copilot chat work. I am already on VS Code 1.86.1 as well as Copilot Chat 0.12.2 for reference. Weirdly enough, this dual account setup worked perfectly until a week ago.

[jbermejo-ied]

Still doesn't work if you have multiple accounts :(

[Netchicken]

Doesn't work for me either. I can't log into the Chat: Github Copilot. It doesn't need updating,
GitHub Copilot Chat v0.13.2024020201 (pre-release)
GitHub Copilot v1.160.708 (pre-release)
Visual Studio Code Version: 1.86.1

[supuna97]

Login with your enterprise GitHub account and try again. And also check your GitHub configurations.

[dvirtz]

Just wanted to say it does work for me, even after restart.
I'm with Copilot extension v1.160.0, Copilot chat v0.12.2 and VSCode 1.86.1.

[mannfuri]

This still doesn't work after restarting VSCode

it also failed after I restarted VSC.

[hungify]

It persisted.

[partishock]

This problem is still ongoing

[Dragon-GCS]

Seems some old version not work well with vscode 1.87, it will take a lot cpu, and will take a lot memory when working with pylance.

microsoft/pylance-release#5614

[esponges]

1.65 was killing my CPU while 1.61 did not — using vscode 1.87.2

[cdjambovyourbteam]

Had the same problem.
What worked for me was to logout from all accounts and first log in in the account for the Copilot, then the other one. And now I am good. It would really be more easy if there is a setting in the Copilot settings to specify the account name to use (or some other id linked to the account).

[slabua]

@cdjambovyourbteam have you restarted vscode afterwards?

[cdjambovyourbteam]

Logged out, restarted, logged in, and do not remember if restarted (guess not).

[slabua]

To me upon relaunch, vscode remembers only the second account I had previously logged in.

[cdjambovyourbteam]

First Logout from all accounts. Relaunch. Then first do the CoPilot one, then the other. Even if it only remembers other account you still have the option to pick another one as the VSCode does Auth through browser.

[slabua]

I have done that, and every time vscode is relaunched, it only remembers the second account.
Of course I can login in the correct sequence every time I launch vscode and it works fine as long as I don't close it, but who would want to login every time the launch vscode.