Fixing “Debug adapter process has terminated unexpectedly” error in VSCode for PowerShell

VSCode is the primary tool that Microsoft provides on Linux and Mac OS to edit and debug PowerShell scripts. Yet, on MacOS, with default installation, you are likely to get the “Debug adapter process has terminated unexpectedly” when you try running your scripts.

However, to fix this issue you simply need to install OpenSSL on your Mac running VSCode as described here.

Once this is done, simply:

1. Click File / Open and open the folder containing the PowerShell script,
2. Click the script that you want to edit in the left-hand pane,
3. Set breakpoints where you want them by clicking on the margin by the corresponding script line,
4. Press F5 or click the run button in the editor:

Happy scripting!

Enabling Intellisense for PowerShell cmdlets in VSCode on Mac OS X

VSCode is the primary way to edit and debug PowerShell scripts on Mac OS and Linux. If you do not have it yet, follow these instructions on GitHub on installing VSCode on Mac OS/Linux/Windows and adding its PowerShell extension.

Once you are done with that, you can create a new or open an existing PS1 file, however, you might still get “No suggestions” error when you try to get intellisense for cmdlets:

This is because this functionality actually requires OpenSSL. Here’s how you add it to your system:

Install Homebrew

Homebrew is Mac’s most popular package manager. To install it:

1. Open a Terminal window,
2. Install Mac OS command-line developer tools (xcode) by pasting the following command and pressing Enter:
   xcode-select --install

   
3. Install Homebrew package manager by pasting the following command:
   ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
   
4. Double-check that the installation is successful by running

   brew doctor

   

Install OpenSSL

Now install OpenSSL on Mac OS by simply pasting the following command to the Terminal window:

brew install openssl

 

Verify PowerShell cmdlet intellisense in VSCode

1. Start VSCode,
2. Open a ps1 file or save the file that you have as .ps1,
3. Verify that PowerShell is selected as the language mode at the bottom right of the VSCode window:
4. Type Get- and you will see the intellisense window popping up with the list of available Get- cmdlets: