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I am trying to commit changes in VSCode using the Git extension, but suddenly, when I try to commit from VS Code using the Git extension, I receive an error that prevents me from committing that says:

Commit operation was cancelled due to empty commit message.

However, I am never provided with the opportunity to provide a commit message, as I have previously been able to do. I am able to commit normally through the MacOS terminal, so it appears to be a VSCode specific issue.

A file called COMMIT_EDITMSG pops up instead. Any ideas for how to solve this issue?

Jim P
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    Is your goal to be able the commit message in the terminal? or is the answer simply "write the commit message in that `COMMIT_EDITMSG` file and then save and close it? I usually use git outside of vscode, but that seems to be what the name implies – lucidbrot Jul 11 '22 at 22:53
  • I'm simply trying to commit changes using the VSCode git extension, but this error is preventing me from doing so. Thanks for the clarifying question -- I've updated the question to reflect. – Jim P Jul 11 '22 at 23:07
  • Ah, so that error appears even while that `COMMIT_EDITMSG` file is still open. I didn't grasp that part, thanks! – lucidbrot Jul 12 '22 at 10:07

2 Answers2

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I was able to solve this issue in VS Code navigating to:

Code > Preferences > Settings

and then searching for and unchecking "Git: Use Editor As Commit Input" as suggested here: Why COMMIT_EDITMSG opens when i try to commit in vscode?

Jim P
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When you run git commit from a bash or other shell session, Git invokes your editor-of-choice.1,2 Git then waits for this editor to signal to Git that it is done, after which Git reads the file that the editor presumably updated by this point. But some editors immediately signal that they are done, and this is when the problem occurs.

If you are using such an editor, you have three choices:

  • Switch to a different editor that is not so badly behaved.

  • Find some way of running your favorite editor that tells it to behave better. Most of these editors have an option, usually spelled w or wait or --wait or -w or something like that, to make them behave well for Git.3 See, e.g., How to fix git commit with atom text editor.

  • Use git commit such that it always has a prepared commit message (git commit -m, git commit -F, and the like). This is probably the worst method, though.

For VSCode specifically, see How to use Visual Studio Code as default editor for git?, but note that VSCode is complicated and not all of the extensions for it play nice. That's probably why there are more than a dozen answers to this question.

1Run git var GIT_EDITOR to see what your choice is. Use any of core.editor as a git config setting, or $EDITOR or $VISUAL or $GIT_EDITOR as an environment variable, to change the setting. See the git var documentation for more about how Git picks which setting to use if you provide multiple settings.

2More precisely, git commit looks to see if it's been provided a "pre-cooked" commit message, and it can use that directly without having to invoke your editor-of-choice. But this problem only comes up when it's using your editor and waiting for it.

3Their behavior is actually fine for certain GUIs, and these editors were written with those GUIs in mind. It's just bad for Git.

torek
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