Markdown `editor.colorDecorators: false` not honored on startup; likely race condition

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#319,934 1 comment 1 reaction 1 assignee View on GitHub

@aiday-mar is already working on this.

Since Jun 4, 2026.

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This issue has not been assessed yet.

Description

bug confirmed editor-color-picker

As per #233211, the following VS Code setting turns off inappropriately showing strings like #xxxxxx as a CSS color indicator in Markdown (particularly ironic and irritating when the Markdown is a list of VS Code bug titles):

  "[markdown]": {
    "editor.colorDecorators": false
  },

To reproduce (nondeterministic, suggesting a race condition):

  1. Set "editor.colorDecorators": false in settings.json as above.
  2. Create a Markdown page full of #xxxxxx references, such as these: 
    * [GitHub Copilot Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'toString') when resetting. #319626](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/319626)
* [GitHub Copilot Markdown paste discards HTML tag from inline code #319733](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/319733)
* [[major] v1.123 breaks model-selection ability when resubmitting prompt #319743](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/319743)
  3. Restart VS Code.

Expected: Strings such as #319626 do not show a color decorator because editor.colorDecorators is set to false.

Actual: Strings such as #319626 often do show a color decorator.

Workaround: When this occurs, switch to another tab and then switch back. Upon switching back to the original tab, the color decorators disappear.

Discussion: This does not always occur. In my case I'm usually loading large workspaces with many files open when it happens. This, along with the fact that it corrects itself after switching tabs, leads me to believe it's some sort of race condition checking the settings upon first load. Nevertheless, it is irritating to have to manually switch tabs just to get the colors to go away. (They shouldn't have been there in the first place, as discussed in #233211; this should have been made an opt-in for languages other than CSS.)

Version: 1.123.0 (user setup)
Commit: 6a44c352bd24569c417e530095901b649960f9f8
Date: 2026-06-03T11:29:03+02:00
Electron: 42.2.0
ElectronBuildId: 14159160
Chromium: 148.0.7778.97
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.8.178.14-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200
Dominant language
TypeScript
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PR metrics pending

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