Vs Code Extension MCP timed out and program not found

Resolved 💬 5 comments Opened Sep 11, 2025 by gjdklfjg Closed Nov 23, 2025

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of the VS Code extension are you using?

v0.5.8 pre-release and all the stable version

Which IDE are you using?

VS Code

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0 x64

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Configure the mcp settings as I did

What is the expected behavior?

MCP works, no time-out, no program not found

What do you see instead?

MCP client for `playwright` failed to start: program not found
MCP client for `serena` failed to start: request timed out
MCP client for `context7` failed to start: program not found

Additional information

Config.toml:

[mcp_servers.context7]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp"]
startup_timeout_ms = 20_000

[mcp_servers.serena]
command = "uvx"
args = ["--from", "git+https://github.com/oraios/serena", "serena", "start-mcp-server", "--context", "codex"]
startup_timeout_ms = 20_000

[mcp_servers.playwright]
command = "npx"
args = ["@playwright/mcp@latest"]
startup_timeout_ms = 20_000

View original on GitHub ↗

5 Comments

hitcky · 11 months ago

same config and same problem

sfz009900 · 11 months ago

Check out my solution! 😉
https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/3385

Thelastpoet · 11 months ago

Check out my solution! 😉 #3385

What solution? Are you spamming?

gjdklfjg · 11 months ago

Check out my solution! 😉 #3385

Thanks a lot it works, but others are still not working

etraut-openai contributor · 9 months ago

We've made significant improvements to the extension (including support for mcp) since this bug was filed. If you are still seeing an issue with the latest version of the codex extension, please open a new issue and use the /feedback slash command to upload details about your session.