nRF Connect Terminal won't start

[Dave]

I followed Lesson 1, exercises 1 and 2 of https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-fundamentals/ and successfully built and flashed the blinky sample on a nRF54L15-DK. Installations were done according to exercise 1 in the guide.

I would like to be able to run commands like west in the terminal but I can't get an nRF terminal to start. I've tried command "nRF Connect: Create Shell Terminal", "Open terminal" under NRF CONNECT > WELCOME, "Start New Terminal" when right-clicking the l1_e2 application, the "Start New Terminal in Sources of this Build" button beside ACTIONS, and "nRF Connect" under "Launch profile" in the terminal pane. None of these start a terminal. In fact, absolutely nothing happens (including no output in Developer Tools > Console).

All other terminal types may be started via the "Launch Profile" (including nRF RTT Terminal and nRF Serial Terminal).

The terminal started automatically during the build process runs fine and appears to be an nRF terminal since west is called. 

I've already tried a fresh VS Code install. How may I debug this issue?

VS Code info:
Version: 1.112.0 (system setup)
Commit: 07ff9d6178ede9a1bd12ad3399074d726ebe6e43
Date: 2026-03-17T18:09:23Z
Electron: 39.8.0
ElectronBuildId: 13470701
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.0
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

nRF Connect for VS Code Extension Pack v2025.4.4
nRF Connect for VS Code v2026.3.1484
nRF Terminal v2026.3.273

nRF Connect SDK v3.2.4; toolchain fd21892d0f

Perhaps relevant is that I also have nRF Connect for Desktop v4.0.1 (including a few of its apps) installed to support some legacy projects built with nRF5 SDK.

[Odiug]

I have the same issue since a couple of days. It's present under Windows only. I works under Linux.

Asking CopIlot to dig deeper gave me:

• Extension: nordic-semiconductor.nrf-connect 2026.3.1484, Windows only
• nrf-connect.ncs_terminal terminal profile declared in package.json but no window.registerTerminalProfileProvider("nrf-connect.ncs_terminal", ...) call exists in dist/extension.js
• Works on Linux, silent no-op on Windows when clicking "nRF Connect" in the terminal dropdown or "Open Terminal" in the nRF Connect panel

Additional info: It also initially worked a week ago, so maybe an updated broke it.

Kind regards,

Guido

[Dave]

Thanks for the feedback. Good to know that you can reproduce the behavior. The missing call in dist/extension.js sounds like an explanation.

[Odiug]

Yesterday, Copilot provided me with a workaround .bat. You can use this to open a cmd.exe with the correct paths and environment set and then start VScode from there with "code .".

Beware!!! You have to adapt it to your SDK and toolchain!!!

Unfortunately, it does not work to add it with Insert->Code here. So here it's in text:

@echo off
setlocal

rem --- Configure these if your installation paths differ ---
set "NCS_ROOT=C:\ncs\v3.2.3"
set "TOOLCHAIN_ROOT=C:\ncs\toolchains\fd21892d0f"
set "WORKDIR=C:\DEV\Nordic\nrf5340_audio"

if not exist "%NCS_ROOT%\zephyr" (
echo [ERROR] NCS path not found: %NCS_ROOT%\zephyr
pause
exit /b 1
)

if not exist "%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin\python.exe" (
echo [ERROR] Toolchain path not found: %TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin\python.exe
pause
exit /b 1
)

set "NCS_PATH=%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\mingw64\bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin\Scripts;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\nanopb\generator-bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\nrfutil\bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\zephyr-sdk\arm-zephyr-eabi\bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\zephyr-sdk\riscv64-zephyr-elf\bin"
set "NCS_PYTHONPATH=%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin\Lib;%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\bin\Lib\site-packages"
set "NCS_ENV=set PATH=%NCS_PATH%;%%PATH%%&& set PYTHONPATH=%NCS_PYTHONPATH%&& set NRFUTIL_HOME=%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\nrfutil\home&& set TOOLCHAIN_ROOT=&& set ZEPHYR_BASE=%NCS_ROOT%\zephyr&& set ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR=%TOOLCHAIN_ROOT%\opt\zephyr-sdk&& set ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=zephyr"

rem Open a new shell window and keep it open with NCS environment loaded
start "NCS Shell" cmd.exe /v:on /k "%NCS_ENV%&& cd /d %WORKDIR%&& echo NCS environment loaded.&& echo ZEPHYR_BASE=!ZEPHYR_BASE!"

endlocal

[Dave]

I can confirm this is a workaround for starting a cmd window with the correct nRF Connect environment variables set

[Odiug]

But it would be very much appreciated if Nordic would fix the issue. ;-)

[Odiug]

I just realized that the WORKDIR is hardcoded in the script. Better would be:

set "WORKDIR=%~dp0"

Then it always opens the shell in the directory from where the script was started.