# "Missing reference" warnings with Julia in VS Code?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Created:** [November 20, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321 "2019-11-20T18:15:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bashonubuntu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@bashonubuntu](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bashonubuntu)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/1 "2019-11-20T18:15:36Z")

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Hello,

I tried giving VS Code a shot (Atom is my go-to editor). I guess I got too motivated after reading the recent opinions on optimal IDE for Julia…I was wondering if anyone has encountered a “Missing Reference” error could provide some help? The code runs fine but I’d like to not have these warnings, if possible. Happy to provide a screenshot if it helps but this seems similar to what was mentioned here

[https://github.com/julia-vscode/julia-vscode/issues/800](https://github.com/julia-vscode/julia-vscode/issues/800)

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Ajay\_Rawat](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ajay_rawat/32/11435_2.png) [@Ajay\_Rawat](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ajay_Rawat)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 2:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/2 "2019-11-21T14:49:21Z")

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![err](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/8/6/861937b91104c05b00bbed983812d7ca7db530ca.png)

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**Author:** ![Max\_Epstein](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/max_epstein/32/12236_2.png) [@Max\_Epstein](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Max_Epstein)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 12:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/3 "2020-05-03T00:51:06Z")

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I’m also getting these…

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**Author:** ![Thomas\_Reynaud](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/thomas_reynaud/32/14604_2.png) [@Thomas\_Reynaud](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Thomas_Reynaud)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/4 "2020-05-05T21:50:49Z")

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Same here

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**Author:** ![pfarndt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8dc957/32.png) [@pfarndt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pfarndt)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 10:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/5 "2020-05-13T10:25:55Z")

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Same here. I guess a lot of people are having a look into VS Code these days …

EDIT: a few minutes these warnings disappeared …

EDIT: … and then appeared again.

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**Author:** ![IljaK91](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/iljak91/32/44301_2.png) [@IljaK91](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/IljaK91)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 12:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/6 "2020-05-13T12:13:23Z")

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In my experience they do not yet work very well. However, there is an option in the VS Code extension settings to have the linter running, but also disable “missing reference” warning.

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**Author:** ![Christopher\_Fisher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/christopher_fisher/32/26132_2.png) [@Christopher\_Fisher](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Christopher_Fisher)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/7 "2020-05-13T20:30:30Z")

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I am also having this issue. Would you mind providing more detail about finding this setting? I went to File-\>Settings and clicked on extensions. There are a lot of options under extensions.

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**Author:** ![IljaK91](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/iljak91/32/44301_2.png) [@IljaK91](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/IljaK91)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 8:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/8 "2020-05-14T08:46:37Z")

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You look up your extensions, click on the wheel for the Julia extension, then click on “extension settings” or something similar and then you choose this:

![grafik](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/b/2/b27eb8a622498991c96054020928bdbbb9d61c68.png)

If you do not want to use the linter at all, you can also untick this option:  
 ![grafik](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/1/a/1ab072808cc56ec4ed6c138335321d1b7b912927.png)

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**Author:** ![Christopher\_Fisher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/christopher_fisher/32/26132_2.png) [@Christopher\_Fisher](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Christopher_Fisher)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 9:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/9 "2020-05-14T09:18:40Z")

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Thank you. That seems to have fixed some of the warnings. I still find an error that says:

`Possible method call error.Julia(Julia)`

which underlines my methods in the file. I will report back if I figure out how to fix that.

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**Author:** ![mthelm85](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mthelm85/32/224164_2.png) [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/10 "2020-05-27T18:19:21Z")

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> [@IljaK91](#):
>
> You look up your extensions, click on the wheel for the Julia extension, then click on “extension settings” or something similar and then you choose this:
> 
> ![grafik](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/b/2/b27eb8a622498991c96054020928bdbbb9d61c68.png)

The problem with this is that I really do want the missing ref warnings, I just want them to be accurate. Turning this off makes debugging more difficult if you’ve misspelled a function name or something like that.

I’m wondering if there’s a way to add references so that the extension is aware of them? Maybe @davidanthoff has a good solution for this? I’d be happy to contribute here as I use VS Code on a daily basis and lately I’ve been using a lot of DataFramesMeta.jl and Makie.jl and I have to prefix all of my function calls to avoid the warnings (e.g. `DataFramesMeta.where()` or `Makie.plot()`).

In the case of plotting, this usually isn’t a big deal, but with DataFramesMeta I use the `@linq` macro to chain a bunch of operations together so prefixing everything with DataFramesMeta results in really nasty-looking code.

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**Author:** ![davidanthoff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/davidanthoff/32/223493_2.png) [@davidanthoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/davidanthoff)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/11 "2020-05-27T18:37:14Z")

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This is a known problem, we just need to fix it. Not super trivial, but I think we should hopefully resolve it relatively soonish (think weeks not months).

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**Author:** ![skirsch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/skirsch/32/14743_2.png) [@skirsch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/skirsch)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 7:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/12 "2020-06-06T07:24:16Z")

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I just installed JuliaPro on my laptop and installed the Julia extension to VS Code and got all the Missing Reference errors anytime I have a `using` statement

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**Author:** ![mthelm85](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mthelm85/32/224164_2.png) [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 12:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/13 "2020-06-06T12:50:35Z")

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> [@davidanthoff](#):
>
> This is a known problem, we just need to fix it. Not super trivial, but I think we should hopefully resolve it relatively soonish (think weeks not months).

I’m more than happy to put some time into assisting with this if you all need an extra pair of hands. I don’t know anything about writing a VS Code extension but, according to [the Microsoft docs](https://code.visualstudio.com/api/get-started/your-first-extension), it requires having Node.js installed. JavaScript/Node was my first programming language so if there’s something here I can do (without getting in the way), I’m willing to put in a couple of hours per week on this to make the tool better 🙂. Feel free to reach out and let me know.

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**Author:** ![davidanthoff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/davidanthoff/32/223493_2.png) [@davidanthoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/davidanthoff)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/14 "2020-06-06T23:03:04Z")

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So I think this is a problem the core extension team will have to fix, unfortunately. The design questions are too deep in the guts of the code base.

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**Author:** ![Zing](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/zing/32/15963_2.png) [@Zing](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Zing)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2020, 7:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/15 "2020-06-26T07:14:06Z")

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![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/0/8/0855226ce37b10a56131c36690492d7c551536ab.png)

Everything works except those error messages from Julia plugin

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**Author:** ![j-adel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/j-adel/32/207882_2.png) [@j-adel](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/j-adel)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 12:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/16 "2024-03-25T12:01:56Z")

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Any update regarding this issue? I still get these warnings when using packages. I could disable them but the linter still doesn’t know what packages I’m using so I miss out on a lot of info regarding the methods in the package and possible syntax errors.

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**Author:** ![mkitti](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkitti/32/12459_2.png) [@mkitti](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkitti)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 1:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/17 "2024-03-25T13:00:47Z")

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Development of Atom has sunsetted:

> **[Sunsetting Atom](https://github.blog/2022-06-08-sunsetting-atom/)**
>
> We are archiving Atom and all projects under the Atom organization for an official sunset on December 15, 2022.

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**Author:** ![non-Jedi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/non-jedi/32/3645_2.png) [@non-Jedi](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/non-Jedi)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2024, 3:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/18 "2024-03-27T15:55:01Z")

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There have been and still are many false-positive “Missing Reference” issues with LanguageServer.jl. You’d need to create and post a minimum reproducer before we could check and see if your problem is a known issue or a new one. The one people run into most often is [LanguageServer does not index active project/package · Issue #988 · julia-vscode/LanguageServer.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/julia-vscode/LanguageServer.jl/issues/988).

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**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2024, 4:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/19 "2024-03-27T16:58:28Z")

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Check out the read me of [GitHub - PetrKryslUCSD/VSCode\_Julia\_portable: Portable Julia running in VSCode](https://github.com/PetrKryslUCSD/VSCode_Julia_portable).  
That works for me.

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**Author:** ![j-adel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/j-adel/32/207882_2.png) [@j-adel](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/j-adel)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2024, 11:12am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321/20 "2024-03-28T11:12:47Z")

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It’s really easy to reproduce. Simply creating a new Julia file and having a `using Example` (where Example is an added package in the global environment), the linter would show a warning underlining `Example` and any functions in it saying “Missing Reference”. Running the REPL runs the code just fine. Should I post an issue in LanguageServer or the VSCode extension?

[Next page](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/missing-reference-warnings-with-julia-in-vs-code/31321.md?page=2)