Just some more data points.
I tried what @xsrf recommended with CTRL+Shift+P with 1.39
- running on the Ubunt 19.04 system that I started this thread with.
- that opened up an editor with the json and I deleted
"task.autoDetect": "off" - closed VSC
- installed 1.40, started VSC
- tried CTRL+Shift+P (but it showed the preferences tab as if I’d clicked File>Preferences…)
- couldn’t find any sign of the task.autoDetect
- attempted to build my code as usual
- builds fine.
On a different PC running Ubuntu 19.10, that had no prior install of VSC, I installed VSC 1.40 from scratch.
Build worked fine first try…