venvPath starting with tilde causes 100% CPU usage on Apple Silicon

Environment data

• VS Code version: 1.54.3 (Universal)
• Extension version (available under the Extensions sidebar): v2021.3.680753044
• OS and version: macOS 11.2.3 (Apple Silicon) - Darwin arm64 20.3.0
• Python version (& distribution if applicable, e.g. Anaconda): 3.9.2 (homebrew)
• Type of virtual environment used (N/A | venv | virtualenv | conda | …): venv
• Relevant/affected Python packages and their versions:
• Relevant/affected Python-related VS Code extensions and their versions:
• Value of the python.languageServer setting: Pylance (but disabling didn’t matter)

Expected behaviour

Editing Python files without using 100% CPU.

Actual behaviour

When python.venvPath is set to a string starting with “~” (~/Documents/Environments in my case), opening any Python file causes a “Code Helper (Renderer)” process to use 100% CPU, and persists after closing the file (until the whole window is closed). The interpreter selector also does not show all the environments in that directory as it normally would. Interestingly, this only seems to happen on my Apple Silicon mac, not my Intel mac.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Make sure you’re on an Apple Silicon mac
2. mkdir -p ~/Documents/Environments
3. python3 -m venv ~/Documents/Environments/myenv
4. Set python.venvPath to ~/Documents/Environments
5. Open a python file and check Activity Monitor or top; check for myenv in interpreter selector
6. Replace ~ with /Users/whatever and restart VSCode
7. Open a python file and see normal CPU usage

[karthiknadig]

@scotchneat Orphaned processes issue should be addressed in the insiders version of the extension. Python extension activation in non python projects is due to this https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-jupyter/issues/5193

We think we know the cause of the ~ issue. We marked this as P1 and should get addressed in the april release.

[dcwatson]

FWIW, opting out of pythonDiscoveryModule and leaving python.venvPath prefixed with ~ also fixed the problem.