Project setting "lsp.clangd.binary.path" is not always respected

[hferreiro]

Summary

Unfortunately, I don't have specific reproduction steps. What happened is that it initially started working, but eventually the clangd binary run by Zed switched to /usr/bin/clangd. Sometimes, it switches back to the one specified in the project settings file. I've been suffering from this since several months ago and already tried to remove the Zed db, but it didn't work.

Zed Version and System Specs

Zed: v0.174.7 (Zed)
OS: macOS 15.3.1
Memory: 32 GiB
Architecture: aarch64

[notpeter]

Could you provide a copy of the relevant portions of your Zed user/project settings.json?

Is Zed switching to using /usr/bin/clangd or downloading the latest clangd release from github? (check with ps when this happens)

Zed doesn't know about /usr/bin/clangd and searches only searches your PATH for clangd with which here:

zed/crates/languages/src/c.rs

Line 31 in 39ed78e

let path = delegate.which(Self::SERVER_NAME.as_ref()).await?;

Are using something that manipulates your PATH for certain projects (direnv, nix envs, etc)? Zed will attempt to respect these, by changing into your project directory in a shell in an attempt to activate and load the correct env vars.

[hferreiro]

Could you provide a copy of the relevant portions of your Zed user/project settings.json?

{
  "lsp": {
    "clangd": {
      "binary": {
        "path": "/Users/hferreiro/git/chromium/src/third_party/llvm-build/Release+Asserts/bin/clangd"
      }
    }
  }
}

Is Zed switching to using /usr/bin/clangd or downloading the latest clangd release from github? (check with ps when this happens)

I mentioned /usr/bin/clangd because it's what's shown in the Server Info tab of the LSP Logs. ps shows /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clangd runnng.

Are using something that manipulates your PATH for certain projects (direnv, nix envs, etc)?

Yes, but removing it didn't fix the issue.

[notpeter]

Thanks. That's helpful. When I run /usr/bin/clangd that's the same xcode process I see in ps output.