error: unable to start debugging. unable to establish a connection to gdb

I’m using VS Code for C with gcc and GDB (through MSYS2 / MinGW). My code compiles fine and an .exe gets created, but it just… doesn’t run. an error pops up saying unable to start debugging. unable to establish a connection to gdb. debug output may contain more information. open json file? i checked the version of gbd and its fine, tried restarting vs, made new files … no idea