Isn't the problem that WinSCP runs the VSCode with Windows-style path to the edited file, which Linux VSCode does not understand? So it possibly assumes that you want to edit new (non-existing) file.

The subject really is it, I much prefer working with WinSCP but I also prefer Linux Mint OS and I run WinSCP with wine. Remote files work perfectly, but local files show up blank and changed – they are not blank in fact, so I'm not sure what's happening. The only difference I can see is CRLF-LF but even changing that does not fix it, nor does encoding, I've tried all encodings the files still show empty but are not. I'm not sure what else to try. Again, remote files work great, but local files do not – only when opened through WinSCP, when opened with the file manager or VSCode the file opens fine.