Got a big problem with the Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects Extension for Visual Studio 2017 Professional. I added a Visual Studio Installer Setup project to a solution and set it up the way it's basically supposed to be done (Primary Output in the Application Folder and an icon in the Desktop Folder is all that was needed). Then I right-clicked on the Setup project, clicked "Build" and then I get this:
Please wait while Windows configures Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2013.
And then it stalls indefinitely. I have to close Visual Studio in Task Manager to stop everything. What's more, I'm Visual Studio Professional 2017, not 2013. I used to have Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate, but I uninstalled it. What could possibly be causing the confusion?
It appears that you have also got Visual Studio 2013 installed, and that there is as conflict between 2013 and 2017 because that message is a Windows Installer repair of VS 2013. Something is happening during your build that requires the VS 2013 installation to be repaired. The Windows Event Log (Application) will have an MsiInstaller log entry saying which component appears to be broken. If you post that information there may be a clue to the problem. If you (for example) have manually removed anything that may belong to the VS 2013 installed product then that would cause the same kind of problem.
You have this similar problem:
Rebuilding Visual Studio Installer project, launches Visual Studio 2013 seetup
Visual Studio 2015 msi build initiates another installation
When you say it stalls indefinitely, I would expect it to ask for the Visual Studio 2013 install image so that it can repair it. If you go to Programs&Features and manually repair VS 2013 it might fix the problem.
I also had Visual Studio 2013 installed as mentioned by #PhilDW.
Navigating to Event Viewer → Windows Logs → Application I found loads of warnings:
Detection of product '{9C593464-7F2F-37B3-89F8-7E894E3B09EA}', feature 'Visual_Studio_Professional_x86_enu', component '{E3FF99AA-78B9-4A06-8A74-869E9F65E1FE}' failed. The resource 'C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\URTInstallPath_GAC\' does not exist.
The key here being that the folder C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\URTInstallPath_GAC\ did not exist thanks to an answer in the first link provided by #PhilDW.
Created the missing final folder URTInstallPath_GAC in the path mentioned and the installers now build really fast whereas before they used to take forever (sometimes literally!).
I got the Visual Studio Professional 2015 Update 3 and launched the executable (vs2015.3.exe) while Visual Studio was still running. I got the following "Setup warning" but thought that a computer restart was fine as long as I could work during the update.
Please close visual studio now to reduce the chance that a computer
restart will be required later
Visual Studio immediately started acting strange, loosing Intellisense among others. I decided to restart Visual Studio and was then met with the error:
Cannot run when setup is in progress
I then canceled the update and thought that I could install this update during the night instead. When I opened Visual Studio again and tried to load a project I got the following error:
Project '' could not be opened because the Visual C# 2015 compiler
could not be created. Please re-install Visual Studio.
I then opened Update 3 executable again to complete the update. I was met with this feature list and could not do anything:
Restarted the computer but was met with the same dialog. I then opened Visual Studio again and this time the project loaded but without Intellisense. Restarted Visual Studio and now the project would not load at all. I then deleted the content of these 2 folders and ran devenv /resetsettings
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\ComponentModelCache
I could now open the Visual Studio project normally again but I still could not get features when running the Update 3 executable. Is there anything else I can do or do I need to reinstall Visual Studio completely? I think it is really bad that the warning Microsoft gives is that a computer restart might be required when obviously the program cannot run in the background while updating.
Solved it by going to Control panel -> Programs and Features -> Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2015 with Updates. Click "Change" and then select "Repair".
I have the problem that Visual Studio 2013 crashes when I lock the computer or start another instance of Visual Studio.
I use Visual Studio 2013 with latest patches applied. I always start Visual Studio as Admin.
This seems to only happen with a certain big solution. This problem did not occur to me with other solutions.
I tried to delete the solution and make a clean checkout from TFS, but Visual Studio still crashes.
I know this is not much information, but do you have any idea how to fix this or how to what else I could check?
Additional Information: This still happens even with Visual Studio 2015 on a fresh Windows 8.1 installation...
Here's the error:
Use the following steps to solve the issue:
Source: http://resharper-support.jetbrains.com/entries/24765142-Visual-Studio-with-ReSharper-is-freezing-and-or-crashing
I would copy the solution with quotation but as you can see, there is a lot of text to edit.
Start Visual Studio using the /log switch. Then check the created log file for warnings and errors:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ActivityLog.xml
If you use a Web Browser to view the file, it will be nicely formatted, due to the accompanying xsl-sheet.
This morning I faced a problem while opening my Visual Studio solution, and when I tried to run it, it said:
No exports were found that match the constraint contract name
How can I fix this problem?
I solved this problem by clearing Visual Studio Component Model Cache.
Just delete or rename this folder:
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ComponentModelCache
or
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VPDExpress\11.0\ComponentModelCache
and restart Visual Studio.
The version of Visual Studio you have is specified by the number e.g.
Visual Studio 2012 is 11.0 (as shown above)
Visual Studio 2013 is 12.0
Visual Studio 2015 is 14.0
Visual Studio 2017 is 15.0
Visual Studio 2019 is 16.0
For those that don't know:
%LocalAppData%\ is the same as C:\Users\{yourUsername}\AppData\Local
For those who have multiple versions of Visual Studio installed, e.g. 2012 and 2013, it might help to remove the ComponentModelCache for both versions before restarting Visual Studio, e.g. 11.0 and 12.0.
No need to rename or delete the whole folder:
(%AppData%\..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ComponentModelCache)
Just rename or delete the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Default.cache file inside the above location.
Visual Studio Express 2012 has different paths.
Visual Studio Express
...\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WDExpress\11.0\ComponentModelCache
With Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web
...\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VWDExpress\11.0\ComponentModelCache
I did not have to re-install Visual Studio Express
This will really work like a champ:
Solution: Try to delete ComponentModelCache folder from the below location.
[C:]\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[Visual Studio version number]
And after successful delete, recreate the folder with the same name, "ComponentModelCache".
This issue can be resolved by deleting or clearing all the folders and files from %AppData%\..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ComponentModelCache
This actually clears the Visual Studio component model cache.
On Windows 7 machines, the path is different. When you type %appdata% in Run dialog, it opens the folder C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming.
Click the 'up' button to navigate to the parent folder and select the folder 'Local'.
Final path: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ComponentModelCache
Deleting the Component Model Cache did not work for me (well, the relative directory given above did not exist in my machine). Instead, I installed an extension to Visual Studio 2012 Express. Menu Tools → Extensions and Updates... → Online → Choose any and then download. This apparently invalidates the cache causing Visual Studio to rebuild it.
Here's my source.
For Visual Studio 2013 you need to remove that folder from this path:
%AppData%\..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
for Visual Studio 2012 and later versions, the solution must be deleting the content of the folder ComponentModelCache:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WDExpress\11.0\ComponentModelCache
Visual Studio 2013
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ComponentModelCache
I had the same problem upon launching Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate, and the solutions here didn't work for me. I tried deleting the mentioned folders and starting Visual Studio again, but it didn't work.
However I had other problems too, like Microsoft.visual studio package did not load correctly and also Page '312e8a59-2712-48a1-863e-0ef4e67961fc' not found VS 2012. The latter refers to a message in the Team Explorer window saying "Page 'somenumber' cannot be found".
So I run devenv /setup on the Visual Studio command prompt with administrative rights. It did the job, and everything is fine now.
Remove ComponentModelCache folder content.
%AppData%..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ComponentModelCache
Clearing the folders didn't work for me. So I went to 'Programs and Features' and used the change button to startup the Visual Studio 2013 setup.
In the setup I choose the repair function and that fixed the problem for me.
I had the same problem with Visual Studio Express 2013 of Windows 8.1.
Unfortunatly there was no "ComponentModelCache" folder in
%AppData%..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ComponentModelCache.
I found the "ComponentModelCache" folder in
..\Users[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WDExpress\12.0
and solved this problem by removing this folder from there.
If you have VS 2013, you have to go to: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
then rename the ComponentModelCache folder.
I experienced a similar problem after some updates released from Microsoft (part of them where about .NET framework 4.5).
On the Internet I got the following link to the Microsoft knowledge base article:
Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (KB2781514)
It worked for me.
This happened to me with Visual Studio 2013 Web, after Windows installed several updates. Unfortunately none of the suggestions in this thread helped.
I had to re-run the installer and select the "Repair" option. After that (and a reboot) it was working once again.
In some cases you may have to repair more than one version of Visual Studio. One example is when a Script Task control in VS 2013 opens VS 2012 when you click Edit Script.
Renaming the ComponentModelCache folder worked for me in Visual Studio 2015, but with a slightly different path:
%AppData%\..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\ComponentModelCache
I have Windows 7 x64 with a second partition on which Windows 8 (preview installed). While working with Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone, I come up with the same problem. But the ComponentModelCache is found here:
C:\Users\Jayaram\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VPDExpress\11.0
I am unable to delete or rename as I get the "access is denied" message when I try to use command prompt:
Administrator: VS2012 X64 CrossToolsCommandPrompt
This issue is because of a MEF cache corruption.
Installing the feedback extension (or installing any extension) will invalidate the cache causing VS to rebuild it.
click for source.
i experienced this problem in Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for windows phone while trying to open file.
Then i browsed to
C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VPDExpress\11.0\ComponentModelCache
And Inside ComponentModelCache i deleted Microsoft.VisualStudio.Default.cache CACHE file. Finaly i restarted visual studio and reopened my project.
Then my problem was solved, i was able to open file.
Note: My OS is windows 8. And i installed SDK 8 for developing windows phone app
Thanks
I am using Visual Studio 2012. After installing the Visual Studio 2013 web express, when I want to run or open any project in Visual Studio 2012 it shows me the following error:
"no exports were found that match the constraint contract name".
I also tried the above solution for clearing the ComponentModelCache,
but I did not find the folder. I solves my problem just by: Repair Visual Studio 2012
For the Express versions of the software, the folder you need is in a slightly different place(s): For Express 2012 for Web it is C:\Users\XXXXXXXX\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VWDExpress - not in the Visual Studio folder.
I got an error with the same error message - two years later.
It's a different problem this time though, related to .NET Core dnx things.
I couldn't find an answer on Stack Overflow, but there's a GitHub issue that contains a workaround: https://github.com/aspnet/Home/issues/1455
Below is the most important part of the workaround:
Delete the entire C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio
14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Web Tools\DNX directory. (As far as I understand, it belongs to the old version of ASP.NET Core
RC1, which for some reason is still shipped even with Visual Studio 2015 Update-3).
Delete the C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\devenv.exe.config file.
Run the Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio 2015 as Administrator, and execute the devenv /setup command. The new devenv.exe.config file is generated. This time there are many assemblies that refer to the
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\DotNet directory.
Run the Visual Studio 2015 and check that it shows the Microsoft .NET Core Tools (Preview 2) 14.1.20624.0 in the Help => About Microsoft Visual Studio menu.
Thanks to olegburov's post on GitHub for figuring this out.
I had to uninstall some external components like Postsharp and Apex and then it worked. I also tried the chosen solution but it gave me more errors.
Deleting the folders haven't worked for me i have go control panel and repaired
Visual Studio Installer Projects extensions for VS 2013.
And it worked for me
I got this error after reinstalling IntelliJ IDEA and ReSharper for C# in Visual Studio 2013.
First, I got an error problem with extensions, and after this I got this error:
"No exports were found that match the constraint contract name”
I simply removed folder ComponentModelCache and resolved this error.
My 2 cents:
Following all above lifesaving tips, I had a slightly different experience; mine is VS 2017 Community Edition, installed once, and I notice that have all these 3 folders:
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0 ==> Empty
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7f0c75b0 ==> has only the CoreCon folder
This is the one that has the ComponentModelCache:
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_7f0c75b0
Deleting only the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Default.cache had no effect.
So, I deleted all 4 files there: .cache, .err, .external and catalogs.
On restarting VS, problem gone and appeared a 5th file:
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Default.scan
Removing ComponentModelCache did not work for me. Reinstalling VS 2019 did thanks to a recommendation on this Microsoft support thread.
Details
This seems to be a known bug with a fix incoming from MS (as of 1/7/2020)
Experienced after upgrading from VS2019 Pro 16.2 (i think it was?) to 16.4.2 using Visual Studio Installer
Error displayed when trying to launch both nuget console and nuget package manager
I'm trying to launch Visual Studio 2010 from my desktop and I just get this error box popping up saying "Unknown Error"...
Anyone have an idea why this might happen?
I just fixed it, I uninstalled and reinstalled my version of the .NET Framework (v4.0). And then when I again tried to launch Visual studio it started up without any issue.
Here's some things you can check:
Temporary de-activate all Addins
Temporary disable all Extensions
Check the Event Log for any errors
Reset your settings
Start with /ResetSkipPkgs
Based on your comment below, if you can't find the DevEnv.exe when you have opened a VIsual Studio Command prompt, I would suggest you to re-install Visual Studio as it indicates your installation (paths) are in a bad state.
And here are some other things you migh want to check:
VS 2010 Crashes on Startup with "Unknown Error"
Visual Studio 2010 quit working...now gives me an "unknown error" dialogue when launched
Visual Studio 2010 Startup Errors
Visual Studio 2010 crashes on startup after installing SP1
Open Visual Studio Command Prompt with Administrator permission and type the following,
devenv /ResetSkipPkgs
the Solution of this problem ist very simple.
Install VS 2010 on a other machine and export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0 to a file. Copy the file to your target machine and rename the path above to ".old", then double click your exported reg-file and wait a time....
After this my Visual Studio was starting correctly.
The other solution, that people post wont work in my case.
I hope this will help some body.
Enjoy
Sven
I had the same problem.. Instead of completely uninstalling .net framework, I just repaired the .net framework from the repair/uninstall option available in Control Panel of my Windows 7 Ultimate pc. Finally I got another error that, Visual Studio could not create AppData folder in my system. Then, I right click the Visual Studio icon and selected Run as Administrator. This worked for me!! Now, Visual Studio 2010 is working on my pc!! Try this out if you want..