Lately my F12 key does not seem to be working as expected in Visual Studio 2010 Professional SP1. It should go to the definition of what is selected, but instead it's performing the find all references task - Ctrl+K, R.
Does anyone have any ideas how I can fix this? It is getting quite annoying as I routinely use this shortcut - I am working on a large solution where it sometimes locks visual studio briefly trying to find all references.
I have tried going to Tools -> Options -> Enviroment -> Keyboard -> Reset with no success.
One other thing: it only does it sometimes and I am yet to distinguish a pattern when it does and does not work as expected.
Edit:
One thing I forgot to say is that when it does not work, the second time I press F12 it does take me to the definition, it's just the first press that finds all references.
You can set any keyboard shortcut to any command.
Type edit.gotodefinition to select the command and press F12 to assign the key.
like this
Maybe there is more than one definition for the class or function in your project?
I had this problem after copy/pasting a class definition. After pressing F12 on the class name, it first brought up a search result showing both files in which the class name was found. If you press F12 another time, it will jump to the first one in the search results.
Did you know that you can use Ctrl + - (Minus) to jump back? :-)
I experienced this exact misbehavior today with VC++ 2013: pressing F12 was no longer jumping to a method's definition, but was instead showing a list of references to that method.
Turns out IntelliSense is required in order for the command Edit.GoToDefinition to work, which I had disabled this morning. Setting Tools>Options>Text editor>C/C++>Advanced>IntelliSense> Disable IntelliSense back to False fixed the problem.
Delete your SUO file before opening your project in Visual Studio. Unfortunately you have to do this every time before opening your project. This will also work when Visual Studio stopped regenerating the designer files.
I had the same issue where my F12 key was not working nor were any of my other Function keys. After spending some frustrating time Googling I found that my fancy keyboard had the function key locked! So check that too before try the Tools-> Options
I don't know what key combination I did, but now each time I click somewhere in the page, Visual Studio selects the text between first and second mouse click.
I tried to escape from this "selection mode", but nothing helps, nor Escape, nor left clicks, nor Ctrl+Up/Down.
I opened another VS window and there is all right - normal selection.
What is it, how to cancel it, what is it for?
I should probably restart Visual Studio. I remember that that happened some times ago in VS 2005. Very annoying VS "feature".
P.S. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, but I found similar problem described here. The guy says that "The only way to stop is to press escape or shift and an arrow key."
I have very often the same issue, just after stopping the debugger. No idea how it starts... But I found the key combination to stop it: Press "Alt Gr"+"Ctrl(right)"+"Shift(right)"
I figured out how to turn this issue on and off:
Just press the ins (Insert) key; If you're using a full sized keyboard it will be to the right of backspace and above delete or if you're using a smaller keyboard it'll be the second option of zero key on the number pad to the right of the right arrow key.
Click on tools and then options. Under environment select keyboard. Then there will be a window open up with options. The first drop down says something about mapping. Set that to default.
Brief, if this was previously selected, is an old DOS format and the key bindings will cause similar actions.
I have experienced the same problem (VS 2010). Here is what happens:
I start the debugger on a project whith Unmanaged debugging enabled. When I try use the key combination Ctrl+Shift+L to delete a line I get a dialog saying 'Changes are not allowed when unmanaged debugging is enabled'. The title of the dialog is 'Edit and Continue'. When the dialog is closed the editor gets stuck with this behavior:
Shift+Right-Click behavior: It selects the text between the cursor and the position of the mouse-click
Ctrl+Scroll behavior: If I try to scroll using the mouse wheel it will zoom in or out instead.
It behaves like the Shift and Ctrl keys are being held down.
I have found these key combinations that will get me out of this situation:
Shift + Arrow down
Ctrl + Arrow down
Until I discovered this I had to restart Visual Studio.
Use the (insert) Key in the Key board.
I have this issue when I VPN to a machine running VS. Here is the key combination I have found to get me out of this state. I do a ctrl-f to open the find window. I type some characters in the find textbox and I notice that the letters are all capital (even though I did not set the caps lock). I hit the caps lock key and test using the find text box to make sure my caps lock is not set (lowercase). Once the lowercase is set, the selecting text between mouse clicks behavior goes away. Don't know why, but this works for me.
I can't seem to find a question on this, but it might be because I'm unable to find a good way to search for it...
I recently updated my installation of Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools, and now every time I type # in a code window, I get a search window of some sort opened instead of the # symbol in my code. I can't find the key setting that triggers this, and it's beginning to be a real problem.
I'm on a Swedish keyboard, so to get # I press Alt Gr+2. I've gone through all the settings under Tools/Options/Keyboard that starts with "View.", but found nothing.
Can anybody help me delete this keyboard mapping?
Update: I just realized that the key mapping Alt Gr+2 is equivalent to Ctrl+Alt+2. But I still can't find what it's mapped to...
I found the problem in the comment thread on the VS team blog post on the Solution Navigator - it turns out this problem is built-in into the extension, and they're working on fixing it for the next release. (Basically, they're binding stuff to Ctrl+2 and 2, but VS also takes the Ctrl+Alt equivalents, which then are interpreted as Alt Gr...)
For now, disabling Solution Navigator solves the problem (but, obviously, makes Solution Navigator unavailable...), but hopefully there will be a fix out pretty soon.
Somehow Visual Studio search has stopped working for me. Anytime I search "Entire Solution" for some text I get this result:
Find all "[Whatever I was searching for]", Subfolders, Find Results
1, "Entire Solution" No matching text found to look in. Find was
stopped in progress.
Why does it suddenly say "No files were found to look in"?
I've found a number of links on Google that say to press Ctrl + Break or Ctrl + Scroll Lock, but none of them seem to work for me.
I get that problem once in a while. One seemingly nonsensical solution I've found is to click inside the Find Results window (not the Output window). Once the blinking text cursor is visible, hit Ctrl+Break four or five times. This seems to "unblock" whatever causes the problem.
There are reports Ctrl + ScrLk may need to be used instead of Ctrl+Break . If these doesn't work then try Break alone.
Note from Codeguard: I have found an explanation and deterministic solution to this problem
Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Visual Studio 9.0.30729.1
Didn't Work:
Ctrl + Break
Ctrl + Scroll Lock
Restart of Visual Studio
Worked:
Break (in Find Result 1 & 2) (only pressed once)
Source: Comments in Gordon's link...
Bug source
This is neither Visual Studio nor Windows related bug. In fact, the bug is in your keyboard! Many keyboards from different vendors have been reported to be buggy.
Problem
If you press Ctrl+Break and release Ctrl first, then Break gets stuck on a buggy keyboard. If you ever pressed Ctrl+Break the "wrong" way, you will have this problem with search being interrupted.
Details
According to scan code specifications, Break and Ctrl+Break are special. They send "make" (press) AND "break" (release) scan codes the moment you press Break. They send nothing when you release Break. The buggy keyboard will send the following sequence:
Ctrl "make" scan code
Ctrl+Break "make" scan code
Ctrl "break" scan code
Pause "break" scan code
That is, Ctrl+Break is never released, but instead Pause is released.
Reproduction
You could for example use old good Spy++ from Visual Studio tools. Attach it to anything, for example Windows notepad, and monitor messages (I suggest that you select only keyboard messages). Press Ctrl+Break, releasing Ctrl first. Check the output from Spy++. You will see the sequence I shown in Details section.
I have tried two different keyboards on the same computer. Logitech K120 has the bug while some other Mitsumi keyboard behaves according to specifications and does not have the bug.
If you think about it, it's easy to understand that correct behavior needs special case handling, while buggy behavior is naive. This is why many different keyboards can be buggy.
Solution
Replace your keyboard :)
Workaround
You simply need to press Ctrl+Break, paying attention to releasing Break first. It doesn't matter which application is active.
This bug has been in Visual Studio a long time and it never seems to get fixed.
See this MS Connect item from 2004: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/105511/find-in-files-says-no-files-were-found-to-look-in-find-was-stopped
I couldn't believe they still hadn't fixed it in VS2010 - but it's still there :(
The Connect item has been marked as Closed - Won't Fix: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/718217/find-was-stopped-in-progress-while-performing-search-in-visual-studio
Ctrl+Break or Ctrl+ScrLk cancel a find operation. Try it. What has happened is that some software layer (presumably Windows) thinks those keys are still being pressed even though they are not. Pressing and releasing them clears the flag.
It could be any of these combinations:
Ctrl+Break
Alt+Break
Break
Ctrl+ScrLk
Remember that you have multiple control and alt keys on your keyboard -- try it with each of them. If it's the right Ctrl key + ScrLk, pressing the left Ctrl is not going to resolve the issue.
Here is the Connect issue which Microsoft closed as "Won't Fix".
If this is a recurring problem for you, there is a Visual Studio extension that suppresses the virtual key that causes the problem.
Ctrl + F and Ctrl + Shift + F have stopped working on Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition.
My friend told me going to:
Tools → Import and Export Settings:
Choose: Reset all settings → Next
Choose: No, just reset settings, overwriting my current settings → Next
Choose: General → Finish
In my case I had a bogus character in the "Look at these file types:" field in the search window.
Removing the character solved the problem.
Visual Studio 2017
Search solution in Visual Studio 2012 is broke. I tested this on three machines, did not work on two. What I found which does work is click on drop down arrow next to search field and select Find all. This is a bit of pain because you have to select drop down every time you search in solution.
I tried all the previous options. They didn't work for me, but reading them made me sure that this is a bug, and I will have to try some unknown ways to get it working. So, I tried a simple file search in Visual Studio 2010 in:
The current document
All the open documents
Both of which worked.
Then I tried Find in Files and woah! It started working.
Unfortunately none of these special key strokes work for me. Only restarting Visual Studio 2010 seems to work for me.
I had the same problem in Visual Studio 2013 (Update 3). None of the key combinations listed previously worked for me. I had *.cs selected in the FileTypes.
To get it working, I changed it to *.*, and then back again to *.cs - now it works.
I have been using Visual Studio 13 without this problem for couple of years now and I started having this issue after applying Update 5 or it could be a weird keys combo pressed by me unknowingly which triggered it, I don't know for sure.
Echelon_Force's solution worked for me. Thanks!
Didn't Work:
Ctrl + Break
Ctrl + Scroll Lock
Worked:
Break (in Find Result 1 & 2 window - Only pressed once)
Happy finding in files!
All of the combinations of Scroll Lock and Break didn't do anything for me. As a workaround, I added the solution directory to the Search Folders (the second ellipsis button), then changed the Look In field to the solution directory. The root problem still exists, but for me, this is functionally the same thing.
(Visual Studio 2013, Windows 8.1, x64)
I was using Visual Studio 2022 (tried with both professional and community, V 17.2.5), my search function was not working in Find in All Files, so I browsed to my solution folder, under .vs\{ProjectName} folder, there is another folder with name FileContentIndex. After closing visual studio and deleting this folder, and restarting vs, seemed to solve my problems, and my Find in All Files started functioning correctly.
I had the same problem as glenneroo today, after updating Visual Studio 2019 to 16.4.3. Found a solution that worked for me here.
Open Find Options and check if there is a (special) character in the Look at these file types text field. If so, remove it.
In Visual Studio 2013 after Update 3, I had the same problem. Before, I could just put ".cs" or ".cshtml" in the Look at these file types: and it would work. But after Update 3 I now have to put ".cs" or ".cshtml" (or whatever file types I want to search in) and it works fine.
This works for me after everything else didn't or worked only sometimes:
Do the search, and while searching, hold CRTL all the time and keep pressing Break.
If you are searching for multiple file types, they must be separated with a ; character, not a space.
This returns the correct results:
*.cs;*.vb;*.js;*.aspx
This returns nothing at all:
*.cs *.vb *.js *.aspx
This isn't the problem the original poster, but for other people who can't figure out why their search isn't working, this could be the reason.
Another late-to-the-party answer, but I found yet another "solution" for this problem.
When it looks as if the Visual Studio app has frozen on search...leave it alone. Don't close it. Don't restart it. Just let it go for about 10-15 minutes and the problem may correct itself, as it did in my specific case. I'm not sure as to why leaving it alone solved the problem, although my wholly uneducated guess is that Visual Studio is building some sort of an index to be able to search files and running into a snag. Once the 10-15 minutes are up and VS completes its search, it seems fine after that.
Probably won't apply to most situations, but what fixed it for me was turning off 'Use Regular Expressions' in the search window. I had previously been using Regular Expressions for some tricky replacements and didn't turn off when finished. I think perhaps it was interpreting part of simple replace text (see below - had some special characters) as the start of an incomplete or malformed regular expression, and so couldn't actually do any matching. Would be nice if it told you!
It only seems to lock-up if I use Ctrl + F (Find in Entire Solution) and never if I use Ctrl + Shift + F (Find in Files).
That Ctrl+Break trick worked for me for years, it's really interesting to finally understand why this happens. With VS2015 I have somewhat related problem with search: my Ctrl+Shift+F simply does not work, this key combination seems to be ignored when I press it. I tried to reinstall even VS 2015 and I still got that same broken behavior.
In case somebody has identical problem, here's what was the reason:
I turns out that for whatever random reason VS2015 shows that "find in files" dialog on another monitor that's attached to my PC. That other monitor is 4K Samsung TV that normally stays "Off" and I have no clue why VS 2015 sends that search dialog box to that monitor. Surprisingly, when I turn on my TV the search dialog moves to the primary monitor on its own!
Ctrl + Break works for Visual Studio 2008
Nothing worked for me. I use also Resharper. So I had to reset my VS key bindings and reapply Resharper shortcuts. Only this got me it working.
Reset current keyboard configuration (Tools | Options | Environment | Keyboard | Reset).
Go to ReSharper | Options | Environment | Keyboard & Menus | "Visual Studio" | Apply Scheme.
I am running Visual Studio 2012 Professional in a Virtual Machine, connecting using rdesktop from a Linux machine.
None of the other suggestions worked, but solved the problem was:
Go to the 'Find and Replace' screen. (ctrl-shift-f in my case)
Enter a search text and choose 'Entire Solution'
Hit 'Find Next', it should find a result.
Hit 'Find All', now works without aborting. (Note, i hit my Mouse really hard and some swearing was involved, too, but I don't think that has any relevance apart from a psychological one :D )
Tried all the solution, but the fixed of mine was I accidently change to another language keyboard on my windows, after I change back to English keyboard, it work, finally I can ctrl + shirt + f
I'm currently using VS2019 16.7.7, and, if I try to find something in the whole solution, VS never finds all the occurrences, sometimes only one, or none.
In some recent release of VS2019 (perhaps 16.5 or 16.6) the old "Find and replace" dialog was replaced by a new "Find in files" dialog, and this new one is failing for me. One solution that worked for me was to disable the new "Find in files" and keep using the old "Find and replace" dialog by checking Use previous Find In Files in Tools > Options > Environment > Preview features.
However, I observed that this was only failing in one of my open Visual Studio instances, so I tried the simple "close VS and open it again", enabled the new "Find in files" functionality, and it started working.
Two possible solutions, in case the simple "close and open again" fails.
The following worked for me. Visual Studio → menu Windows → Reset Window Panel. The resizing of Visual Studio made it to hide the option.
This was one of my biggest problems with Visual Studio. For me (Windows 10, Visual Studio 2015) the find in all files window got locked with a white-out, and guess what, hitting print screen solves it.
This has begun occurring for me with the update to Version 15.8.8 of Visual Studio. None of the above steps worked. There is no error. Just what appears to be a 'stuck' search.
I had recently installed ApexSQL Refactor 2018.03.0331. Uninstalling this did not resolve the issue and does not seems to be the cause. It seems to be related to Version 15.8.8 of Visual Studio update.
I completely uninstalled Visual Studio and reinstalled Version 15.8.8 again. The issue with Ctrl-Shift-F searching the Entire Solution is no longer an issue. Whatever caused the problem does resolve after uninstalling and installing.
I once again installed ApexSQL Refactor 2018.03.0331 and everything still works well.
After working for a few days with Eclipse Java I totally got addicted to pressing Ctrl and clicking on an identifier to go to its definition. Since then I've been looking for a way to achieve this in Visual Studio as well.
I realize VS has right click, Go to definition, and that F12 does the same. I also realize that Visual Assist does something similar with Alt + G. Yet none of these are as perfect as Ctrl + click.
I've actually tried my luck for a few hours trying to write a VS plugin to do it but didn't get anywhere in the time frame I thought reasonable for this.
Does anyone know how this could be achieved? A ready plugin? A macro of some kind?
If you use Visual Studio 2010, you can use the free
Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools from Microsoft to achieve this.
I use visual studio 2013 and 2015, I installed Go To Definition. To install this extension navigate on TOOLS -> Extensions and Updates.
I'll answer the commentors who asked about the difference between Ctrl-click and F12.
Ctrl-click workflow:
Move hand to mouse
Move mouse to hover over variable name
Other hand holds down Ctrl key while you click
Move mouse to position cursor, highlight, right-click, or whatever
Move hand back to keyboard to continue typing
F12 workflow
Move hand to mouse
Mouse mouse to hover over variable name
Move hand back to keyboard
Hit F12 key
Move hand back to mouse
Move mouse to position cursor, highlight, right-click, or whatever
Move hand back to keyboard to continue typing
If you assume the cursor is already positioned on the desired variable, F12 is better. However, that's rarely the case. Also, if you stop after this specific action, assuming you want hands back at the keyboard, the cost is the same. But if you keep in mind that you probably had a reason for wanting to go to the definition, the Ctrl-click workflow saves you an instance of moving between the keyboard and mouse.
Visual Assist supports Ctrl+Click as of June 2009 (build 1727). Activate Ctrl+LeftClick in VA Options | Advanced | General. (See the comment below.)
If you have Visual Studio 2010 you can use "Go To Definition" by Noah Richards.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/4b286b9c-4dd5-416b-b143-e31d36dc622b
oh man, just install resharper!! (vs plugin) with it installed you just go and Ctrl + click to go to definition.
this is not the only thing resharper does, try it out free!!!
I use the built in options (F12, Right-click -> Go to definition) but I know a lot of the guys at my company use Resharper and it definitely has this functionality.
Microsoft released a Visual Studio 2010 extension named "Productivity Power Tools" which now adds Ctrl+Click functionality. So if you're like me, and hate installing third-party addons, you can now have the same functionality!
Another option with VS (besides F12 and right-click > Go to Def) is add the code definition pane (View > Code Def Window). This is essentially another editing pane that shows the code for the current symbol - no need to Ctrl-click or anything. I keep it pinned to my secondary monitor. Any time I need to see the implementation for a symbol I just click it and look over.
Another nice thing about F12 is you can also do ShiftF12 to find references to a symbol and F8 through them. The two go together like love and happiness.
I prefer to bind Go To Definition to CtrlD. This makes it extremely easy to use either with both hands on the keyboard (CtrlD to go tho the definition of the symbol under the cursor) or one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse (Click on a symbol, then CtrlD).
All in all, both VS and Eclipse have weird key shortcuts.
I just had to respond, too: F12 is far too right on the keyboard and you have to leave the the mouse right hand for the keyboard to use it. As a long time VS user I just didn't find it until I searched for the Ctrl+Mouse equivalent in Eclipse. It's completely borked. OK? No need to argue. (The same goes for F3 in Eclipse going for definition. ???? Why the face??? It's FIND NEXT for Pete's sake. But this can be removed after mastering the Eclipse keyboard shortcut system in the course of a few years.)
Anyway, as has been said here before, Microsoft has already understood this can be an issue for new programmers coming in from Eclipse, so they provided the Power Tools (I followed the link up above).
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/d0d33361-18e2-46c0-8ff2-4adea1e34fef/
If you are using Visual Studio 2017, you can use Productivity Power Tools 2017
I don't work in VS much, so I haven't used it, but I've heard incredibly good things about Resharper from everyone I know who does. Everyone has told me it's worth every penny, and significantly improves efficiency in Visual Studio. I think it has a feature like what you're looking for, along with a TON of others.