I'm not sure why, but Visual Studio is not showing all the projects in my solution. I need them to show so I can set as default project under solution explorer. I'm not seeing a fix for this issue in a general internet search. The closest I see is VS not showing files folders, but this is different than my issue. Hopefully there is an easy way to fix it, without adding things again piecemeal. My co-workers can see their complete set of projects in solution explorer so it must be a corruption in my workspace.
Open your ".sln" project file using Notepad.
In this file you can observe listed projects like below
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "test.myProject.Data", "test.myProject.Data\test.myProject.csproj", "{6D7F7B84-F3BD-4A19-A069-D144C345B887}"
EndProject
Please add if there any missing projects. If you have old back up or co-workers file, Just copy and paste missing projects to this file.
In my case it works !!
close vs , delete .vs folder then open vs again. it works for me.
I found that re-adding the existing project to the solution worked for me!
I had to copy out changed files in my workspace, fix my permissions/ownership on my directory (it was no owner instead of me), re-do the mapped drive the workspace was on, re-do the shortcut to the Visual Studio project (even though it was supposed to theoretically be the same place I mapped), re-pull the project down, and copy my changes in again. At this point Visual Studio had the missing solutions in it again so I could set startup project and run the debugger. I'm not sure how the ownership/permissions got messed up. I think at one point the other office had a server go down, and maybe my permissions/ownership got mixed up then. I'm not sure why VS wasn't showing the missing projects, but it's fixed after doing the above.
I had the same issue where my colleague saw 1 more project on his computer.
I deleted my .sln file and got the exact same version as he. Problem was still the same.
Solution was: I had an unloaded project. Apparently this is safed in a local user setting file (probably the .suo file). I looked for the unloaded project and loaded it again.
Close the VStudio entire project, go to the main project folder and click on the .sln file to load the entire project agian.
go to solution explorer see which are having (unload), right click and load project with dependencies
sometimes check if the project startup has changed, if changed just right click on the related project and set as project startup
This .sln file structure breakdown offers a great insight on how projects are able to be found and populated into the project hierarchy. My .sln file had lost all its project persistence blocks and thus I had 0 projects under my solution. I copied the blocks from a a previous git commit and this fixed it. I still don't know why the blocks disappeared or the whole .sln file changed
If the other solutions didn't work for you, then try this.
You can add the missing project to the solution file using the dotnet command. To do so, go to the root folder of your project and run the following command from the terminal:
dotnet sln add ProjectLibrary/ProjectLibrary.csproj
The ProjectLibrary/ProjectLibrary.csproj is the path to your missing project.
You can open the .sln file to confirm if the prject has been added. You should see something like:
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "ProjectLibrary", "ProjectLibrary\ProjectLibrary.csproj", "{F042B1DB-F887-44CC-941A-76569A86AF75}"
EndProject
Hope this helps.
I had the same issue. After opening the Visual Studio in Administrator mode it started to work.
Search for VS->Right click-> "Run as administrator"
I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) with IISExpress8 and when navigating to
c:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express>iisexpress.exe
it says:
Filename: redirection.config
Error: Cannot read configuration file
Any ideas where to start?
I can't find anything...
I had a similar issue to #Myles J but renaming %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config didn't work. What I had to do was the following:
Close Visual Studio.
Rename the %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory.
Start Visual Studio again. The %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory will be recreated with the default config files.
Copy the original applicationhost.config file over the autogenerated one.
Before anyone asks: the permissions on the folders were identical, the read-only flag was not set on the folder or its files, and I didn't modify applicationhost.config in any way.
After installing IIS Express, copy all files from
C:\Program Files\IIS Express\config\templates\PersonalWebServer
to
%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config
Right click on your project file and Edit the project file and remove the URL from IISUrl and reload your project then it will work
I have just resolved this. It is a strange solution but it worked for me. Here are the steps I took:
Navigate to the folder containing the local IISExpress config files (normally My Documents>IISExpress>config on Windows7).
Find the applicationhost.config file. Rename it to something different e.g. applicationhost2.config.
Navigate to your web project in Visual Studio (I was using VS 2012). Right click on the web project and select Use IISExpress. Run the project. It should fail due to the renaming of the config file.
Change the name of the configuration file back to application.config. Ensure "Use Local IIS Web Server" is selected in the web project settings. Run the solution.
This worked for me.
If you do:
C:\Users\”username*****”\Documents\IISExpress\config
You find these file
applicationhost.config
aspnet.config
redirection.config
Delete above 3 file and then open the project.then the problem is solved. I tried, its working fine.
I have the exact same issue with Visual Studio 2013 on Windows 8.1
I map My Documents folder to SkyDrive, so the IISExpress folder was marked as "Online-only". Once I marked it as "Available offline" everything worked.
Visual Studio will only report the filename it looks for, not the full path. The problem for many users is that the IISExpress with the redirection.config can exist in multiple paths, including a OneDrive path which may not be synced.
To figure out exactly what file Visual Studio attempts to open, use the Microsoft (SysInternals) tool ProcMon. It lists all files and resources Windows tries to access. Add a filter for "Path contains redirection.config" and reproduce the problem in Visual Studio. Now you will see the actual path it tries to use.
In my case, I have multiple IISExpress folders. One that was synced to OneDrive and another one that was local. Visual Studio tried to access the OneDrive folder which was not synced to the local disk, and thus it failed.
In some situations simply renaming/deleting the applicationhost.config file isn't enough since VS won't always recreate it for you. I believe the following will fix it under all circumstances:
Close Visual Studio.
Make sure there are no IIS Express processes running, then delete C:\Users\XXXX\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config (where XXXX is your Windows username).
On command line, execute c:\Program Files\IIS Express\iisexpress.exe. This will recreate the necessary configs. Press 'Q' straight away to end the process.
Open Visual Studio again and Start/Debug your web project. Everything should now be working.
Backup files at local IISExpress folder. It can be found at: C:\Users\”username*****”\Documents\IISExpress\config
Go to the location:
C:\Program Files\IIS Express\config\templates\PersonalWebServer
Copy the required files from this directory to the local IISExpress folder.
It worked for me after I copied over the files:
applicationhost.config
aspnet.config
redirection.config
In my case the 'My documents' folder for my work laptop was mapped to a network share. So when the work network was not available I was not able to open my solution.
Change:
These will have the value of my docs in network share. Change this to local
I. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal
II. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal
For eg:
Old value: \networkdrive\c$\Users\profile\Documents
New value: C:\Users\profile\Documents
See:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chiranth/2015/04/01/error-while-runningstarting-a-website-under-iisexpress-in-visual-studio/
The issue is that the files in C:\Users\"Your Username"\Documents\IISExpress\config are encrypted.
Open this folder, Select all the files, Right click and select properties,
Click advanced, deselect "Encrypt contents to secure data, Click okay, click apply.
That will fix it.
Using Visual Studio 2013
I had to stop visual studio rename the whole config directory, Documents > IISExpress> Config then start a new web project, which fails but it recreates the config directory, then I rebooted and launched visual studio and everything worked!
I noticed this problem after copying a project between 2 computers, perhaps it was caused by a duplicate IISExpress port or something trivial.
Using VS2013 / Windows 7
Close solution. Open Windows Explorer and right-click on "My Documents\IISExpress\config" directory and select "Decrypt". Be sure "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" is selected. Reopen VS solution.
In my case it happened when IISExpress was still active from a previous VS session and new instance of VS was run.
The solution was to stop (or kill) IIS Express instance.
Fix was really simple for me >> Restart Visual Studio
My setup:
Visual Studio 2015
Web projects use local IIS 8.5
I occasionally experience what I believe to be a VS bug where it converts some projects to use IISExpress (this is fixed by deleting the folder created in /This PC/Documents). This might be related.
You don't need to close Visual Studio or rename anything.
Open properties for %userprofile%\Documents
Select Security > Advanced, change owner to yourself (again if you are already owner).
Select "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" and "Replace all child object permission entires with inherited permission entires from this object".
Ok.
For me, It's a simple lack of permission either give everyone permission
to "%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config" this folder or Open VS in Admin mode
for me was removing the file Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config
Closing visual studio > Open > Debug
Thanks for the previous answer help go straight to the issue
After trying to solve an issue with a quick fix of changing IIS express inside visual studio from integrated to classic pipeline , I ended up not being able to use IIS express at all. I tried all techniques above...
I could not rename , copy the file. Uninstall of IIS express and re-install did not work.
I FINALLY downloaded the latest version of WebMatrix and installed IIS express 8, that did not work, but at least then i was able to finally delete the old directory and then I recreated itself.....
NOT FUN AT ALL.
I resolved this (with vs2013 and windows 7) by going to Documents > IISExpress> Config and renaming the application.config. After that, I restarted visual studio and opened my project and it worked.
I ran into this issue while trying to open another developer's solution after installing VS2013 (Update 3 RC). After following the advice here and deleting/renaming/etc. the config folder, VS re-created the files in the wrong location. It created nested config folders:
C:\Users[user]\Documents\IISExpress\config\config
I moved everything from ...\config\config into ...\config, and it worked as expected.
I found that deleting one of the sites from the applicationhost.config file resolve this problem for me.
I used the following command from the %ProgramFiles(x86)%\IISExpress directory:
appcmd list site
then
appcmd delete site rogueSiteName
Especially there was a site name with a bracketed number suffix (e.g. "MySite(1)") that I deleted. I'm not sure yet if VS2013 just had an issue with the brackets or that two sites pointed to the same directory. Either way deleting it made VS happy again.
Background
I had been struggling with this issue for a couple of days and nothing seemed to help - not even the instructions given in the top answers here.
I had also tried moving the config folder as mentioned in http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/introduction-to-iis-express/iis-80-express-readme. But although VS2013 recreated the directory structure and files in the new location the errors continued and running appcmd showed that it was still pointing at the old location by default.
Credits
Credit for where I found the commands to use goes to http://gyorgybalassy.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/cleaning-up-iis-express-configuration/
For ASP.Net Core just access your Properties section, then make a modification and save it.
Example: I modified the SSL port
You will get a notification that your launchsettings.json was modified. Accept that and you're good to go.
If it is ASP.NET Core project
Just try to change iis port in file launchSettings.json by path iisSettings:iisExpress:applicationUrl
It's 2020, I am reporting the same problem in Visual Studio 2019.
Cause: Multiple VS instances open with different web app (Blazor in my instance).
Solution: Close all VS instances and re-open the solution that you want to run.
On IIS 10 Express. Make sure that Visual Studio (VS) is turned off.
I first found out that %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\ was not working.
I first thought IIS Express had clashed with IIS from the windows OS.
I uninstalled it, yet no changes, then I uninstalled IIS 10 Express that was installed with VS 2019 through the control panel.
Then I went ahead to discover that this file is saved at the C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Documents\IISExpress, associated with one drive storage, so I advise you copy %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\ and paste in your windows explorer navigation to find directory.
go to one directory higher, and/or rename the config folder. Restart your VS and run the project again.
Mine was caused by OneDrive. Apparently my documents folder is being synced to it.
What I did is changed the location of the documents folder through regedit and navigated to this path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > User Shell Folders
and then changed the value of Personal
from: C:\Users\my username\OneDrive\Documents
to C:\Users\my username\Documents
After that I restart my computer and I was able to create a VS project.
I have the same issue,
First time, i think Visual Studio not permission access to %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config so i run Visual Studio with Administrator, but it not working.
I try all answer above but still the error!
Finally, i look internet, i see my onedrive is stopping, i enable and sync data. Restart computer and worked.
I have an issue. We are upgrading to VS 2012 at work. When we open a VS 2010 project Visual Studio converts the project. This is fine, because VS 2010 can still use the project (yay microsoft). However, there is a \Backup folder created in the solution directory. Is this being created as part of the migration? Is there any way to control it?
The reason I ask is that the process that makes this folder copies web.config files into the folder. If you then try to build the solution (these are MVC projects), we get a "It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS." error. The cause is that there is a web.config file in a subfolder instead of the root folder. We did not make and do not want this change, and cannot figure out how to control it. Deleting the Backup\Web.config file fixes the error. Renaming it from web.config to web.config.bak fixes the problem.
I don't really want to have to personally open and convert every single project, and don't want random people bumping into this problem. Any idea how to either stop VS from creating the Backup folder, or how to make it create them in the my documents studio folder etc? I can't find any setting to control this and can't find any good info.
By chance, are you using the MvcBuildViews property to pre-compile your views at build time? If so, this is why you're encountering this (since it does the pre-compile in the same directory, it doesn't filter out any of the files below the project directory).
Note that you will also encounter this issue if you use the Publish feature for this project. Publish copies the web.config under your intermediate build output directory (by default, obj/) before and after applying web.config transforms.
The good news is that in VS2012, or in VS2010 with the latest Azure SDK installed, pre-compile is now supported for Web Application Projects (including MVC). These settings are currently in the project properties, under the Package/Publish Web tab.
(this doesn't directly address your question about the Backup folder, but it was too long for a comment.)
There is no way to control it that I found. We had to go ahead and run through and convert every project to 2012 and delete the backup folders to prevent any other team from running into it.
In visual studio 2010, when publishing a website, it seems that empty folders are not being published.
I am quite sure that this behavior were introduced in vs2010. I cant find it documented anywhere, not sure if I should call it a feature or a bug... Anyway, is it possible to revert to the old behavior as I wish to keep my folder structure on the production server.
This is actually a limitation of vs2010 as reported on the Microsoft connect site
http://vishaljoshi.blogspot.com/2007/11/wdp-does-not-publish-empty-folders.html
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/546356/publish-deploy-does-not-deploy-empty-folders
There was a bug report to Microsoft about this and they said that they would not fix it.
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/546356/publish-deploy-does-not-deploy-empty-folders
Too bad. Because it used to work in Visual Studio 2008.
Add a dummy file like dummy.txt to the directory and then the directory will be created.
Note that it is not necessary to actually deploy the dummy file. It only needs to exist as part of the project in the build environment.
The Empty folder doesn't have any memory value so if you want to add your folder's into your published folder then simply add any item(e.g. text File) into it and set the "Copy to output directory" = Copy always or Copy if Newer this will resolve you problem
Whenever I publish my MVC web application in VS 2010 via the One-click publish feature (I'm not doing any web.config transforms or anything fancy - yet!). The next time I come to build the app I get the following error:
It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication'
beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being
configured as an application in IIS. in ...MyWebApp\obj\release\package\packagetmp
\web.config
A new copy of the web.config file is indeed created by VS2010 below the ...MyWebApp\obj\ folder so I deleted the whole obj folder and I was then able to build again.
But I shouldn't have to do that each time I publish - I must have something configured incorrectly - can anyone help please.
Thanks.
This is unfortunately a known issue with Publishing a web application to the file system. This still affects the release version (RTM) of Visual Studio 2010. It's not limited to the Beta or RC versions.
This problem "bit" me also, and I too was having to manually delete the Debug and Release folders inside the obj folder within my web site solution folder.
The real answer for an automated "workaround" can be found in this answer to the other Stack Overflow question:
Why do I randomly get a “error to use section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication'” when building an MVC project?
In a nutshell, you need to delete the web.config files from either the Debug or Release folders (or both!), and that's achieved with a pre-build command (configured in the Build Events tab of the Project Properties page of your solution):
del "$(ProjectDir)\obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp\web.config"
del "$(ProjectDir)\obj\Release\Package\PackageTmp\web.config"
Personally, I delete the entire obj folder since all those files are re-created with each build anyway.
I have just found a work around for this that has worked for me, open the .csproj for your web project and change the node under the Project\PropertyGroup node to this:
from this:
<MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
to this:
<MvcBuildViews>false</MvcBuildViews>
This has worked for me, hopefully it will work for you also.