Code Coverage Results periodically gives: Empty results generated - visual-studio

Question

I've run into a recurring problem with a few different projects using MSTest in VS2012, where every now and then my code coverage stops working (seemingly at random) and instead gives me:
Empty results generated: No binaries were instrumented. Make sure the
tests ran, required binaries were loaded, had matching symbol files,
and were not excluded through custom settings. For more information
see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=253731
I've checked the obvious (what it's suggested) but can't seem to figure out what is causing it.
Here is my runsettings file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RunSettings>
<DataCollectionRunSettings>
<DataCollectors>
<DataCollector friendlyName="Code Coverage"
uri="datacollector://Microsoft/CodeCoverage/2.0"
assemblyQualifiedName=" Microsoft.VisualStudio.Coverage.DynamicCoverageDataCollector,
Microsoft.VisualStudio.TraceCollector,
Version=11.0.0.0,
Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a">
<Configuration>
<CodeCoverage>
<ModulePaths>
<Include>
<ModulePath>.*\.dll$</ModulePath>
</Include>
<Exclude>
<ModulePath>.*\.tests.dll</ModulePath>
</Exclude>
</ModulePaths>
<Attributes>
<Exclude>
<Attribute>.*ExcludeFromCodeCoverageAttribute$</Attribute>
<Attribute>.*GeneratedCodeAttribute$</Attribute>
</Exclude>
</Attributes>
<UseVerifiableInstrumentation>True</UseVerifiableInstrumentation>
<AllowLowIntegrityProcesses>True</AllowLowIntegrityProcesses>
<CollectFromChildProcesses>True</CollectFromChildProcesses>
<CollectAspDotNet>False</CollectAspDotNet>
</CodeCoverage>
</Configuration>
</DataCollector>
</DataCollectors>
</DataCollectionRunSettings>
</RunSettings>

Answer 1

I just ran into this using Visual Studio 2019. The solution was to go to the "Test" menu item in VS and then update the Test -> Processor Architecture for AnyCPU Projects setting from X86 to X64.

Answer 2

This link solved my issue: Issue with Code Coverage in VS 2012
Close Visual Studio 2012, find the .suo file, delete (or rename) it, restart. Worked fine. No idea what is in the .suo file that prevented proper coverage analysis.

Answer 3

If you can't make the Code Coverage to work even after you've deleted the *.suo file, please check your Event Viewer for errors. In my case, after each run I had the following error:
"TraceLog Profiler failed in initialization due to a lack of instrumentation methods, process vstest.executionengine.x86.exe"
I've found the answer here.
In case the link is no longer available, I'm pasting the content in here:
​
If you find yourself with a an empty .coverage file and see errors
similar to the below in your event logs you most probably have a
corrupt install
(info) .NET Runtime version 4.0.30319.17929 - The profiler has
requested that the CLR instance not load the profiler into this
process. Profiler CLSID: '{b19f184a-cc62-4137-9a6f-af0f91730165}'.
Process ID (decimal): 12624. Message ID: [0x2516].
(Error) TraceLog Profiler failed in initialization due to a lack of
instrumentation methods, process vstest.executionengine.x86.exe
Check
a) Environment variable VS110COMNTOOLS is set to
\common7\tools
b) Regkey HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\InstallDir is set
to your \Common7\IDE\
c) covrun32.dll and covrun64.dll exist in "\Team
Tools\Dynamic Code Coverage"
Good luck,
Nadav

Answer 4

I had a similar problem after running PerfView.
Re-running perfview having copied it into a folder of it's own and starting a collection run, followed by stopping it seems to have fixed the issue.
I was getting 0x8007007e errors loading the profiler with a guid of {9999995d-2cbb-4893-be09-fce80abc7564} (Vs2015 profiler) and {6652970f-1756-5d8d-0805-e9aad152aa84} (perfview profiler)
Hope that helps someone else.

Answer 5

There appears to be a bug in Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk 16.3.0+ which results in the same error output and currently the workaround is to downgrade to 16.2.0 which worked for me. In addition to the troubleshooting tips MS provides here there may be SDK issues.

Answer 6

In my case, the issue was that my test dll path contained the string "DataCollector" and seems coverlet has an internal ignore over any path that matches something like .*DataCollector.*

Answer 7

I modified the Property group associated with my debug environment so that it looks like this:
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|AnyCPU'">
<DocumentationFile>OurProjectName.xml</DocumentationFile>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
</PropertyGroup>
For my core.net 3.1 application running xUnit 2.4.1 this was the only thing that fixed it in visual studio 2019 preview.

Answer 8

Configure Test -> Processor Architecture >> AnyCPU Projects setting >>> X86 to X64.This works for me

Answer 9

I was also facing the same issue and tried out all the above options but it did not work for me.
I could solve this problem only after creating full debug information. The settings for full debug information may vary from version to version. As I am using MSVS 2017, in the build menu there is a submenu which allows to have the full debug version.
I hope this will help others as well.