When I want to edit C# Unity scripts, they open in Visual Studio. It is supposed to provide auto complete for all Unity related code, but it doesn't work.
Here you can see the missing functionality:
As seen, the transform object does not open the autocomplete menu.
Unity version: 5.5.2f1
Visual studio 2015
Visual Studio Tools for Unity is installed
There is no auto-completion because the script says "Miscellaneous Files" instead of the of the name of the Project. Take a look at the image below that came from the video in your question:
The "Miscellaneous Files" message can happen for many reasons:
It can happen when you open your Unity C# file from another folder instead of opening it from Unity Editor.
This can also happen because Unity crashed while Visual Studio is still open therefore corrupting some files.
It can happen because Unity was closed then re-opened but is no longer connected to Visual Studio. When Visual Studio is opened you get "Miscellaneous Files" and no auto-completion.
This can happen when Visual Studio Tools for unity is not installed.
When you create a script from Unity then quickly open it before Unity finish processing it or before the round icon animation stuff finish animating.
Most of the times, restarting Unity and Visual Studio should fix this.
I can't tell which one is causing the problem but I will cover the most likely solution to fix this.
Fix Part 1:
Download and Install Visual Studio Tools for unity from this link. Do this while Unity and Visual Studio are both closed.
From Unity Editor, go to Edit → Preferences... → External Tools. On the External Script Editor drop down menu, change that to Visual Studio 2015.
Fix Part 2:
If newly created C# files are coming up as Miscellaneous then follow the instruction below:
From Visual Studio, go to Tools → Options... → Tools for Unity → Miscellaneous. Under Show connectivity icon, set it to true then restart Visual Studio.
When you re-start, connection icon should now be available in Visual Studio. Click it then choose the Unity instance to connect to. The red 'x' icon should now turn into a brown checkmark icon. Now, when you create a new C# file in Unity, it should open without saying Miscellaneous.
Fix Part 3:
Still not fixed?
Re-import project then open C# Project.
Close Visual Studio.
From Unity, re-import project by going to Assets → Reimport All.
Now, open the project in Visual Studio by going to Assets → Open C# Project. This will reload the project and fix possible solution file problems.
Fix Part 4:
Still not fixed?
Fix each C# file individually.
Click on Show All Files icon.
Select the script that doesn't do auto-complete then right-click and select Include In Project.
Fix Part 5:
Not fixed yet?
Credit goes to chrisvarnz for this particular solution which seems to have worked for multiple people.
Close Visual Studio
Go your project directory and delete all the generated Visual Studio files.
These are the files extensions to delete:
.csproj
.user
.sln
Example:
Let's say that the name of your Project is called Target_Shoot, these are what the files to delete should look like:
Target_Shoot.csproj
Target_Shoot.Editor.csproj
Target_Shoot.Editor.csproj.user
Target_Shoot.Player.csproj
Target_Shoot.Player.csproj.user
Target_Shoot.sln
Do not delete anything else.
Double click on the script again from Unity which should generate new Visual Studio file then open Visual Studio. This may solve your problem.
Fix Part 6:
If not working, check if you are having this error:
The "GetReferenceNearestTargetFrameworkTask" task was not found
Install Nuget PackageManager from here.
Restart Visual Studio.
See this answer for more information.
Fix Part 7
Make sure all of the projects are loaded.
In Solution Explorer it should tell you # of # projects.
If all of the projects are not showing, right click on "Solution (# of # projects)" and click Load Projects.
Try this,
In Unity Editor Go to Menu, Click on Edit -> Preferences -> External Tools -> External Script Editor. Set it to Visual Studio (your installed version of VS).
Now in Menubar go to Edit -> Project Settings -> Player Settings -> Other Settings -> Under Configuration -> Check API Compatibility Level -> Change it to your installed .Net version. In my case I set it to .Net 4.x
Now if Visual Studio is running already go to Visual Studio, it will ask to reload project. Reload the project. Check if it works, if not close Visual Studio. Now Open cs file from Unity Editor, and now it should work.
I found another way to fix this issue in a more convenient manner:
Select the broken file in Solution Explorer.
Open its Properties.
Switch field "Build Action" from "Compile" to "None".
Then switch it back to "Compile".
This will kill the synchronization between Unity and Visual Studio somehow.
The next time Visual Studio will reload the project, it will prompt a warning.
Just click on "Discard".
If you have done all of the above and still isn't working , just try this:
Note: you should have updated VS.
Goto Unity > edit> preference >External tools> external script editor.
Somehow for me I had not selected "visual studio" for external script editor and it was not working. As soon as i selected this and doubled clicked on c# file from unity it started working.
I hope it helps you too.
Unload and reload the project, in Visual Studio:
right click your project in Solution Explorer
select Unload Project
select Reload Project
Fixed!
I found this solution to work the best (easiest), having run into the problem multiple times.
Source: https://alexdunn.org/2017/04/26/xamarin-tips-fixing-the-highlighting-drop-in-your-xamarin-android-projects/
This page helped me fix the issue.
Fix for Unity disconnected from Visual Studio
In the Unity Editor, select the Edit > Preferences menu.
Select the External Tools tab on the left.
For External Script Editor, Choose the Visual Studio version you have.
Click regenerate Files
You Done
Select project in Visual Studio
Click "Refresh" button
I hit the same issues today using Visual Studio 2017 15.4.5 with Unity 2017.
I was able to fix the issue by right clicking on the project in Visual Studio and changing the target framework from 3.5 to 4.5.
Hope this helps anyone else in a similar scenario.
Two Alternative Options:
Fix 1
#singleton pointed me in this direction. Instead of changing the target in Visual Studio you should change it in Unity since the project is auto-generated.
First delete the auto generated Visual Studio files:
.csproj
.user
.sln
Then from within Unity go to PlayerSettings and under 'Other Settings' change the 'Scripting Runtime Version' from Stable 3.5 to Experimental 4.6.
However, that didn't fix it for me.
Fix 2
I noticed all of the references to Unity related code was marked with a yellow warning. Check your error logs and see if this is the case. In particular see if you get the following error: getreferenceNearestTargetframeworkTask
If so try:
Start Visual Studio Installer again.
On the Build Tools 2017, click Modify,
Ensure that "Nuget targets and build tasks" are ticked. This should become ticked if you click on Universal Windows Platform development.
Update 2020 with Visual Studio Community 2019 and Unity 2019.3:
Open Visual Studio Installer as Administrator, select to modify your current installation and add "Game development for Unity"
If you add a new c# script in Unity now, and open it (automatically) with Visual Studio, it is not described as "Miscellaneous" at the top of the window but with "Assembly-CSharp", and the autocomplete works.
i found my solution by creating the .cs file from visual studio itself instead of unity editor
right click on project folder in solution explorer
add > new item
type "unity" on the search field on the top right
select "CSharp MonoBehaviour"
name your script on the bottom and click Add
In my case, correct .net version was not installed on my PC. I install the .net 3.5 on my pc and that worked for me.
For Windows or macOS:
Download/Install the Visual Studio IDE (with Unity Tools)
When installing, make sure you include installation of
Game development with Unity
Then using Unity (you can double click one of your C# files), open a new C# project and the Visual Studio IDE should open with your new project structure.
From there, you should be able to see what you are looking for.
For example:
For Linux (suggestion):
Try Monodevelop - Additional Information, it provides code completion/hints.
My autocomplete also didn't work because Visual Studio Tools for Unity wasn't installed. So, after you install that, delete the auto generated Visual Studio files. Others said that you open file again and the problem is solved but it's not.
The trick is: instead of normally double-clicking the file, you need to open the C# file from Unity by right click and then "Open C# Project".
The issue I faced was that the C# Project was targeting a different .NET Framework (4.7.2), whereas the Unity project had a different target (.NET 3.5).
I fixed this by changing the target in Unity as-
File -> Build Settings -> Player Settings -> Other Settings -> API
Compatibility Level : Set it to the .NET version you already have
installed (Check your .NET Version here). In my case, it was 4.x
After this, Visual Studio worked perfectly and autocorrect was fixed too.
Try pressing Ctrl + Alt + Space (which toggles between suggestion and standard completion modes)
For some odd reason, the "Game development with Unity" tool can become disabled in Visual Studio.
To fix this..
Open Visual Studio
Go to Extensions → "Manage Extensions" → Installed
Find "Visual Studio 2019 Tools for Unity"
If it is disabled, enable it
Restart VS
Credit to Yuli Levtov's answer on another Thread
The following works for me.
Go to Edit->Preferences->External Tools->External Script Editor Select Scripting Editor
I solved to install the same version of .NET on WIN that was configured in my Unity project. (Player Settings)
Go to Options on the Tools menu and then select Documents in the Environment node. (If Documents does not appear in the list, select Show all settings in the Options dialog box.)
Put a tick on "Miscellaneous files in Solution Explorer" and Click OK. (This option displays the "Miscellaneous Files" node in Solution Explorer. Miscellaneous files are files that are not associated with a project or solution but can appear in Solution Explorer for your convenience if you tick this option.)
Locate your file in the Solution Explorer under "Miscellaneous Files". Then drag and drop your file to where it should belong and voila! This will copy the file to where you drop it. You may now safely delete the older file under Miscellaneous Files folder if you wish to do so
Credits: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47662523/10471480
In case Scripts folder is not visible:
Click on "Show all files" in Solution Explorer
Locate the Scripts folder.
Right Click on Scripts and select "Include in Project"
Keep in mind that if you are using the ReSharper tool, it will override the IntelliSense and show it's own. To change that, on VS, go to Extensions -> ReSharper -> Options -> IntelliSense -> General then choose Visual Studio and not ReSharper.
Before restarting and/or re-installing VS, First try opening any other of your projects to see if Intellisence works, if it does, then issue probably lies with your current project. First, most probable victim would be the NUGET packages with pending updates. To Fix this,
Right click on references
Proceed to Manage NUGET Packages Under NUGET Packages
proceed to updates Install Updates and recheck Intellisence
I tried all of these but ended up finding out that I needed to right-click the solution in Solution Explorer and add existing items and find the C# assembly file in Window's Explorer. There seem to be a bazillion different problems that give you this error, this is likely the most simple solution. If you double click on your script from unity, it does not seem to drag the assembly along.
Another possible fix:
In the project window, click on the Assets folder
Right click, and Create -> C# Script
Double click that, and wait.
For some reason, this work.
None of the above solutions worked for me. However I opened the ProjectName.CSPROJ file and manually added the new file and it worked like charm
What worked me is that I copied all the code inside the broken class and removed that file.
Then, I opened an empty file with the same name and pasted back.
Result: beautiful syntax highlights came back!
"Preferences" -> "External tools" -> set you exteranl tool
Thats one fix. Also for VS you can use ReSharper by JetBrains, but I recommend use Rider. That one is also free for students.
It provides less performance than visual studio, but more than VS+Resharper definitely.
Have a good day, mate)
Try with combination: Ctrl + Alt + Space
one of the above methods are worked for me and I just found a solution to this problem,
1. First, go to the project directory and delete .sln file
2. Second, go to unity and double click your script. Then Visual Studio will be open with an error,
Then click ok and close Visual Studio editor.
Finally, turn off your Windows Defender and then go to your project directory and there will be .csproj file. Just double click and open this from your Visual Studio editor and open the scripts folder inside the assets folder and open the scripts and autocompletion will be working perfectly fine.
These actions solved the problem for my projects in Visual Studio 2022
FIX 1
Solution
Assembly-CSharp (right-click)
Load Entire Dependency Tree
FIX 2
Solution
Assembly-CSharp
References
Double click on any lib to force loading
My toolbox is empty.
Obviously, I'm not the first. I read this question and this other question, but that didn't help.
I click here...
I get this window...
With instructions that say: "...Drag an item onto this text, to add it to the toolbox..."
Sounds good; from where do I get such items to drag?
The toolbox is empty because there is no project loaded.
The toolbox is populated with tools/controls according to the type of the current project. The controls are different for MFC than they are for ASP.NET, for example. If you haven't loaded any project, Visual Studio can't populate the toolbox.
Either open an existing project, or go to File -> New Project to create a new one.
Have you tried right-clicking on it and selecting the "Reset Toolbox" option? You can also try to manually add specific tools to it by using the "Choose Items..." option.
A common suggest is also to go into the Visual Studio 2010 Directory and delete all of the .tbd files within the following directory (Related) :
C:\Documents and Settings\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0"
Although if neither of these options work, you will really want to consider possibly reinstalling / repairing Visual Studio.
Is your project running? I noticed that my toolbox is empty when I am debugging the project. Try stopping debugging.
First of all, they took away the default setup project and give us a 3rd party tool to package ( maybe its a topic for a separate forum), but visual studio keeps opening a new tab with the flexera customer support page(with an irritating javascript error) whenever i have a 'error' in my code .
how can i disable this feature ?
As a workaround, you can go to Solution Properties -> Configuration Properties -> and uncheck the Build action for the setup Project (then close and reopen visual studio).
Later you reactivate it only when setup creation is required.
Another workaround.
Right-click on setup project and choose Unload Project.
When you want to build setup again, use Reload Project.
Not a solution, but another workaround. Edit your hosts file and point that website to localhost. Gets rid of the popups, but not the extra tab in Visual Studio.
1) Run this:
notepad C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
2) Add this text and save the file:
# To get rid of the annoying javascript error popups in Visual Studio
# Example problem URL: http://flexerasoftware.force.com/SupportKBList?searchString=-1014
127.0.0.1 flexerasoftware.force.com
3) Run this:
ipconfig /flushdns
4) Close re-open Visual Studio.
My favorite workaround (10 seconds but must be re-done after each VS2013 restart):
1) Right click the tab and click [Float]
2) Minimize the window and put it in an unused corner of VS 2013
The other day I created a MS visual studio 2010 C# project and started coding. I saved the source frequently, but I did not select a destination to save to (just pressed ctrl+s and assumed the source was being saved). However I had to run and threw my laptop in my backpack on sleep. Unfortunately this laptop (acer aspire 5252 fyi) battery drains extremely quickly when on sleep, and eventually my computer shut off. Now I can't find my source files anywhere and I'm going crazy because I know I saved it and it's several days worth of work.
I tried doing a windows search but couldn't find the project files. I also did a little experiment - I created a new project and without saving the entire solution, I pressed ctrl+s on the source files. Save was successful, but I cannot even find the file that's open in the IDE. Even the "open containing folder option" is grayed out (see screen shot).
I really need these source files back. Obviously it's because I didn't save the solution that the source got wiped out, but where do the source files get saved temporarily before the solution is saved?
Thanks.
You are using Visual Studio's support for temporary projects. Nice feature for quicky test projects (and SO answers) but not a great way to ensure that your projects are still there after VS quits. Programming without source control is similarly inadvisable.
Tools + Options, Projects and Solutions, General. Ensure that the "Save new projects when created" option is ticked to minimize the odds that you'll forget to pick a solution folder. Triple-check that creating a new project now gives you a "Location" property in the dialog.
There is a default location for projects to be saved. That is probably where your files went.
In Visual Studio, on the menu, click Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > General. There is a "Visual Studio projects location".
On my Windows 7 machine, the folder for Visual Studio 2010 is
C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects
Your unnamed project is probably saved with a default name like WebSite1.
If you would like to change that default location, here is some information on how to do that.
Visual Studio temporary projects are normally found in *C:\Users\"User Name"\AppData\Local\Temporary Projects* . It is a temporary folder that is deleted as soon as Visual Studio starts up.
How to save a Temporay Project from above link:
To save a temporary project
In Solution Explorer, choose the solution or project that you want to save.
On the menu bar, choose File, Save or Save As.
The Save Project dialog box opens.
In the , Name box, specify a name for the project.
In the Location box, specify where you want to save the project.
Select the Create directory for Solution check box.
Note: This check box is not available for Visual Basic web projects, Visual C# web projects, or other directory-based projects.
In the New Solution Name box, specify a name that differs from the project name.
Select the Add to Source Control check box if you want to add the solution to a version-control database or repository.
Choose the OK button.
I'm using Team Foundation Server 2010 with Visual Studio 2010.
Whenever I modify a file outside of Visual Studio, TFS doesn't seem to detect the change done to the file, and thus doesn't offer me the option to check-in the file after it has been modified.
How can this be solved?
TFS has a "Reconcile" command for this:
Open the Source Control Explorer
Right-click on the folder with the changes and choose Compare
Select the files you want to reconcile (press CTRL+A to select all files)
Click on the Reconcile button
Set the options in the Reconcile Folder Differences dialog. Make sure Files that do not have pending changes is set to Check Out
Click OK
If you have local changes the Check Out dialog will be shown. Set the preferred Lock type
Click Check Out
See also: Reconcile differences between folders
If you have a network connection to your server while you're working outside of Visual Studio, it's probably best to go ahead and check the file out before editing it, either using the tf command line client, or using the Windows Explorer shell integration that's available in the TFS Power Tools release. (Plus an increasing number of other tools have TFS integration that makes this automatic, but if you're just using notepad, this still needs to be a manual step.)
Of course, there are many times when you're working and you don't have a network connection available that allows you to check out the files.
If you know what files you've modified, you can just check them out from within Visual Studio, then you'll be able to check them back in.
If you don't know what files you've edited, you can detect the changes by running the tfpt online command (also part of the Power Tools release). This will locate the files that have been modified locally and check these files out from the server.
This worked for me, using the TFS Power Tools:
tfpt online /adds /deletes /diff /noprompt /recursive directory-name
(where directory-name is the path to the directory to be updated, otherwise it will detect changes throughout your entire TFS repository)
If you want to know what it would do without it actually making any changes, you can force it to do a dry run by adding the /preview switch.
*1- make changes outside of Visual Studio
2- go to Visual Studio and open Source Control Explorer
3- right click on the folder > "Check Out for Edit" > "Check Out"
4- right click on the same folder > "Undo Pending Changes..." > "Undo changes" > "No to All"*
I tested this workaround on a branch and it helped me a lot. But there are only new files and new folder who has to be done manually.
I recommend to create a branch before the operation. It isolates you the time of the operation.
Note: This technique does also the files identical cleanup that TFS always marks as modified.
Try this. It's some sort of workaround, but it works:
make changes outside of Visual Studio
go to Visual Studio and open Source Control Explorer
right click on the folder > "Check Out for Edit" > "Check Out"
right click on the same folder > "Undo Pending Changes..." > "Undo changes" > "No to All"
That's it. The changes are visible now.
There's also another solution to get TFS to figure out the files that have changed outside of Visual Studio:
Open the solution offline
In Solution Explorer select the solution file and then press the Go Online button ()
TFS will automatically scan the solution for changes after this.
Step one can be achieved in a number of different ways. Here are some:
Use the GoOffline Extension - very simple and effective.
If you're asked for TFS credentials when opening the solution (no automatic domain auth), then don't enter the credentials. The solution will open offline and you'll login after pressing the Go Online button
(extreme solution) Disconnect your network cable; Open the solution; Connect the network cable.
Visual Sourcesafe works like this too and the way I get VSS or TFS to notice the change is by checking the file out once inside Visual Studio.
Open Source Control and go to your TFS folder. Right-click on the folder and choose 'Compare'.
Notice that your edited files show up marked in red.
I find this is better than tfpt online which also gets you files that are not readonly and not edited.
I had this problem in the past, when my Internet was down and I worked offline, and most of my changes didn't appears in Team Explorer.
Following these steps:
First, In the solution explorer, select the folder that you want to re-conciliate (for me, it was my entire solution folder), and select Compare...
Click in Modify Filter, and in the filter text-box, you could type:
*.cs;!obj\;!bin\;!packages\;
In this example, it will include in the search only C# files and exclude in the folders: bin, obj and packages.
Notice the column Pending Change has the info whether the file is marked as edit, add, etc... or nothing...
To mark as edit (when the local item has a matching server item), select the file and choose Check out for Edit...
To mark as add (when the local item doesn't have any server item), select the file and choose Add Files
Finally, I am not sure why the projects are not listed here (after I remove *.cs filter, still doesn't show up), so rebuild the solution to make sure the projects updates as well
+ In the solution, click the connect button (if shows up) that said Go Online.
I found that in Visual Studio 2015, with the project open, Visual Studio discovered for itself that files had been modified externally, and automatically checked them out without me having to do anything. Checking in the project in the normal way saved the external modifications.
In my case, the following worked (at least the one time I tried it):
Go to the Pending Changes panel
Select View Options under either Included or Excluded changes.
Switch between Show All and Show Solution Changes
Switch back if desired
Changing the View Option appears to force a refresh of modified files.