I have moved a Visual Studio 2010 project to another server by copying and pasting the folder contents into another folder on a different server.
My understand was that VS2010 handled this well; when I have done this locally it has never been an issue.
Now I get an error like this:
When I right click and "Reload project", the list of files briefly appears before disappearing again, giving the original error.
Am I doing something wrong?
I experienced the same problem today. Here is what I did and worked for me :
Open the .sln file.
Right click on the project folder and click Reload project.
You will see the projects and folders that you originally had.
You will see .xml publish file . Double click it .. You should be good to go now.
I had this problem today and it took me a while to figure out what was going on.
Your problem is most likely that your solution was originally made with a Visual Studio configuration that contained support for certain project types (such as "Windows Service" or some other exotic project type). The Visual Studio configuration you are using to import your solution does not have that support. In other words,
there is probably nothing wrong with your solution,
there is probably nothing wrong with your project,
there is probably nothing wrong with any of the files (as you mentioned they do display briefly, giving you a second of hope)
Just run the installer on the new Visual Studio and make sure the support is enabled for all the project types you need and try again.
In my case the problem was the .vbproj file had somehow been corrupted so the normal xml code was replaced with a long string of null characters. I noticed this thanks to a file that was generated in the same folder as the project file when I tried to open the project - it was called 'UpgradeLog.htm'. This had an entry saying ' Error on line 1. Expected '<' but found 'null character'.'.. suggests there may have been a recent update to Visual Studio that I hadn't noticed?
Luckily I could use my source control system to revert back to a slightly earlier version - I guess it shows how important it is to have backups!
In my case, I saw similar message (Projected was unloaded) and all I had to do was simply re-launching Visual Studio (2017) in Admin mode and the problem went away. Per one of the above answers, I tried to right-click and selected Reload but got a warning that, due to required access to IIS on the machine, I had to launch VS in Admin mode.
HTH
Found this answer and it worked for me.
Note:Sometimes, the path in File path property is grayed out and you are unable to get to the Browse button. In this case try deleting .suo files. Don’t worry, these files gets recreated when you rebuild the solution / project.
http://www.howtosolutions.net/2013/02/solving-project-file-error-could-not-find-part-of-the-path-with-visual-studio/
I had the same problem. I fix path to .csproj files in the .sln file with a text editor and now it is all ok.
Open Visual Studio as Administrator
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
How to fix "Root element is missing." when doing a Visual Studio (VS) Build?
Any idea what file I should look at in my solution?
Actually, I am getting this error message inside of "Visual Build Pro" when using using the "Make VS 2008" command. This command works just fine when building other solutions (like about 20) and I am not really sure why mine is getting the error.
Any help would be very much appreciated. :)
I am using VS 2008 and Visual Build Pro 6.7.
In my case it was the xxxxxxxxxxxx.vcxproj.user file that was causing the problem; it was blank after a crash. I renamed it and the problem went away.
Make sure any XML file (or any file that would be interpreted as an XML file by visual studio) has a correct XML structure - that is, one root element (with any name, I have use rootElement in my example):
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rootElement>
...
</rootElement>
You will also get 'root element is missing' when the BOM strikes :). BOM = byte order mark. This is an extra character that gets added to the start of a file when it is saved with the wrong encoding.
This can happen sometimes in Visual Studio when working with XML files. You can either code something to remove it from all your files, or if you know which file it is you can force visual studio to save it with a specific encoding (utf-8 or ascii IIRC).
If you open the file in an editor other than VS (try notepad++), you will see two funny characters before the <? xml declaration.
To fix this in VS, open the file in VS and then depending on the version of VS
File > Advanced Save Options > choose an appropriate encoding
File > Save As > keep the filename, click the drop-down arrow on the right side of the save button to select an encoding
In my case.I was getting missing element error pointing to NuGet.Config file.
At that time it was looking some thing like this
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings>
<repositoryPath>Packages</repositoryPath>
</settings>
then I just added configuration tag that actually wraps entire xml. Now working fine for me
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<settings>
<repositoryPath>Packages</repositoryPath>
</settings>
</configuration>
This error is caused by corrupted proj file.
Visual Studio always has backup project file at specific folder.
Please browse to:
C:\Users\<Your user>\Documents\Visual Studio <Vs version>\Backup Files\<your project>
You should see 2 files like this:
Original-May-18-2018-1209PM.<your project>.csproj
Recovered-May-18-2018-1209PM.<your project>.csproj
You only need copy file:
Original-May-18-2018-1209PM.<your project>.csproj
And re-name as
<your project>.csproj
and override at root project folder.
Problem is solved!
My project did not load and gave me a Root Element Missingerror. I just deleted ****.csproj.user file and reloaded it again. The problem was solved this way
In my case, when I opened the .csproj file, it was empty so I went to my previous commit in git and copied the contents of that file and pasted it my current .csproj file. After which I deleted the .csproj.user file, reloaded my project, and everything started working again.
You can also search for the file. Navigate to your project directory with PowerShell and run Get-FileMissingRoot:
function Get-FileMissingRoot {
dir -recurse |
where {
($_ -is [IO.FileInfo]) -and
(#(".xml", ".config") -contains $_.extension)
} |
foreach {
$xml = New-Object Xml.XmlDocument;
$filename = $_.FullName
try {
$xml.Load($filename)
}
catch {
write ("File: " + $filename)
write ($_.Exception.Message)
}
}
}
I had this issue running VS 2017, on build I was getting the error that the 'root element was missing'. What solved it for me was going to Tools > Nuget Package Manager > Package Manager Settings > General > Clear all Nuget Caches. After doing that I ran the build again and it was fixed.
I got same error. showing error Microsoft.Data.Entity could not loaded root element missing. When i delete that file from C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 and again open my solution my problem was solved. Everything woks fine
In my case, .csproj was changed to encoded format. I did undo changes to csproj in Git(Team explorer) and reloaded the project file. This solved the problem.
In my case, the file C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\PreEmptive Solutions\Dotfuscator Professional Edition\4.0\dfusrprf.xml was full of NULL.
I deleted it; it was recreated on the first launch of Dotfuscator, and after that, normality was restored.
This error can sometimes occur when you edit some Project Toolchain settings Atmel Studio 6.1.2730 SP2.
In my case I tried to edit Project Properties > Toolchain > Linker > General settings with 'All Configurations' selected in the Configuration. When I checked or unchecked a setting, a dialog with the error popped up. However, I found that I could make the same edits if I made them to only one build configuration at a time; i.e. with only 'Debug' or 'Release' selected instead of 'All Configurations'.
Interestingly, I later was able to edit the same Linker settings even with 'All Configurations' selected. I don't know what changed in my project that made this possible.
I had Blue Screen while running Visual Studio 2013, when I Restart I intended to run again my project, but I had always this headius Error.
anyway
Deleting The Folders with the Temp info Fix this problem.
in my case the Project was a Windows Server, and Basically it Creates a Folder with some Tem info.
the folder was
C:\Users\User_NAME\AppData\Local\NAme_OF_THeProject
inside Exist a Folder with the Name of the Project+ some Generated GUI
Service.ServerHostLoader_Url_u2jn0xkgjf1th0a3i2v03ft15vj4x52i
this is the Folder I deleted and now I can run again the Project.
In my case I upgraded to VS2017 and wanted to build all projects with MSBuild 4 with my build script (which had been using MSBuild 3.5 when we were using VS2015). That MSBuild upgrade appeared fine for the Windows desktop applications but the ones for Windows CE with compact framework would give me this confusing error. Reverting to MSBuild 3.5 for Windows CE projects fixed the issue for me.
I did have the BOM in .csproj files by the way and removed them for all projects in a solution that would not build but that did not help.
In xamarin form project. I deleted
.VS Project folder.
ProjectName.Android.csProj.User
ProjectName.Android.csProj.bak
In my case I received a message like this:
See this picture
I just commented the snipped code below in the project file (.csproj) and the problem was fixed.
<Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
In my case xxxx.pubxml.user was not loaded when tried to publish the application. I deleted the file and restart the Visual studio then created a new profile to publish it, problem is solved and published successfully.
Hey, I have the same issue on Mac working on a Cocoa C# solution.
(But I solved it !)
It always say that the root element is missing so it cannot load my C# project file.
I have the 2017 Visual Studio Mac Community Edition.
I finally managed to find a solution after several hours (painful!).
My solution is because the frameworks related to the Visual Studio are old or broken.
I found this because I tried to create a new Mac solution by Cocoa and it said "failed to save the solution". Then, I tried to create an Android Solution and it is working fine.
Go to your "Finder" and "Go" -> "Go to a Folder" then go to the "Library/Frameworks". I have deleted mono.framework and frameworks related to Xamarin because I believe these Xamarin frameworks are broken.
Then, uninstalled the Visual Studio and reinstalled it.
Now everything works fine!
In my case, I just renamed the .csproj.user and restart the visual studio and opened the project. It automatically created another .csproj.user file and the solution worked fine for me.
Ho i simply solved this issue by going to source control explorer and selected the issue project, right clicked and selected the option Get Specific Version under Advanced menu. And then selected Type as Latest Version and ticked following two check boxes and clicked Get button. Then i refreshed the solution and my project came back to live and problem gone. Please note that This may overwrite your local projects so your current changes may lose. So if you dont have any issues with your local copy then you can try this. Hope it helps
I got this issue on a Web API project. Finally figured out that it was in my "///" method comments. I have these comments set to auto-generate documentation for the API methods. Something in my comments made it go crazy. I deleted all the carriage returns, special characters, etc. Not really sure which thing it didn't like, but it worked.
In my case the RDLC files work with resource files (.resx), I had this error because I hadn't created the correspondent resx file for my rdlc report.
My solution was add the file .resx inside the App_LocalResources in this way:
\rep
\rep\myreport.rdlc
\rep\App_LocalResources\myreport.rdlc.resx
I had a few massive VS2015 Community crashes.
Delete all the .csproj.user files
which were full of null characters, and also these
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\
.NETFramework,Version=v4.0.AssemblyAttributes.cs
.NETFramework,Version=v4.5.AssemblyAttributes.cs
.NETFramework,Version=v4.5.2.AssemblyAttributes.cs
In my case, I got this error because of an empty packages.config file.
This caused the NUGET package manager to fail and show the error Root element is missing.
The resolution was to copy over elements from another non-empty file and then change it according to the needs.
Example (packages.config):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<packages>
<package id="Microsoft.AspNet.Web.Optimization" version="1.1.3" targetFramework="net451"/>
<package id="Newtonsoft.Json" version="5.0.4" targetFramework="net451"/>
</packages>
In my case, i was using vs 2010 with crystal report. Innerexception revealed root element is missing error. Go to directory like C:\Users\sam\AppData\Local\dssms\dssms.vshost.exe_Url_uy5is55gioxym5avqidulehrfjbdsn13\1.0.0.0 which is given in the innermessage and make sure user.config is proper XML (mine was blank for some reason).
Deleting the .user file is exactly what fixed the problem for me. Lightning strike near the office shut my PC down and corrupted my .user file and project wouldn't load. I opened the file in Notepad++ and the "spaces" turned out to be [NULL] characters. Deleted the .user file and the file loaded!
source https://forums.asp.net/t/1491251.aspx?Can+t+load+project+because+root+element+is+missing+
I had the same problem in a Xamarin Forms project. iOS project was unavailable and I couldn't reload the project. I was looking for a solution that doesn't need uninstalling anything.
The answer I got from this blog:
https://dev.to/codeprototype/xamarin-form-application-failed-to-load-android-project-root-element-missing--27o0
So without uninstalling anything, you could delete the .csproj.user file (or rename it) so Visual Studio will create the file again. Worked for me twice.
In my case the problem occurred due to closing my PC while visual studio were remain open, so in result csproj.user file saved empty. Thankfully i have already backup, so i just copied all xml from csproj.user and paste in my affected project csproj.user file ,so it worked perfectly.
This file just contain building device info and some more.
No one of these solutions fixed my problem.
In my case, I finished my work and I shut down my computer. The day after I wasn't able to compile my project. I tried some of these solutions and I realized all my projects weren't work.
To Fix it, I reinstall .net core Framework.
Visual Studio 2017
I created a C# project and added it to source control (mercurial). I can edit files in VS, commit it and push it using TortoiseHg. It goes to the server. When some one pulls they get the files.
In my visual studio I added a folder and a file inside that folder. I used TortoiseHg and it saw the new file in the new folder. I committed it and pushed it.
However, now someone pulled the latest code from the server - and they got the new file (it is visible through windows explorer), but when they open the solution in VS, they don't see the file.
Does someone have an idea what is wrong here? or things I should check? Thank you for the help.
P.S. I have visual studio 2010 express (so I can't use the VisualHg plugin).
Visual Studio caches changes to the solution and project until an explicit save or a build. In your comment:
In my visual studio I added a folder and a file inside that folder. I used TortoiseHg and it saw the new file in the new folder. I committed it and pushed it.
I see that an updated .sln or .vcproj file was not mentioned and checked in. Did you see an update to either of these files via TortoiseHg? If not, make sure to build or save your project after a change like this.
Did you make sure that the Visual Studio Project File or Solution file is being updated and committed?
VS solution contains projects and each project select managed files by metadata(***.vcproj file). It's not the way include all files from root directory.
So, your co-workers can see new added files by in following two ways.
1) share project file(***.vcproj)
2) manually add files in each person's VS instance.
After some use Visual Studio 2008 when opening a solution that is checked into Visual Studio Team Foundation will pop up a dialog saying:
Projects have recently been added to this solution. Do you want to get them from source control?
This happens every time the solution is loaded (even if no projects have been added). The only way I have found to remove this minor annoyance is to completely rebuild the SLN file.
Has anyone found a better/simpler way?
I had this recently after we moved a number of projects in the solution. I worked out eventually, that each project actual appears in solution file multiple times each with path information! So even though the path in the main reference of the project was correct it was wrong further down the file.
So go through the .sln file and make sure the paths in all the references of each project is correct.
For instance, the first reference for one of my projects is:
Project("{F184B08F-C81C-45F6-A57F-5ABD9991F28F}") = "ObexPushVB", "Samples\ObjectPush\ObexPushVB\ObexPushVB.vbproj", "{E3692A59-D636-48E8-9B57-7DA80A88E517}"
EndProject
In my case the path there was correctly updated. But then we have also for that project:
SccProjectUniqueName8 = Samples\\ObjectPush\\ObexPushVB\\ObexPushVB.vbproj
SccProjectTopLevelParentUniqueName8 = InTheHand.Net.Personal.sln
SccProjectName8 = Samples/ObjectPush/ObexPushVB
SccLocalPath8 = Samples\\ObjectPush\\ObexPushVB
So all of those paths needed to be updated too! After I fixed that manually all was well. (The sample there is after the fix BTW).
Hey, this actually happened to me about 4 years ago.
First, it sounds to me like someone on your team doesn't have all the updates applied to their visual studio installation. Go around and get everyone upgraded to the latest service pack for your VS version.
Once that is done, unbind the solution, fix the file, rebind it and tell everyone to do a force get latest on your TFS project.
See
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsversioncontrol/thread/c2822ef1-d5a9-4039-9d3e-498892ce70b6
http://www.nivisec.com/2008/09/vsts-projects-have-recently-been-added.html
(broken link: http://technorati.com/posts/Yadz3Mj1pxHPSJLlnUs1tL1sIwU5jXa5rNBbIAnYdvs%3D)
This message will also occur if your solution has a reference to a project whose location is outside of the solution directory, but it doesn't physically exist (i.e. you hadn't checked it out before opening the solution). VSS (or TFS) will then give you that message and clicking OK will automatically get latest on the project that's missing so your solution won't have any unloaded projects in it.
EDIT:
Reading that again confuses me. Basically you get the message if your solution has a source control binding to a project that isn't inside of the folder your solution is in, and that outside project doesn't physically exist on your machine. Clicking on OK will check the project out for you.
In my case it was a reference to a test project which has been deleted.
I noticed that when I inspected all the projects in the Solution Explorer. Our team uses solution folders so it was not normally visible and because it was a test project it didn't have any impact on the application.
After removing the project from the solution the messages is no longer shown.
I'm working with Visual Studio 2013.
For me, it happened after having modified the folder's structure of my solution (I added a sub-folder for a project directly on the source code explorer). I got rid of this boring error by removing all the projects from my solution, using the solution explorer. After that, I closed Visual Studio, manually edited the .sln file and removed the whole section :
GlobalSection(TeamFoundationVersionControl) = preSolution
To finish, I just added the projects back to the solution as "Existing projects" with solution explorer. Visual Studio will recreate by itself the removed section of the .sln file.
The same error message can occur if someone adds a project, check-in edited solution file, but don't adds project directory to source control.
To cut a long story short - this error can mean that in .sln file there's reference to .csproj file, but the .csproj itself is physically missing.
In my case I renamed a(n) (unloaded) project in VS. It correctly moved the project to a new folder and no data was lost. However the solution file still pointed to the old directory which still existed but was empty (so the project could not be actually loaded).
After deleting the project from the solution (which was no problem because the folder was allready empty) the problem was solved.
Adding the project again from the new location was no problem either.
I had this problem after moving a number of unit test projects that were under source control (VSTS) into another folder. After this whenever I opened a branch I would get the "Projects have recently been added to this solution. Do you want to get them from source control?" error.
For some reason the csproj file from the trunk wasn't under source control which meant it was missing from the branched version. I find this happens sometimes after moving source controlled projects.
To fix it I opened the original source trunk, used Source Control Explorer to add the missing file(s), then merged the trunk to the branches to copy over the missing csproj file.
After this I could open the branched versions without the warning popping up.