I have a VB6 ActiveX control project (creating an .OCX), which has several User Controls. The controls are being loaded by an EXE (also VB6). When I run the EXE directly, it runs OK, but when I try to run it in the debugger (I need to step through the code), it cant't load the user controls (.ctl), gives me "Class not registered. Looking for object with CLSID:..." message
I have the Binary Compatibility set (kept all the old GUIDs), and I see the classes in the registry, everything looks OK - just doesn't run in debugger.
Any help please?
I've been working with VB6 for over a decade now. The problem is that the VBP project reference is out of sync with the latest build of your OCX user control. Simply open the project as a group or the EXE project on it's own and click Project->Components.
You will now see one of two things. Either the reference will be invalid or you have a valid reference chosen. Either way, uncheck the reference and click okay (do not re-select it during this operation.. trust me). Now, close that dialog and go back into Projects->Components, now pick your OCX control from the list. This will solve your problem. If your OCX is not in the list than rebuild it independently first and try again.
This is an undocumented bug with the VB6 IDE. Even with VB6 SP6 it had not been solved.
Related
I've got an app that uses our DAL and when I run it in debug mode (vs2010) and purposely try to make the app crash (for instance, leave the connection string empty of the DAL), vs2010 opens the code for the DAL at the point in which it crashed. Which is ok, but I'm then able to edit that .cs file and save changes, which I don't want. I've verified this by having the DAL project opened in another instance of vs2010 and when I make the app crash and change the DAL.cs in the app and save it, the DAL in vs2010 tells me that the file has been modified outside the project and asks if I want to reload it.
How can I prevent this from happening? The only reference I am using to DAL in my app is the reference to the DLL, that's all.
The AssemblyName.pdb file links the compiled DLL to the original source.
Visual Studio uses this file to display the source code when debugging.
You can delete this file and get rid of the source link.
This will give you a vastly inferior debugging experience.
Have you tried going to "Tools > Options > Debugging > Edit and Continue" and unchecking "Enable Edit and Continue"?
Make the .cs file(s) read-only. If its read-only, you'll be able to see it, but you won't be able to save changes. (Depending on your Visual Studio settings, you might still be able to edit the file in memory, but that seems irrelevant, since the changes you make won't be persisted to disk.)
If you need more fine-grained control (like where you want to be able to edit the source files, but not your testers), you can use access control lists (ACLs). Ask more questions about that on Server Fault.
Yes, you could disable debugging or turn off the generation of PDB files, but that makes it very difficult to debug the code, which is probably the reason why you're purposely trying to make the app crash.
My Visual Studio 2010 debugger sometimes has a very strange behaviour...
Sometimes it doesn't stop at breakpoints, but when it stops, and I want to step into a method, the debugger just steps over it. Also the breakpoints in those over-stepped methods are ignored.
When this strange behaviour occurs, it also does not break on exceptions but simply ignores them.
I've tried to rebuild my project, reset the Visual Studio settings and disabled debugger settings like "Break only in my code", but nothing has worked.
How do I solve this problem?
Here are a couple of reasons and workarounds for why Visual Studio will avoid stepping into a particular method.
Just My Code is enabled. In certain circumstances the "Just My Code" setting will prevent you from stepping into a method / property. To avoid this you can disable "Just My Code" in the debugger options page (Tools -> Options -> Debugger -> Uncheck "Just My Code")
Symbols are not loaded for the target method. If the target method is a part of another DLL it's possible that symbols are not loaded for that DLL and hence Visual Studio will not be able to step into it by default. To force the symbols to load, open up the Modules view (Debugger -> Windows -> Modules), navigate to the DLL containing the method, right click and load symbols.
The method is explicitly marked with a debugger attribute such as DebuggerNonUserCode which causes the debugger to step over the method.
The method is actually a property or operator and you have "Step Over Properties and Operators" setting enabled (this is the default). This can be disabled via the debugger options dialog.
In my case it was "Step Over Properties and Operators" in Tools -> Options -> Debugger. Just had to uncheck that and after that everything was fine, I could step into.
Another source of confusion is iterator methods that use the yield return operator because they are rewritten by the C# compiler in such a way that stepping into them (F11) is kind of a "no-op".
You must wait for the iteration to occur to break into the method's code.
I've found the solution of the problem and it is really simple:
In my solution's build configuration, the "Build" check-box of the project where the methods are, that get over-stepped, was not checked. I checked it, and now everything works.
The most important thing to check is whether when trying to put a new breakpoint inside the method it refuses to step into, if the breakpoint is filled red liked the others, or half filled or has a special "look". If it does, hover over the breakpoint you created to find out why it isn't working.
If the breakpoint looks normal but still you can't seem to step into the method, try clearing the shadow copy cache: http://weblogs.asp.net/mreynolds/archive/2003/08/11/23576.aspx
Another thing to try is to make sure that you are indeed using the DLL you've just rebuilt by adding a MessageBox.Show (or something similar) to the method you can't seem to stop at, and make sure you get the box.
I struggled with this for a while. None of the answers given worked for me. I finally got it to work by doing the following:
Make sure the project is in debug mode (all projects)
From Windows go to a Command prompt and be sure to run as administrator
Navigate to c:\windows\syswow64\ (or folder where gacUtil.exe is located)
Run the following command (substitute path below to where your debug output version of the DLL is located.
gacutil /i "C:\Users\John\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Project1\Project1\bin\Debug\MyAppDLL.dll"
You should get "Assembly successfully added to the cache"
Now run your project and you should be able to step into the DLL code.
WAG here, but I'd say you've referenced another project in your solution by BROWSING to a dll (project/bin/debug/mydll.dll) rather than by adding a "Project Reference." If you have multiple projects in your solution, remove ALL references to each project. Then, in the Add Reference dialog, hit the "add project reference" tab and select the project you wish to reference.
Project references are always updated on a new build. But if you, say, browse to bin/release and add a reference to a dll in that directory, when you switch to debug mode and add code and try to debug it, the old release version of the dll is loaded into the appdomain and VS won't be able to hit any breakpoints (you'll notice the breakpoints are empty circles and the tooltip will say something about the code not being loaded).
I have just found another reason for the problem, and a fix. I am creating a Windows Forms application using C++ in Visual Studio 2010. I am using the FreeType library and some code which depends on it and for various reasons this code has to be compiled with 'No Common Language Runtime Support' selected (Properties -> Configuration Properties -> General). I was not able to get breakpoints to be hit in this non-CLR code.
The fix is that the main app must be compiled with 'Common Language Runtime Support (/clr)', NOT 'Pure MSIL Common Language Runtime Support) (/clr:pure)'. That immediately solved the problem. I can now debug into, and hit breakpoints in, the non-CLR code, including the FreeType C code.
I have experienced the same recently. Not sure what I did exactly though. Try to physically clean up your solution, i.e. delete all bin directories from all projects of the solution. That usually helps to solve a lot of problems.
Try disabling "Require source file to be exactly matched" option in tools->options->debugging->general.
My solution was to create a new project and load all my .vb files into the new project. Solved all of my issues.
My problem was simple. I have multiple projects in the solution and I just need to set the project I am working with as Set As Startup Project.
I am currently bug hunting and need to debug into a specific dll in the release configuration in Visual Studio 2005.
At some point I closed the solution, did some other stuff and reloaded it. From that point on my breakpoint doesn't get hit and I get the infamous "No symbols have been loaded..." message. So I opened the modules window and the dll that I want to debug doesn't appear in the list anymore, therefore I cannot load symbols manually. The application behaves normal so I am absolutely sure that the dll MUST have been loaded to execute certain functions. Sure enough, if I rename the dll and start up the application it doesn't work anymore, so it also must be the right dll.
I tried setting the dll project as startup project and the command to execute to the application's exe and starting the application from outside visual studio and then attaching to the process, all to no avail.
Question is, why is the dll not appearing in the list of loaded modules although it must have been loaded? I cannot think of any other changes that I've done, that could cause this, am I missing something? (Maybe something really obvious?)
Any help appreciated!
Use process explorer to check if the dll is loaded or not.
When you attach the process make sure that you are enabling both 'Native' and 'Managed' code type (in the code type selection option).
See also this question: Visual Studio is not loading modules when attaching to process
I encountered a similar issue after transferring a project from one computer to another. I will simply explain what I discovered and how I fixed it, and you can determine if it fits your problem and solution.
The work computer I wrote an application on contained a .dll file which my program was referencing. After moving the application to my home computer, the application could no longer locate the .dll file it was previously referencing because the file was no longer there.
The application compiled and ran even without the referenced resource (.dll file) because the previously compiled assembly (debug folder) contained its own copy of the .dll file and other resources. Put simply, it is the old assembly build that is running and not the current application you're working on. This is also why this error tends to suspend the designer window and throw an error after the app is done running.
I would take a look at the following:
a) Under Solution Explorer, go into the References folder and right click the missing reference node and select properties. In the properties box, observe the Path of the resource being referenced. Is the resource still located at this path?
b) Check the debug folder for a copy of the resource you're looking for. If the resource is there, make a copy and save it to your desktop. If it's not there, get the file from the original source.
c) Under Solution Explorer, right click 'Properties' and 'open'. From the menu that appears select 'Resources' from the left and at the top of the new window that appears you you should see 'Add Resource' with a small drop down arrow. Click the arrow and select 'Add existing file' and then browse to the file. If you don't see it you may have to change the file being browsed from the small drop down above the 'open' and 'Cancel' buttons. After the file is located it should create a new folder in the solution explorer called 'resources.' Now the file is a permanent part of your application and not merely a reference to it.
I had the same issue today with Visual Studio 2008. I was using a simple tester to test a new method in an assembly. So added a reference to my assembly I wrote the code to load the assembly and call the new method, build, everything OK. But during execution the debugger would throw an exception saying that new new method did not exist, and the modules window was empty.
Turns out the assembly I was modifying was in the GAC, and was using instead of the new one in my build directory.
I had the same issue with visual studio 2017 Pro and searched for a week but no luck then i installed VS2019 Pro and test with same project but the break point wasn't working at all and the project's DLL was missing from the modules list.
I was running multiple projects under one solution and i suddenly observed that if select project1 as "Startup Project" the DLL of that project is loaded only in the module list. So as i was testing an API and I switched API project as Startup Project and observed now the API DLL files are loaded into the modules list.
Right Click on your required project that you want to include it's DLL files in the module list and set it as "Startup Project"
Wondering if anyone has a solution to this 2010 bug. I have a project that built fine in Visual Studio 2008 that wont build in 2010 because Visual Studio is holding on to the dll after the application is run ONLY if a designer window is open. I created a really light weight project that shows this problem. If you create an application then create a lib dll. Put one form in the dll, open the form in design view and then run the application. It will run fine, then close the app, go to the code view of the form in design view, and change the code ( I just renamed a single variable) then try to recompile you get the following:
Error 1 Unable to copy file "obj\Debug\customlib.dll" to "build\debug\customlib.dll". The process cannot access the file 'build\debug\Customlib.dll' because it is being used by another process.
If you run Process Explorer and search for the dll, the only process holding the dll is devenv.exe!!!
I have done a ton of searching on this problem and have found similar issues with older versions of Dev Studio where people were able to just add a pre-step to move the locked dll to another name (.locked) and build. Well that works the first time, but the next time you run then edit you are locked out of both the current dll and the one you moved to .locked, so unless I am willing to add code to randomly generate a name for the locked dll, this wont work for me (I don't want my debug directory size to grow with files never getting deleted.)
I have only found one workaround and if you are in this same boat this is what I have to do to edit and run. I make sure EVERY design view window is closed BEFORE I ever run my project in the debugger. If you close all the open design view windows devenv.exe will not hold the dll.
Does anyone have a better solution to this problem?
I'm not sure whether this will work for you or not, but this similar question if you have this line in AssemblyInfo.cs:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.*")]
changing it to:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.0.0")]
will solve this isue.
The Visual Studio add-on "VSCommands" claims to have a fix for this problem. I've not tested it yet, but it also claims to have an in-IDE stackoverflow reputation tracker which intrigues me :)
Your "Close designer before debugging" workaround seems to be working for me (so far), for which I'm very grateful. It was beginning to get to the stage where am large part of my day was spent in the following workflow...
F5
loud expletive
ALT F4
WIN 3
waits impatiently...
F5
I have had the same problems for a long time and then suddenly they disappeared. I realized that the source of the problems was initializing code in the constructors of WCF services and WPF controls. After cleaning the constructors from any dependencies to other assemblies everything has been fine.
So my suggestion is: Clean your constructors.
In WPF it is possible that inserting:
if (DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(this)) return;
or similar will have the same effect.
In a small console application I'm writing to test something I need to add a reference to one of the DLLs built from a build of another solution. The Add References dialog works perfectly; after I browse to the DLL on disk and add it I see it with a green tick and it appears in the list of references in Solution Explorer. All fine so far, but when I close the Add References dialog, the reference just added simply disappears from the list of references in Solution Explorer.
What on earth is going on? Why is this happening and how can I fix it? Any ideas?
Referencing a non-Silverlight DLL in a Silverlight will appear to work until the Add References dialog is closed, when the references simply disappears from the project's list of references. No warning or error message is displayed.