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I'm using Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2017 to build a project that uses the Poco libraries.
Background:
Don't know if this is pertinent, but I'll just mention that I manually downloaded and built Poco (and all the other libs needed), and everything went fine for years. Now I switched to using Miniconda3 to manage my libraries, installing Poco via conda install -c conda-forge poco and changing the relevant include paths from
$(POCO_DIR)/Foundation/include
$(POCO_DIR)/Util/include
...
to just
$(CONDA_LIBS)/include
with the system variable $(CONDA_LIBS) = D:\CodeLibraries\conda_libs\Library. This CONDA_LIBS directory exists and contains an include/Poco/ subdirectory with all the Poco header files and subdirs.
Problem:
The project compiled fine. I got a linker error, and while digging into this I found some odd behavior of Visual Studio 2017:
When I'm moving the cursor to an #include directive using any Poco header file, e.g.
#include "Poco/DateTime.h"
I can usually type CTRL+SHIFT+G to open and jump to the file in question.
This doesn't work anymore, and I get a popup telling me
D:\CodeLibraries\conda_libs\Library\include\oco\atetime.h
Cannot open file.
Note the missing letters in \(P)oco\(D)atetime.h. Note, also, that a file is found, but cannot be opened.
When I try this with a header file in a subdirectory like
#include "Poco/JSON/Parser.h"
I get the message
D:\CodeLibraries\conda_libs\Library\include\oco\son\rser.h
Cannot open file.
Note the missing letters "P", "J", and "Pa"(?!) in (P)oco\(J)SON\(Pa)rser.h.
Additional information:
The same error pops up when I drag-and-drop a Poco header file from the Windows Explorer into Visual Studio (!)
I can open these files from the Open File dialog (CTRL+O)
I can still use the CTRL+SHIFT+G shortcut to open my own header files in my project, and to open other library header files like gdal.h or boost headers
if I #include "oco/ateTime.h" (note the missing letters) and attempt to open it via CTRL+SHIFT+G I get the expected message "File 'oco/ateTime.h' not found in current source file's directory or in build system paths", with the paths listed below including D:\CodeLibraries\conda_libs\Library/include.
Question:
Any idea why both the CTRL+SHIFT+G shortcut and the drag-and-drop operation fail for Poco header files?
EDIT:
Please note:
I'm not asking about generic "File not found" errors: I can usually handle my include and lib paths quite well, thank you
slashes and backslashes can be used pretty much interchangedly in Visual Studio for the last couple of years at least
"Cannot open File" error could be due to a misconfiguration in your project include and source paths or due to a third-party extension or maybe even due to a corrupt/buggy IDE, but it has nothing to do with linker errors as you have also mentioned. You have also confirmed that the files are getting compiled, so this is surely some issue with the IDE's built-in code navigator or an extension.
With respect to linker errors, the project Configurations, lib target, library & header file versions you are referring to should match while linking against third-party libraries.
These are some general checklists for linking third-party libraries:
Runtime library: MT, MTd, MD, MDd, etc
Character set: Unicode or Multibyte
Target compiler
Target Machine
Subsystem
Whether the third-party library being used has additional dependencies, and you are properly linking the exact version of them.
These are checklists specific to POCO:
POCO version you are referring to in header files vs linker path
configurations.
OpenSSL version you are linking your project against, if you are
using SSL, Crypto and NET modules of POCO.
The same setup on my machine (but with VisualStudio 2019 configured for VisualStudio 2017 target) works just fine.
Odd.
When I returned to the office today, I wanted to look into this again to see if I could find out more about IntelliSense not finding POCO headers and about the odd dropping-characters thing in the error message, but it works now:
yes, I can once more jump to a POCO header file by moving my cursor to the #include line and hitting CTRL+SHIFT+G.
No idea if it was restarting VS that fixed this, or fixing the linker error -- which was trivial, BTW, and I might even have done at the side that while writing this question. Unfortunately I either didn't recheck for broken IntelliSense behaviour after the linker fix, or didn't bother recording that IntelliSense still was broken afterwards.
So: no real closure, I'm afraid.
EDIT: Ramesh Kambadaasan's answer suggests that a workaround might be to delete the IntelliSense DB file(s) and to restart VS to force a project re-parse. I'll try that next time.
In Windows you should use "\" as a directory seperator, not "/".
My guess is that VS replaces your "/" with "\", then the first letter of every word is an unescaped character.
Try to replace your "/" with "\\".
How do I add a Static Library to a VS 2015 Fortran Project?
I've searched for the answer to this question online, but the solutions I've found (linked below) don't seem to work for me.
How to link a .LIB in a MS Visual Studio / Intel Fortran project?
https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-visual-fortran-compiler-for-windows/topic/393843
I'm using VS 2015 and Intel Fortran 2017.
I have created a static library from my Utilities project and I would like to be able to use the 'Utilities.lib' file in a different project (PhysicsCore) without having all of the source included.
I've tried dragging and dropping the 'Utilities.lib' file into the PhysicsCore Project. I've tried adding existing file and adding 'Utilities.lib'. I've tried adding the lib file and all of the '.mod' and '.obj' files. I've tried going under properties -> librarian -> additional dependencies. All of these end with the PhysicsCore project failing to compile due to missing procedures and modules.
I have gotten it to work one way that isn't very helpful. I have added a new project to the solution and then added in all of the '.obj' and '.mod' files and the '.lib' file. Changed the solution settings to not rebuild that project. And then finally added that non-building project as a dependency of the PhysicsCore project.
I feel like I must just be missing something small.
EDIT: years later. I finally came across the issue. If the library were all in .f90 files everything would work fine, but I'm using modules which require the .mod files. Everything was doing what it was supposed to as far as I can tell; however, it didn't behave the way I expected it to.
There are several ways:
Drag the .lib into the project as a source file. You say this didn't work, but it always has when I have done it.
In the Linker project properties, add the full path to the .lib to Linker > Input > Additional Dependencies, or just add the .lib name there and add the directory path to Linker > General > Additional Library Directories.
If the parent project is also Fortran, right click on the parent project, select Build Dependencies > Project Dependencies. Check the box for the library project. (This does not work if the parent project is not Fortran.)
I would generally recommend #3, as this will also make the .mod files from the library project visible to the parent project. If you choose one of the other methods, you then also have to make any include or .mod files visible by adding the directory path to the project property Fortran > General > Additional Include Directories.
If you need more help with this, I suggest asking in https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-visual-fortran-compiler-for-windows
I have been in this situation quite a few times where visual studio does not honor the Additional Include Directories when it comes to lib and header source files. For example, I just downloaded MyGUI source code and made sure the include directories were correct. I even put them to absolute paths, Visual Studio still complained that it could not find specific header files.
Does anybody experience the same thing with projects, and if so, is there a solution to this problem?Blockquote
EDIT: My apologies for not being able to explain fully. I know that the library and source files have different include directories. The project that I received had correct directory paths for the Additional Include Directories and Additional Library Directories but Visual Studio still failed to recognize them properly. I can right click and open the header file within Visual Studio but when compiling it still complains it cannot find the required header files. I regularly make projects relying on a framework I myself programmed, so I am quite familiar with how to set up dependencies. This is however the second time this seems to be happening. I don't recall which 3rd party project I was trying to compile last time, but Visual Studio simply refused to believe that the Additional Include Directories paths is where it should look for the header files. I am not sure how to give the complete details of this particular library (MyGUI) but I can point you to the website where you can download it to try and see if it is able to find the header files that are included in the project (if it doesn't compile, that is fine, and it is probably because of additional dependencies, but it should at least be able to find files in the common folder, especially when I put absolute paths in Additional Include Directories)
This happened to me once. It turned out the inconsistency of the Debug vs Release builds. When I modified one build, the other build was being compiled. Please set both builds with same include folders and see if it works. Good luck.
I've just spent some hours battling with failing #include paths in the compiler, inconsistencies between the compiler and intellisense.
What I finally discovered was that in the properties of the *.cpp file -- not the project, but the individual *.cpp file -- the "Additional Include Directories" property was blank. I had to explicitly set it to "inherit from from parent or project defaults" -- there's a checkbox near the lower-left corner of the dialog for editing the directory path.
I had copied this file from another project and used "Add > Existing Item..." to add it to the current project. My hypothesis was that maybe the "Existing Item" procedure skipped a property initialization step that "New Item" would normally perform. But I just tested that hypothesis by Adding another Existing and a New. Both of these files had their property set to inherit from the project, so I don't have an explanation for why my problem file was not initially set to inherit.
Anyway ... after much frustration, found and fixed that one.
I have found (stumbled) on the solution (I think). It has something to do with the character limit imposed by the OS. Although the limit should be 260, for me it falls in the below 150, see this discussion and links to it. I downloaded and unzipped the file to C:\Users\MyUserName\My Documents\Downloads\Downloads From Chrome\MyGui3.0...[and so on]. I learned quite some time ago not to try to compile projects under such long paths, but this time it completely slipped my mind as VS did not give me a warning at all and pointed me in the wrong direction. Anyway, cutting and pasting the project to D:\ fixed the issue. I am not going to checkmark the answer however until someone confirms this.
I have the same problem : Can't find .lib file even though I've added the additional include directory.
From an answer of Additional include directory in Visual studio 2015 doesn't work, I tried:
delete the .suo file and restart VS
Then it works for me.
I had this issue too. Just like sam said - this string value containing path to your framework includes has to be the same for the Debug and Release configurations. So the best way is to choose "Configuration:All Configurations" and "Platform:All Platforms" from the two context checklists on the top of the project properties window before typing it in, or copying from windows explorer adress bar.
Can you elaborate on this? If I recall, there are at least two places in Visual Studio where you can configure this:
Per-installation: Tools/Options/Projects and Solutions/VC++ Directories)
Per-project: Project/Properties/Configuration Properties/"C/C++"/General/Additional Include Directories
If you're adding the include directories per-project (#1), which I think you are, and then trying to include from another project, this will obviously not work. Try adding them at the per-installation level and see if it works.
Also, this may sound stupid/simplistic, but make sure the path is right (i.e. copy-paste into Explorer's path bar and see if the header files are in that folder).
If by lib files you mean library (.lib) files, the directory location is not specified through C/C++/General/Additional Include Directories but rather through Linker/General/Additional Library Directories.
It's logical if you think about it. C/C++ options are all compilation options, settings involved with compiling .cpp and .h files. Linker options are all linking options, settings involved with linking up .obj and .lib files.
I had the same symptoms in my c++ project. Navigating from header to header went fine, but after toggling to the source file of a header (let's say foo.cpp), then the navigation to an #include <bar.cpp> in that source file failed. I got the following error:
File 'bar.cpp' not found in the current source file's directory or in build system paths.
After research I noticed that the system build path given in the error where not extended with the include paths of the project. In other words: IntelliSense didn't know that the source file (foo.cpp) was part of the project, and therefore it didn't use the include paths of the project to search for the #include <bar.cpp>.
The fix for me was creating a file intelliSense.cpp (file name doesn't matter) that is part of the project, but excluded from the build. This file contains an include for each source file. ex:
#include <foo.cpp>
#include <bar.cpp>
...
This way IntelliSense knows that these source files are part of the project, and will therefore use the include paths of the project to resolve the #includes in those source files.
For me the issue was that .vcxproj Project file was read-only and after I added my directory to "Additional directories", the project file did not actually change. I was surprised that VS did not complain about this file being read-only.
So after I made that file write-able I could compile my project.
Here is another 'I had the same...' in vs2015.
For me it turned out that the active setting is also depending on the 'solution configuration' and 'solution platform'. That makes 4 settings which all should be identical.
That solved the problem in my case.
I realize this question is over 10 years old at this point, but I also just ran into this issue and none of the answers fit my scenario. After some playing with my IDE (VS 2019) for a few minutes I realized that the cpp file I was using had it's platform set to Win32, but the libs I was trying to use were built for x64.
As others have stated, make sure your project's configuration is set to
-"All Configurations" when you add the necessary paths to your project as that can also be an issue. I imagine my issue will not be as common, but I figured it was worth sharing. I hope this helps someone else in the future.
One more possible reason not mentioned earlier: make sure you are configuring properties of the correct project in a multi-project solution.
My problem was that I had a solution of two projects each using the same file with includes. Turns out that I correctly configured 'Additional Include Directories' only for one of two projects and totally forgot about another one. Of course error message was stating that only the second project and not the first one had problems.
I'm working on a medium-sized project which uses qmake to generate Visual Studio 2005 project files. I'm trying to get it built under Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Since qmake doesn't support this IDE yet i had the provided conversion assistant convert my solution.
When trying to build I get the following error in one of the subprojects:
CVTRES : fatal error CVT1100: duplicate resource. type:VERSION,name:1,language:0x0407
After what Google's results told me it seems that this error is likely to occur when migrating to a newer version of Visual Studio but I don't know why and the hacks recommended there don't work for me.
What I already tried is to rename the ressources to random numbers, even a different "name" at every occurence of the version information.
When I build the project again after reading the error and deleting the corresponding .RC-file it works once. But that's too much of a hack.
Any ideas anyone?
Thanks in advance.
I resolved that problem when moving from VC++ 2010 to 2012 by changing the setting under Configuration Properties>Manifest Tool>Input and Output>Embed Manifest to NO. I have no idea what that is all about, but I looked at the contents of the .manifest file, and it sure looks like I can live without it being embedded.
I recently solved the similar problem with Qt 4.8.2 and Visual Studio 2012. Qt 4.8.2 does not support VS2012 as mkspec, so I copied win32-msvc2010 mkspec to win32-msvc2012 (changing _MSC_VER to 1700) and used some other workarounds (QtWebKit fix, etc. — you can find them over the internet) to build Qt 4.8.2 with VS2012. But qmake was not aware of VS2012 .vcxproj project files, so it continued to generate VS2010 projects. After conversion of these project files to the new 2012 format in the VS the above error arose.
The solution was to exclude generated .res files from build in all configurations (both Debug and Release). To do this, open 'Generated Files' folder in Solution Explorer, right click the .res file, open Properties, select 'All Configurations' from drop-down list and set 'Excluded From Build' property of 'General' section to 'Yes'.
It is quite tedious to repeat these actions by hands every time, so I wrote Python script to automate this. You can use it (at your own risk!) to update qmake-generated .vcxproj files.
import sys
import os
from xml.etree import ElementTree
def updateProject(filename):
def getXmlns(tag):
return tag[1:].split('}')[0]
tree = ElementTree.parse(filename)
root = tree.getroot()
xmlns = getXmlns(root.tag)
for cb in root.iter('{' + xmlns + '}CustomBuild'):
if(not 'Include' in cb.attrib):
continue
if(not cb.attrib['Include'].endswith('.res')):
continue
for excl in cb.iter('{' + xmlns + '}ExcludedFromBuild'):
if('Condition' in excl.attrib):
del excl.attrib['Condition'] # delete ExcludedFromBuild condition
ElementTree.register_namespace('', xmlns)
tree.write(filename)
if(len(sys.argv)>=2): # use project files specified in command line:
for i in range(1, len(sys.argv)):
updateProject(sys.argv[i])
else: # update all project files in current directory:
for filename in os.listdir(os.getcwd()):
if(filename.endswith('.vcxproj')):
updateProject(filename)
Thanks to Xandy for pointing out that you'll need to pass working directory to listdir() for script to work in Python 2.
If you ever encounter this error while compiling (usually a downloaded project from internet), then remove the manifest file and remove the reference to the manifest file in the .rc file.
Reference
I recently ran into this problem, and by accident ended up with a project file that didn't have the resource conflict. In my case I was importing a QT qmake generated project for VS2008 into VS2010. After using VcprojFormatter and a lot of diffs, I found the difference (for me). I think it is a bug in either the import wizard, or the core of VS 2010.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/macros/vcproj_formatter.aspx
My resource file was called win32_resources.rc You'll need to edit each intermediate data folder corresponding to your build configurations (release, debug, etc)
Look for a section like the following in your vcxproj file:
<ItemGroup>
<Resource Include="debug\win32_resources.res">
<ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>
</Resource>
<Resource Include="release\win32_resources.res">
<ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>
</Resource>
</ItemGroup>
All the "Resource" text should be replaced with "CustomBuildStep":
<ItemGroup>
<CustomBuildStep Include="debug\win32_resources.res">
<ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>
</CustomBuildStep>
<CustomBuildStep Include="release\win32_resources.res">
<ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>
</CustomBuildStep>
</ItemGroup>
The problem in the VS2008 file is that the default(?) setting was not explicit:
<File RelativePath="release\win32_resources.res">
<FileConfiguration
Name="Debug|Win32"
ExcludedFromBuild="true"
>
<Tool Name="VCCustomBuildTool"/>
</FileConfiguration>
</File>
The "Tool Name" field was missing.
If you ever encounter this error while compiling (usually a downloaded
project from internet), then remove the manifest file and remove the
reference to the manifest file in the .rc file.
This answer by hB0 was 100% correct for the case I encountered.
This was very useful to me and I would like others to benefit from knowing this, rather than assuming hB0's answer should be ignored because others have votes and hB0's has zero votes. I have to say it in a separate answer because I the system will not let an unregistered user vote. I even registered so as to be able to vote on this answer but the system still will not let me vote till I am a more mature user.
This is a stretch, but I had a similar problem under Visual Studio 2005. It might help, or be totally off base:
I was linking with a static library (.lib) that has its own version resource - very reasonable, it shows the library's version. On some stations, my app would link. On other stations, I'd get the same duplicate resource message you got.
It turned out to be related to a linker optimization setting: "Use Library Dependency Inputs" (UseLibraryDependencyInputs=), possibly combined with "Link Library Dependencies". When "Use Library Dependency Inputs" was enabled, the linker was being fed the .obj and .res files that were used to build the .lib, instead of just searching the .lib.
The problem is that you don't want the .lib's .res file as an input file to the linker. My project has its own version resource. If you bring in the .lib's resources, you now have two version resources, hence the error. If the linker simply searches the .lib, it has no reason to bring in the .lib's resource, and all is well.
My project's configuration didn't force the setting of "Use Library Dependency Inputs", it inherited it. On some stations, it inherited "No", and I could link. On some stations, it inherited "Yes", and we got the error.
If Visual Studio 2010 still has this setting, try forcing it off.
I had this problem and it was resolved by ensuring any included .rc files were excluded from the build, except the main .rc that was #including the rest.
I had this problem and it was resolved by ensuring any included .rc files were excluded from the build, except the main .rc that was #including the rest.
by Richard Hein worked for me. I was compiling with VS2013.
I had similar problem in Visual Studio C++ 2010. I did not installed any Service packs or updates of VS and this problem arises when I had two rc files which tried to use ICONs. So I just taken content of one file and cut it into the main file. So only one file contains the ICONS and the second file is empty. Works like sharm :-).
Replace else block in Dmitry Markin answer to recursively update all project files
else: # recursively update all project files in current directory:
rootdir = os.getcwd()
for root, subFolders, files in os.walk(rootdir):
for filename in files:
if(filename.endswith('.vcxproj')):
filePath = os.path.join(root, filename)
print "file: %s" % (filePath)
updateProject(filePath)
I came here looking for an answer for this error. I am sorry to burst the bubble. None of the answers worked out for me.
My mistake was I had defined 3 MACRO's with same id. That is the reason I was getting the error mentioned in the question.
my code before when the error was showing:
#define IDB_MARKER_NORMAL_LINE 21**6**
#define IDB_MARKER_ARROW_LINE 21**6**
#define IDB_MARKER_DOTTED_LINE 21**6**
i changed it to:
#define IDB_MARKER_NORMAL_LINE 21**6**
#define IDB_MARKER_ARROW_LINE 21**7**
#define IDB_MARKER_DOTTED_LINE 21**8**
Errors were GONE!!!!!!!!!!
I had this and I did the following in resource.h
#undef VS_VERSION_INFO
#define VS_VERSION_INFO 310
As VS_VERSION_INFO is given resource id 1 in WinRes.h just making it something else fixed my issue.
If you ever encounter this error while compiling (usually a downloaded project from internet), then remove the manifest file and
remove the reference to the manifest file in the .rc file.
This answer by hB0 was 100% correct for the case I encountered.
This was very useful to me and I would like others to benefit from
knowing this, rather than assuming hB0's answer should be ignored
because others have votes and hB0's has zero votes. I have to say it
in a separate answer because I the system will not let an unregistered
user vote. I even registered so as to be able to vote on this answer
but the system still will not let me vote till I am a more mature
user.
This answer point a way to find the problem that I encounted. In my senario, the import props has this code:
<ResourceCompile Include="$(VersioningDir)**Version.rc" />
When I delete it, all work is done.
If you ever encounters CVT1100 (duplicate resource) & LNK1123 (failure during conversion to COFF) resource errors in Visual Studio 20XX, then do below steps to resolve it.
Open .rc file & comment / remove below MACRO
MOVEABLE PURE "res\.manifest"
2 Rename / Delete Manifest file from Resource folder from Project directory.
Now Re-build the solution & Enjoy...
I have a very similar problem as described here.
I also upgraded a mixed solution of C++/CLI and C# projects from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. And now in Visual Studio 2010 one C++/CLI project always runs out of date.
Even if it has been compiled and linked just before and F5 is hit, the messagebox "The project is out of date. Would you like to build it?" appears. This is very annoying because the DLL file is very low-tiered and forces almost all projects of the solution to rebuild.
My pdb settings are set to the default value (suggested solution of this problem).
Is it possible the get the reason why Visual Studio 2010 forces a rebuild or thinks a project is up to date?
Any other ideas why Visual Studio 2010 behaves like that?
For Visual Studio/Express 2010 only. See other (easier) answers for VS2012, VS2013, etc
To find the missing file(s), use info from the article Enable C++ project system logging to enable debug logging in Visual Studio and let it just tell you what's causing the rebuild:
Open the devenv.exe.config file (found in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ or in %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\). For Express versions the config file is named V*Express.exe.config.
Add the following after the </configSections> line:
<system.diagnostics>
<switches>
<add name="CPS" value="4" />
</switches>
</system.diagnostics>
Restart Visual Studio
Open up DbgView and make sure it's capturing debug output
Try to debug (hit F5 in Visual Studio)
Search the debug log for any lines of the form:
devenv.exe Information: 0 : Project 'Bla\Bla\Dummy.vcxproj' not up to date because build input 'Bla\Bla\SomeFile.h' is missing.
(I just hit Ctrl+F and searched for not up to date) These will be the references causing the project to be perpetually "out of date".
To correct this, either remove any references to the missing files from your project, or update the references to indicate their actual locations.
Note: If using 2012 or later then the snippet should be:
<system.diagnostics>
<switches>
<add name="CPS" value="Verbose" />
</switches>
</system.diagnostics>
In Visual Studio 2012 I was able to achieve the same result easier than in the accepted solution.
I changed the option in menu Tools → Options → Projects and Solutions → Build and Run → *MSBuild project build output verbosity" from Minimal to Diagnostic.
Then in the build output I found the same lines by searching for "not up to date":
Project 'blabla' is not up to date. Project item 'c:\foo\bar.xml' has 'Copy to Output Directory' attribute set to 'Copy always'.
This happened to me today. I was able to track down the cause: The project included a header file which no longer existed on disk.
Removing the file from the project solved the problem.
We also ran into this issue and found out how to resolve it.
The issue was as stated above "The file no longer exists on the disk."
This is not quite correct. The file does exist on the disk, but the .VCPROJ file is referencing the file somewhere else.
You can 'discover' this by going to the "include file view" and clicking on each include file in turn until you find the one that Visual Studio can not find. You then ADD that file (as an existing item) and delete the reference that can not be found and everything is OK.
A valid question is: How can Visual Studio even build if it does not know where the include files are?
We think the .vcproj file has some relative path to the offending file somewhere that it does not show in the Visual Studio GUI, and this accounts for why the project will actually build even though the tree-view of the includes is incorrect.
The accepted answer helped me on the right path to figuring out how to solve this problem for the screwed up project I had to start working with. However, I had to deal with a very large number of bad include headers. With the verbose debug output, removing one caused the IDE to freeze for 30 seconds while outputting debug spew, which made the process go very slowly.
I got impatient and wrote a quick-and-dirty Python script to check the (Visual Studio 2010) project files for me and output all the missing files at once, along with the filters they're located in. You can find it as a Gist here: https://gist.github.com/antiuniverse/3825678 (or this fork that supports relative paths)
Example:
D:\...> check_inc.py sdk/src/game/client/swarm_sdk_client.vcxproj
[Header Files]:
fx_cs_blood.h (cstrike\fx_cs_blood.h)
hud_radar.h (cstrike\hud_radar.h)
[Game Shared Header Files]:
basecsgrenade_projectile.h (..\shared\cstrike\basecsgrenade_projectile.h)
fx_cs_shared.h (..\shared\cstrike\fx_cs_shared.h)
weapon_flashbang.h (..\shared\cstrike\weapon_flashbang.h)
weapon_hegrenade.h (..\shared\cstrike\weapon_hegrenade.h)
weapon_ifmsteadycam.h (..\shared\weapon_ifmsteadycam.h)
[Source Files\Swarm\GameUI - Embedded\Base GameUI\Headers]:
basepaenl.h (swarm\gameui\basepaenl.h)
...
Source code:
#!/c/Python32/python.exe
import sys
import os
import os.path
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
ns = '{http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003}'
#Works with relative path also
projectFileName = sys.argv[1]
if not os.path.isabs(projectFileName):
projectFileName = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), projectFileName)
filterTree = ET.parse(projectFileName+".filters")
filterRoot = filterTree.getroot()
filterDict = dict()
missingDict = dict()
for inc in filterRoot.iter(ns+'ClInclude'):
incFileRel = inc.get('Include')
incFilter = inc.find(ns+'Filter')
if incFileRel != None and incFilter != None:
filterDict[incFileRel] = incFilter.text
if incFilter.text not in missingDict:
missingDict[incFilter.text] = []
projTree = ET.parse(projectFileName)
projRoot = projTree.getroot()
for inc in projRoot.iter(ns+'ClInclude'):
incFileRel = inc.get('Include')
if incFileRel != None:
incFile = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(projectFileName), incFileRel))
if not os.path.exists(incFile):
missingDict[filterDict[incFileRel]].append(incFileRel)
for (missingGroup, missingList) in missingDict.items():
if len(missingList) > 0:
print("["+missingGroup+"]:")
for missing in missingList:
print(" " + os.path.basename(missing) + " (" + missing + ")")
I've deleted a cpp and some header files from the solution (and from the disk) but still had the problem.
Thing is, every file the compiler uses goes in a *.tlog file in your temp directory.
When you remove a file, this *.tlog file is not updated. That's the file used by incremental builds to check if your project is up to date.
Either edit this .tlog file manually or clean your project and rebuild.
I had a similar problem, but in my case there were no files missing, there was an error in how the pdb output file was defined: I forgot the suffix .pdb (I found out with the debug logging trick).
To solve the problem I changed, in the vxproj file, the following line:
<ProgramDataBaseFileName>MyName</ProgramDataBaseFileName>
to
<ProgramDataBaseFileName>MyName.pdb</ProgramDataBaseFileName>
I had this problem in VS2013 (Update 5) and there can be two reasons for that, both of which you can find by enabling "Detailed" build output under "Tools"->"Projects and Solutions"->"Build and Run".
"Forcing recompile of all source files due to missing PDB "..."
This happens when you disable debug information output in your compiler options (Under Project settings: „C/C++“->“Debug Information Format“ to „None“ and „Linker“->“Generate Debug Info“ to „No“: ). If you have left „C/C++“->“Program Database File Name“ at the default (which is „$(IntDir)vc$(PlatformToolsetVersion).pdb“), VS will not find the file due to a bug (https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/833494/project-with-debug-information-disabled-always-rebuilds).
To fix it, simply clear the file name to "" (empty field).
"Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line since the last build."
This seems to be a known VS bug too (https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/833943/forcing-rebuild-of-all-source-files-due-to-a-change-in-the-command-line-since-the-last-build) and seems to be fixed in newer versions (but not VS2013). I known of no workaround, but if you do, by all means, post it here.
I don't know if anyone else has this same problem, but my project's properties had "Configuration Properties" -> C/C++ -> "Debug Information Format" set to "None", and when I switched it back to the default "Program Database (/Zi)", that stopped the project from recompiling every time.
Another simple solution referenced by Visual Studio Forum.
Changing configuration: menu Tools → Options → Projects and Solutions → VC++ Project Settings → Solution Explorer Mode to Show all files.
Then you can see all files in Solution Explorer.
Find the files marked by the yellow icon and remove them from the project.
It's OK.
Visual Studio 2013 -- "Forcing recompile of all source files due to missing PDB". I turned on detailed build output to locate the issue: I enabled "Detailed" build output under "Tools" → "Projects and Solutions" → "Build and Run".
I had several projects, all C++, I set the option for under project settings: (C/C++ → Debug Information Format) to Program Database (/Zi) for the problem project. However, this did not stop the problem for that project. The problem came from one of the other C++ projects in the solution.
I set all C++ projects to "Program Database (/Zi)". This fixed the problem.
Again, the project reporting the problem was not the problem project. Try setting all projects to "Program Database (/Zi)" to fix the problem.
I met this problem today, however it was a bit different. I had a CUDA DLL project in my solution. Compiling in a clean solution was OK, but otherwise it failed and the compiler always treated the CUDA DLL project as not up to date.
I tried the solution from this post.
But there is no missing header file in my solution. Then I found out the reason in my case.
I have changed the project's Intermediate Directory before, although it didn't cause trouble. And now when I changed the CUDA DLL Project's Intermediate Directory back to $(Configuration)\, everything works right again.
I guess there is some minor problem between CUDA Build Customization and non-default Intermediate Directory.
I had similar problem and followed the above instructions (the accepted answer) to locate the missing files, but not without scratching my head. Here is my summary of what I did. To be accurate these are not missing files since they are not required by the project to build (at least in my case), but they are references to files that don't exist on disk which are not really required.
Here is my story:
Under Windows 7 the file is located at %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\%. There are two similar files devenv.exe.config.config and devenv.exe.config. You want to change later one.
Under Windows 7, you don't have permission to edit this file being in program files. Just copy it somewhere else (desktop) change it and than copy it back to the program files location.
I was trying to figure out how to connect DebugView to the IDE to see the missing files. Well, you don't have to do anything. Just run it, and it will capture all the messages. Make sure Capture Events menu option is selected in Capture menu which by default should be selected.
DebugView will NOT display all the missing files at once (at least it didn't for me)! You would have DebugView running and than run the project in Visual Studio 2010. It will prompt the project out of date message, select Yes to build and DebugView will show the first file that is missing or causing the rebuild. Open the project file (not solution file) in Notepad and search for that file and delete it. You are better off closing your project and reopening it again while doing this delete. Repeat this process until DebugView no longer shows any files missing.
It's kind of helpful to set the message filter to not up to date from the DebugView toolbar button or Edit → Filter/Highlight option. That way the only messages it displays are the one that has `not up to date' string in it.
I had lots of files that were unnecessary references and removing them all fixed the issue following the above steps.
Second way to find all the missing files at once
There is a second way to find these files all at once, but it involves (a) source control and (b) integration of it with Visual Studio 2010. Using Visual Studio 2010, add your project to a desired location or dummy location in source control. It will try to add all the files, including those that don't exist on disk as well but referenced in the project file. Go to your source control software like Perforce, and it should mark these files which don't exist on disk in a different color scheme. Perforce shows them with a black lock on them. These are your missing references. Now you have a list of them all, and you can delete all of them from your project file using Notepad and your project would not complain about being out of date.
For me it was the presence of a non-existing header file on "Header Files" inside the project. After removing this entry (right-click > Exclude from Project) first time recompiled, then directly
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 0 failed, 5 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========
and no attempt of rebuilding without modification was done. I think is a check-before-build implemented by VS2010 (not sure if documented, could be) which triggers the "AlwaysCreate" flag.
If you are using the command-line MSBuild command (not the Visual Studio IDE), for example if you are targetting AppVeyor or you just prefer the command line, you can add this option to your MSBuild command line:
/fileLoggerParameters:LogFile=MyLog.log;Append;Verbosity=diagnostic;Encoding=UTF-8
As documented here (warning: usual MSDN verbosity). When the build finishes, search for the string will be compiled in the log file created during the build, MyLog.log.
I'm using Visual Studio 2013 Professional with Update 4 but didn't find resolution with any of the other suggestions, however, I did manage to resolve the issue for my Team project.
Here's what I did to cause the problem -
Created a new class object (Project -> Add Class)
Renamed the file via Solution Explorer and clicked yes when asked if I wanted to automatically rename all references to match
Here's what I did to solve the problem -
Go to Team Explorer Home
Click Source Control Explorer
Drill into the folder where all of the class/project files are
Found the ORIGINAL filename in the list and deleted it via right-click
Build
If this is the case for you then just be extra sure that you're deleting the phantom file rather than the actual one you want to keep in the project.
I had this problem and found this:
http://curlybrace.blogspot.com/2005/11/visual-c-project-continually-out-of.html
Visual C++ Project continually out-of-date (winwlm.h macwin32.h rpcerr.h macname1.h missing)
Problem:
In Visual C++ .Net 2003, one of my projects always claimed to be out of date, even though nothing had changed and no errors had been reported in the last build.
Opening the BuildLog.htm file for the corresponding project showed a list of PRJ0041 errors for these files, none of which appear on my system anywhere:
winwlm.h macwin32.h rpcerr.h macname1.h
Each error looks something like this:
MyApplication : warning PRJ0041 : Cannot find missing dependency 'macwin32.h' for file 'MyApplication.rc'.
Your project may still build, but may continue to appear out of date until this file is found.
Solution:
Include afxres.h instead of resource.h inside the project's .rc file.
The project's .rc file contained "#include resource.h". Since the resource compiler does not honor preprocessor #ifdef blocks, it will tear through and try to find include files it should be ignoring. Windows.h contains many such blocks. Including afxres.h instead fixed the PRJ0041 warnings and eliminated the "Project is out-of-date" error dialog.
In my case one of the projects contains multiple IDL files. The MIDL compiler generates a DLL data file called 'dlldata.c' for each of them, regardless of the IDL file name. This caused Visual Studio to compile the IDL files on every build, even without changes to any of the IDL files.
The workaround is to configure a unique output file for each IDL file (the MIDL compiler always generates such a file, even if the /dlldata switch is omitted):
Right-click the IDL file
Select Properties - MIDL - Output
Enter a unique file name for the DllData File property
I spent many hours spent tearing out my hair over this. The build output wasn't consistent; different projects would be "not up to date" for different reasons from one build to the next consecutive build.
I eventually found that the culprit was DropBox (3.0.4). I junction my source folder from ...\DropBox into my projects folder (not sure if this is the reason), but DropBox somehow "touches" files during a build. Paused syncing and everything is consistently up-to-date.
There are quite a few potential reasons and - as noted - you need to first diagnose them by setting MSBuild verbosity to 'Diagnostic'. Most of the time the stated reason would be self explanatory and you'd be able to act on it immediatelly, BUT occasionally MSBuild would erroneously claim that some files are modified and need to be copied.
If that is the case, you'd need to either disable NTFS tunneling or duplicate your output folder to a new location. Here it is in more words.
This happened to me multiple times and then went away, before I could figure out why. In my case it was:
Wrong system time in the dual boot setup!
Turns out, my dual boot with Ubuntu was the root cause!! I've been too lazy to fix up Ubuntu to stop messing with my hardware clock. When I log into Ubuntu, the time jumps 5 hours forward.
Out of bad luck, I built the project once, with the wrong system time, then corrected the time. As a result, all the build files had wrong timestamps, and VS would think they are all out of date and would rebuild the project.
Most build systems use data time stamps to determine when rebuilds should happen - the date/time stamp of any output files is checked against the last modified time of the dependencies - if any of the dependencies are fresher, then the target is rebuilt.
This can cause problems if any of the dependencies somehow get an invalid data time stamp as it's difficult for the time stamp of any build output to ever exceed the timestamp of a file supposedly created in the future :P
For me, the problem arose in a WPF project where some files had their 'Build Action' property set to 'Resource' and their 'Copy to Output Directory' set to 'Copy if newer'. The solution seemed to be to change the 'Copy to Output Directory' property to 'Do not copy'.
msbuild knows not to copy 'Resource' files to the output - but still triggers a build if they're not there. Maybe that could be considered a bug?
It's hugely helpful with the answers here hinting how to get msbuild to spill the beans on why it keeps building everything!
If you change the Debugging Command arguments for the project, this will also trigger the project needs to be rebuilt message. Even though the target itself is not affected by the Debugging arguments, the project properties have changed. If you do rebuild though, the message should disappear.
I had a similar issue with Visual Studio 2005, and my solution consisted of five projects in the following dependency (first built at top):
Video_Codec depends on nothing
Generic_Graphics depends on Video_Codec
SpecificAPI_Graphics depends on Generic_Graphics
Engine depends on Specific_Graphics
Application depends on Engine.
I was finding that the Video_Codec project wanted a full build even after a full clean then rebuild of the solution.
I fixed this by ensuring the pdb output file of both the C/C++ and linker matched the location used by the other working projects. I also switched RTTI on.
Another one on Visual Studio 2015 SP3, but I have encountered a similar issue on Visual Studio 2013 a few years back.
My issue was that somehow a wrong cpp file was used for precompiled headers (so I had two cpp files that created the precompiled headers). Now why did Visual Studio change the flags on the wrong cpp to 'create precompiled headers' without my request I have no clue, but it did happen... maybe some plugin or something???
Anyway, the wrong cpp file includes the version.h file which is changed on every build. So Visual Studio rebuilds all headers and because of that the whole project.
Well, now it's back to normal behavior.
I had a VC++ project that was always compiling all files and had been previously upgraded from VS2005 to VS2010 (by other people). I found that all cpp files in the project except StdAfx.cpp were set to Create (/Yc) the precompiled header. I changed this so that only StdAfx.cpp was set to create the precompiled header and the rest were set to Use (/Yu) the precompiled header and this fixed the problem for me.
I'm on Visual Studio 2013 and just updated to the Windows 10 May 2019 update and compiling suddenly had to be redone every time, regardless of changes. Tried renaming the pch to ProjectName instead of TargetName, looked for missing files with the detailed log and that Python script, but in the end it was my time was not synced with MS's servers (by like milliseconds).
What resolved this for me was
"Adjust date and time" in the control panel
"Sync Now"
Now my projects don't need to be recompiled for no reason.
I think that you placed some newline or other whitespace. Remove it and press F5 again.
The .NET projects are always recompiled regardless. Part of this is to keep the IDE up to date (such as IntelliSense). I remember asking this question on an Microsoft forum years ago, and this was the answer I was given.