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When I start VisualStudio it frezzes on the start screen. But when I start it a second time while the first instance is open the second instance works fine.
It's not that important but what could cause that problem?
Not sure. Sometimes some Visual Studio extensions are locking up Visual Studio.
I think by default Visual Studio tries to update these extensions
that have been installed automatically.
Recently I was trying to run Visual Studio (at Home) and it would freeze if I tried to open a specific project. But I was busy, so I didn't pursue it further and did other things. Then a week or a few days later I tried to run Visual Studio (at home), and it locked up when I ran it. I tried really hard to fix it.
There is a way I don't like where you can delete all or most of the
extensions from the place Visual Studio installs them, but this is
messy, and it is easy to get rid of something you need, and may hard
to get it back where it works correctly again. So I now recommend against this since there is a better solution now, below!
I searched to find a solution, and someone on a Microsoft board I think said to run from a command prompt as Administrator: DEVENV /RESETSETTINGS, I tried that and it didn't work for me. Then I thought, run DEVENV /? to see what I can see, and I saw :
DEVENV /SAFEMODE
So I tried that and it worked! Note: it was still being run from the Visual Studio Developer Prompt as an Administrator.
Visual Studio loaded up correctly, and I was able to look at the
installed extensions.
Eventually I noticed that they all or a lot of them were disabled (probably because of this SAFEMODE parameter), and I noticed that it the most recently updated were at the top of the list. I noticed that a lot of them had been automatically updated by Visual Studio and started Uninstalling a bunch of the more recent ones, and reverted at least one of them, then later uninstalled it. Eventually, after about 6 to 10 uninstalls, I got it to where Visual Studio would load normally, without the /SAFEMODE parameter! Cool!
So I turned off the automatic updates, so this will never happen automatically again. If I load a new extension or update and existing one manually, I should always exit Visual Studio and reload it after not doing too many updates or installing too many extensions to see if these extensions allow Visual Studio to load.
Sometimes an extension will not freeze Visual Studio, but will have errors. The ones that are the big problem are the ones which prevent Visual Studio from loading all the way and freezing it up. But with the above solution, you can eventually, cleanly, uninstall all the latest updates or new installed extensions until you finally get Visual Studio to load normally!
This workaround should be more widely known, so I am putting my solution to it here. Hopefully what I found should help someone else who is in a hurry, without having a lot of time to burn trying to get Visual Studio running again without freezing!
I use Visual Studio Community 2017, and I got this same issue on startup until I stumbled on this solution that deals with some corruption in the .suo file. Before I open Visual Studio for the day, I first delete the .suo file in my project folder, and it starts up just fine.
It's in a folder called .vs next to the .sln file. You may have to go to folder options View and check "Hidden Items" in order to find this folder. Dig down in that folder and you'll find the .suo file. Delete it. When you startup the project in Visual Studio, it will automatically create a new .suo file. So you'll have to do this every time you reopen.
My Visual Studio began crashing at start-up. In my search for finding a remedy, I found these two suggestions, but neither worked for me:
Launching Visual Studio while running in safe mode, and
Running repair on Visual Studio.
However, I found that if I logged into a different Windows account, Visual Studio was able to run from that account without crashing.
Here is an error code that that I observed in the crash report:
LCID: 1033
Can anyone provide a solution for returning my Visual Studio to working order?
For me it turned out to be the plugin that GitExtensions installed into Visual Studio 2013.
-- UPDATE: try this before uninstalling GitExtensions
#Enceradeira proposed in the comments to uncheck the Show current branch in Visual Studio option. In GitExtensions, you get there via Tools -> Settings -> Appearance:
-- END OF UPDATE
After uninstalling GitExtensions and reinstalling it with all VS plugin unselected my VS runs smoothly again.
I even put together a blog post about this issue because it bugged me so much.
Since you're able to run with another user login, something may be wrong with your local settings, you can try to reset them: devenv /resetsettings in Start menu -> Run.
Warning: this will restore visual studio to default settings.
In my case VS used to crash on a single solution. I resolved the problem by deleting the respective solutions's user file: SolutionName.suo
My colleague recently experienced a problem with Visual Studio 2013 crashing on start-up. Unfortunately, we found that the approach recommended in the answer by #Arun M did not solve the problem:
devenv.exe /ResetSettings
...however, using a different command line argument did:
devenv.exe /ResetUserData
An easy way to run devenv.exe is via the Visual Studio command prompt; on Windows 10, it can be found here:
Start Button => All Apps => Visual Studio 2013 => Visual Studio Tools =>
VS2013 x86 Native Tools Command Prompt
For more about these command line arguments for devenv.exe, see this answer to this related question: How do I truly reset every setting in Visual Studio 2012?. ⚠ In particular, please note the cautionary statement in that answer about the /ResetUserData command line argument!
Try to run VS as administrator. That's necessary in my case.
If coincident to these Visual Studio crashes you are getting "Heap corruption" (Exception code: 0xc0000005) errors in your Windows Application log (Faulting module name: WindowsCodecs.dll), here is something worth checking into: A faulty WIC component within Expression Blend can cause ALL versions of Visual Studio to crash upon launch, as well as cause Internet Explorer to crash upon visiting many, if not most sites. Even though Microsoft distributes this component, they call it a "non-Microsoft component". As such, a Visual Studio reinstall won't fix this,, an OS reinstall over existing Windows installation won't fix this, and a system file integrity check won't detect it.
If my case, the misbehaving codec was "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Expression\Common\Imaging\4.0.360.0\PSDCodec.dll", and simply unregistering this component got my Visual Studio working again from consistent startup launch crashes.
I post this in hopes this solution to one source of Visual Studio crashing might save others from the $500 Microsoft support incident fee and week of downtime this caused me.
I just changed the windows language in the bottom right to "EN", then started as admin. And it worked, interesting..
I had the very strange phenomenon that both Visual Studio 2010 and 2013 on a Windows 7 machine crashed when run in a remote desktop session, started from a Windows 10 pc. Debugging the crash showed a CultureNotFound exception. It was caused by regional settings on the Windows 10 pc, which could not be translated in something understood by Windows 7. I had language English(Belgium) with an Azerty keyboard. I added and selected English(UK) with an Azerty keyboard and the crashes disappeared. No other programs suffered from this.
For me it was being caused by Web Essentials and I was able to resolve by disabling it, restarting VS, enabling it back , restart again. Works now.
I had a crash on startup (or soon after startup, before opening any solution) occurring in git2-msvstfs.dll, caused by placing a 3GB temp file into a directory within my solution. Deleting the file fixed it.
Once I accidentally pressed a random key combination (maybe something like ctrl+', but I didn’t realize I was holding ctrl down so I forgot what keys I hit by the time I realized something bad had happened) that resulted in VS Professional 2017 15.3.5 crashing within half a minute. After relaunching, I found that VS would be interactive for a few seconds before it would crash within half a minute. It was really too fast for me to try to figure out what I had accidentally activated or for me to disable it before VS would crash. Also, it would even crash if I didn’t open any solution, so I figured it was not something that deleting a .vs (per project/solution Solution Explorer/open files state) folder would fix.
To fix, I followed Arun M’s comment and renamed my %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_3f4d04be folder. You will need to adjust the path for the edition/version of VS that is crashing. On my machine, I think 15.0_3f4d04be is Professional and 15.0_0fed6c59 is VS Community Edition. You’ll probably have to guess based on the folder’s modification timestamp which is probably going to reflect the date you last used that edition of VS.
After renaming the versioned dotfolder, VS launched without crashing. It started with default settings but automatically restored some of my settings through the cloud sync stuff after a minute of running and it even remembered my account information so I didn’t need to sign in.
I did not need to rename my %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VSCommon folder (which Arun M had also suggested).
I had a similar problem, both VS2015 and VS2013 would crash at startup. Tracked it down to an application I installed which put .net 4.7.2 on the system. Once i removed that app, removed .net, and reinstalled .net 4.6, Visual Studio started working again.
Somehow part of my syntax highlighting for C# code has disappeared in the VS 2012 IDE. Uninstalling, rebooting, and reinstalling does nothing, nor does resetting the colors in the options dialog.
Here are some examples of items which all appear in default (black) that normally have color which don't:
Attributes
System classes
My own classes
And here are some keywords that still have color:
using
public
void
var
for
Has anyone else experienced this and managed to fix it?
Here is a simple solution. Go to the directory where devenv is (for 2012 RC), and type devenv.exe /setup. It will fix your problem.
devenv.exe is usually in something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE.
Edit: It has been suggested that you do this from the Visual Studio command prompt (Start>Microsoft Visual Studio>Tools>Visual Studio Command Prompt), and/or make sure your command prompt has administrator permissions.
Note for others: This has a very good chance of working for many other versions of Visual Studio, including 2008, 2010, 11 beta, ...
My problem was limited to having the "DateTime" type not showing up in light blue like other class names. I fixed it by simply switching back-and-forth between VS Themes. Discovered by accident. Much quicker than reset settings or repair install...
VS menu Tools -> Change Color Theme
This is what worked for me:
1 - delete all in C:\Users\userNAme\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0
2 - open vs console as administrator, and run:
devenv.exe /setup
devenv.exe /ResetSettings
This will reset all your environment settings.
If none of the above work for you, delete all GUID-named folders under this registry key (make sure your Visual Studio instance is closed):
If you're using Visual Studio 2012:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\FontAndColors
If you're using Visual Studio 2013:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\FontAndColors
If you're using Visual Studio 2015:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\FontAndColors
Restart Visual Studio, and you should see a few various "User Types" to configure. You can then import your Fonts and Colors that you backed-up, and everything will be good to go. This may also work for previous and future versions of VS, but I have not tested.
Disclaimer: Make sure you export/backup your current Fonts and Colors settings before making these registry adjustments. I cannot be held responsible for you losing your configs :)
If you still have this issue try ResetSettings (worked for me)
NOTE: this will reset the Visual Studio 2012 settings :)
1) close vs.
2)open cmd (as administrator).
3) go to devnev.exe folder (something like "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE" ).
4) type "devnev.exe /ResetSettings"
5) open vs and look at the beautiful colors
Found the source of the problem:
If you have the "Productivity Power Tools 2012" installed,
you should go to Tools -> Options -> Productivity Power Tools
and turn off the "Colorized Parameter Help" option.
This fixed the syntax highlight problem.
If anybody runs in to the same problem for Visual Studio 2013 as I did, the only solution that worked for me was to first close VS2013 and then delete the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\FontAndColors
After reopening VS2013, my syntax highlighting for types was restored.
Prior to deleting the registry key, I noticed that all of the "User Types..." settings in the Fonts and Colors section of Tools > Options were missing. Deleting the registry key restored them. They attained their default values which gave me the syntax highlighting colors I was looking for.
This was the only solution that worked for me. Switching themes, resetting my personalized settings to defaults, running devenv.exe with various command line switches to setup/reset Visual Studio did not work.
I also created the following bug report with Microsoft on their Connect site:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/810985/incorrect-syntax-highlighting-for-c-types.
For me "Productivity Power Tools 2012" was the cause. Nothing suggested here helped. After removing the Power Tools the colors came back.
I did all the things listed here and still nothing (VS2013 Update 3). I tried /setup, /resetsettings, deleting the stuff in AppData, deleting the registry keys. Still, User Types wouldn't be highlighted even in the default color scheme.
What helped in the end was opening the Fonts and Colors dialog, selecting Identifier, and making it Bold. Then removing the Bold. Instant fixage!
I had the same issue....just uninstalling and re-installing alone did not correct the problem. After I un-installed, deleted all remnants of VS 2012 in program files, removed all related registry keys, and deleted the VS 2012 folder from My Documents, then re-installed, user types showed up in the display items in fonts and colors and everything went back to normal. My guess is that it was an issue with one or more of the registry keys but I can't be sure of that.
exit devenv
go to below path
hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\visualstudio!
remove 9.0 , 10.0 , 10.0_config (i mean to say all other folders except 11.0 and 11.0_config)
Now start devenv and see the magical colors get back normal
1 - delete all in C:\Users\userNAme\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0
2 - open vs console as administrator, and run:
devenv.exe /setup
devenv.exe /ResetSettings1 - delete all in C:\Users\userNAme\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0
2 - open vs console as administrator, and run:
devenv.exe /setup
devenv.exe /ResetSettings
This is what helped me...
delete all in C:\Users\userNAme\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0
open vs console as administrator, and run:
devenv.exe /setup
devenv.exe /ResetSettings
This solution worked for me. Thanks alot Gaz Winter
If you've installed the preview of Roslyn, unintstall it. This worked for me.
After trying several of the solutions listed here, I eventually found that my issue was caused by a very large (488000+ characters) string variable. Highlighting was working up to that line, but not after it. Once I reduced the length of the string, highlighting in the rest of the file resumed working normally.
I already had VS 2012 Pro installed on my machine. I then installed VS 2013 Pro and started facing this color issue. I then deleted the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\FontAndColors key and opened VS 2013. This approach solved my issue and the colors were back.
If the windows desktop is configured with a high contrast theme the syntax coloring seems to disappear completely from Visual Studio. If this is the case, select a normal windows theme and set a solid background color (if you don't want a background pictures) to restore syntax coloring in VS.
Problem : Class name and Syntax showing in black color
Solutation:
Step 1: Remove Key :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\FontAndColors
Step 2: Remove folder :
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
Step 3: Open command prompt (admin mode) and run below command line :
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE>devenv.exe /setup
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE>devenv.exe /ResetSettings
It work for download this "Productivity Power Tools 2012" and install, after install this tool get this steps go to Tools -> Options -> Productivity Power Tools and turn off the "Colorized Parameter Help" option.
This fixed the keyword as syntax ActionResult is not set for default black color and highlight problem resolved.
In vs2005 opening a file causes a dialog to pop up "Contacting server to get a list of items to update"... everytime... I'm not checking out / editing ... just opening to view.
Reset vs2005 settings etc ... but to no avail ...
No settings appear to be diff. between mine and other devs boxes here.
Appears to be nothing on google.
No addins etc
driving me nuts - anytime something changes on the server I get the change ... not to mention the interruption.
any ideas?
This is obviously not normal behaviour as you can tell from looking at the other developers machines. I would personally suspect a plug-in of some sort. You could try looking in Tools, Add-in Manager to see if anything is there. If that doesn't work, close Visual Studio and start a Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt and then type
devenv /SafeMode
And see if the problem still occurs. If it does you could try resetting Visual Studio by typing the following at a Visual Studo 2005 command prompt (warning it will reset all your preferences etc)
devenv /ResetSettings
But all of these are a shot in the dark - I've never seen the behaviour that you are describing...
I had a plugin installed in Visual Studio 2008, and it created some extra dockable windows. I have uninstalled it, and I can't get rid of the windows it created - I close them, but they always come back. They're just empty windows now, since the plugin is no longer present, but nothing I've tried gets rid of them. I've tried:
Window -> Reset Window Layout
Deleting the .suo files in my project directories
Deleting the Visual Studio 9.0 folder in my Application Settings directory
Any ideas?
Have you tried this? In Visual Studio go to Tools > Import and Export Settings > Reset all settings
Be sure you back up your settings before you do this. I made the mistake of trying this to fix an issue and didn't realize it would undo all my appearance settings and toolbars as well. Took a lot of time to get back to the way I like things.
Try devenv.exe /resetuserdata. I think it's more aggressive than the Tools > Import and Export options suggested.
Also check Tools > Add In Manager and make sure there aren't any orphans there.
How about running the following from command line,
Devenv.exe /ResetSettings
You could also save those settings in to a file, like so,
Devenv.exe /ResetSettings "C:\My Files\MySettings.vssettings"
The /ResetSettings switch, Restores Visual Studio default settings. Optionally resets the settings to the specified .vssettings file.
MSDN link
I had similar problem except that it happened without installing any plugin. I begin to get this dialog about source control every time I open the project + tons of windows popping up and floating which I had to close one by one.
Windows -> Rest Windows Layout, fixed it for me without any problems. It does bring the default setting which I don't mind at all :)
If you want to reset the window layout. Then
go to "WINDOW" -> "RESET WINDOW LAYOUT"
If you have an old backup copy of CurrentSettings.vssettings, you can try restoring it.
I had a completely corrupted Visual Studio layout. When I tried to enter debug, I was told that VS had become unstable. When I restarted, my window layout would then be totally screwed. I tried restoring the VS current user settings in the registry from a backup, but that didn't help. However, restoring CurrentSettings.vssettings seems to have cured it.
There seems to be a bunch of binary stuff in there and I can imagine it gets irretrievably corrupted sometimes.
Note: if you have vs2010 and vs2008 and you want to reset the 2008, you will need to specify in command line the whole path. like this:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /resetsettings
If you don't specify the path (like devenv.exe /resetsettings), it will reset the latest version of Visual studio installed on your computer.
I close them, but they always come back
When you say "they always come back" do you mean "next time you restart Visual Studio" or "immediately"?
One quirk of Visual Studio (at least VS2005) is that settings aren't saved until you exit. That means that if VS crashes at all while you are using it, any layout changes you made will be lost. The way around this is to always gracefully exit when you have set up everything like you want it to be.
Not sure if this will help your particular situation though.
I tried most of the suggestions, and none of them worked. I didn't get a chance to try /resetuserdata. Finally I reinstalled the plugin and uninstalled it again, and the windows went away.
If you've ever backed up your settings (Tools -> Import and Export Settings), you can restore the settings file to get back to a prior state. This is the only thing that I've found to work.
If you want to reset your development environment of your visual studio, then you can use Import and Export setting wizard. see this for all steps:
http://www.authorcode.com/forums/topic/how-to-reset-development-environment-settings-of-your-visual-studio/
Window -> Reset Window Layout didn't exist for me. For anybody looking in 2022 or later, I finally found the answer! The crucial information, buried in a VSCode update release note, was right at the bottom of this section. Here it is if the link breaks in the future:
If you'd like to reset all views back to the default layout, you can run Views: Reset View Locations from the Command Palette.