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My installation of Visual Studio was fine previously, but has started acting weird lately. Some of the symptoms include
Visual Studio randomly hangs or crashes
Visual Studio won't start
Intellisense disappears sometimes
Plugins are not working, or are failing to start
I can't install or uninstall tools
I can't connect to source control anymore
Certain known good project types fail to load properly
Known file types don't have syntax highlighting anymore
I can't add files to a solution because the option is greyed out
I can't add, remove, or update files to a solution due to an error
I can't add or remove projects to a solution due to an error
I can't open a solution due to an error
The debugger cannot launch, or attach to processes
I can't find any templates when I try to add a new item
I can't copy/paste due to an error
A DLL required by Visual Studio is missing or corrupt
Menus are suddenly empty
Something that I know should normally work, now does not work
How can I fix this?
(This question is meant to be a canonical close dupe for these types of questions)
Visual Studio is pretty reliable, and most of us using it aren't experiencing the issues you are. It's a pretty large and complex suite of components, though, which means problems are bound to occur.
First: Restart Visual Studio and, if that fails, restart your computer
The majority of small issues are fixed by restarting Visual Studio. Some of the ones involving connectivity or services can be fixed by restarting your computer.
If this doesn't fix your problem
There's no way to guarantee that something bad won't happen to a particular installation of Visual Studio. The ways a large, complex application can become misconfigured or damaged are too varied to mention.
The effort it would take to diagnose and track down every possible cause is great. Ain't nobody got time for that. The one reliable solution—which works almost every time it's tried—is:
Reinstall Visual Studio.
Go ahead, rest your eyes for a little bit. Come back when you've come to terms with this sad fact.
…
Resigned? Okay. We're going to go through the steps to fix your problem, starting with the lowest impact, but probably least likely to work, one first. While you are attempting to fix this, keep notes! Mentally, or write them down. If you get to the last step, you'll need them.
First, let's go the easiest route and return Visual Studio to its original state. We can do this by removing all extensions and by resetting all settings.
Open the "Extensions and Updates" dialog. If you can't find it, type that into the quick launch. If you can't find that, try ctrl-q. For each installed extension, highlight it and click the Uninstall button.
Next, let's reset those settings. Make sure you export them first!
From the docs:
To export your settings
1. On the menu bar, choose Tools, Import and Export Settings. Choose the Export selected environment settings option button, and then
choose the Next button.
2. Make sure that the check boxes for the kinds of settings that you want to export are selected and all other check boxes are cleared, and
then choose the Next button.
3. (Optional) Name your settings file, enter a different path where it should be saved, or both. By default, setting files are named
Currentsettings.vssettings and saved to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual
Studio 2015\Settings.
4. Choose the Finish button.
You can import them later from the same location. Now, once you've saved your settings, go back and reset them.
Tools -> Import and Export Settings... -> Reset all settings
Having reset everything, try to repro your issue. Still breaking?
Heck.
There's no doubt that you need to reinstall. Let's go the easiest route and do a repair. Do the following:
Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features
Select Microsoft Visual Studio [whatever edition] [whatever year]
Click "Change"
Click "Repair"
After you've done this, try to repro your issue. Did it still happen?
Damnit, sorry.
If you want to try a different way, you may be able to do an "overlay" reinstall. Simply run the installer directly and select "install" (if this option is available to you). You can use your original media, but I'd strongly suggest you re-download the installer. This will overlay a new version over the old, without messing up your settings. After reinstalling, try to repro. Did it?
Aw hell. Here we go.
You need to try uninstalling/reinstalling. First, though, you might want to export your settings. You should have done this for step one of this answer, but if you didn't, go back and follow the instructions to do it now.
After saving them, repeat steps 1 and 2 (from the repair instructions) and this time select "Uninstall" instead of "Change". If your issue has to do with an external component, search for it in the list of other installed applications and uninstall it as well. If you're paranoid, uninstall everything Visual Studio related. They may be out to destroy you.
Now, reinstall Visual Studio. If you've found yourself at this point, you're in deep, so don't risk installing from your original media. Download a fresh, fully updated copy from where you originally got it. For example, if you got Visual Studio via your MSDN subscription, go there and download the ISO.
Now, having reinstalled everything, try to repro. Did it happen again?
F##&ing s#!t.
Now is the time to create a bug report. Go to Connect
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/LoadSubmitFeedbackForm
Provide as much information as possible. You need to give them all the info they ask for in the form, plus details about the bug, how to repro it, and what you did to try and fix it. Remember those notes I told you to write down? Bust them out now. I'd strongly recommend you mark your issue public, as it may be found and commented on by others with your problem.
Within a day you'll get a response. They will probably want you to turn on Visual Studio logging and repro the issue. I won't tell you how to do this here, as they will give you exact instructions for the version of Visual Studio you are running. Follow them and reply as soon as you can.
There will be one of three outcomes from this process:
They will tell you that you're doing it wrong
They will discover an outside actor causing the issue
They will discover a bug
For #1, stop doing that, and you're done. For #2, they'll probably tell you to uninstall the bad actor (e.g., remove a plugin) and go tell the people responsible about the bug (don't slack--do it). For #3, they'll triage the bug and it will be fixed sometime later. It's likely they will suggest workarounds that will at least get you moving again, if it's a true bug.
And that's it. Now, go forth and reinstall Visual Studio!
I installed VS2013 (v12.0.21005.1) and added ReSharper 8 (v8.0.2000.2660) a day or two ago. That day it was fine. Now I'm lucky if I can get it to open one solution in a whole day. It opens OK by itself, but when I try and open a solution from within - via the menu - it hangs, badly. If I right-click a solution in Windows Explorer and 'open with VS 2013', it opens then hangs, in exactly the same way. Every now and again, for hours, I get a little notice that it's busy with something.
Anyone know what could be wrong, before I endure a reinstall that doesn't fix the problem?
Sometimes it's enough to simply delete the ".v12.suo" file and try to open the solution again. Helped me many times when VS2013 was freezing on loading a project.
Deleting all ".suo" files worked for me. There were several copies due to opening the solution in multiple versions of Visual Studio.
Edit:
Possible path could be:
PathToSolution\.vs\ProjectName\v14\
.vs may be a hidden folder.
.suo is filename.
Basically it could be anything, but you can try a few things:
Turning it off and on again.
Clear the ReSharper cache, it's in %LOCALAPPDATA%\JetBrains\ReSharper\<CurrentVersion>\SolutionCaches, where you should find a folder matching the solution you are trying to open. Just close all instances of VS2013, delete the folder and try again.
turn off ReSharper: Tools > Options > ReSharper > General > Suspend
uninstall ReSharper completely and see if problems persists.
Repair Visual Studio through Programs and Features.
I found the following to be the better approach to debugging VS based on MS Connect instructions
Please help to confirm if your captured dump file is a 32-bit dump file. If it is a 64-bit dump file, please use the following step to capture a new dump file.
Start Visual Studio.
Start another instance of VS.
In the second instance click Tools | Attach to Process...
In the list of processes locate devenv.exe.
Click Select... and explicitly choose 'Native' and 'Managed' code.
Click OK and OK to close Select dialog and Attach to Process dialog.
Go back to the first instance of VS and repro the hang.
Upon the hang, control should go to the second instance of VS. If not please go back to the second instance of VS manually, and hit "Break All".
In the second instance click Debug | Save Dump As Minidump with heap.
If you are running the VB profile you will not see the Save Dump As menu item. To add this menu item:
Select Tools -> Customize
Select the Commands tab
Select Debug from the Menu bar dropdown
Click Add Command...
Select Debug from the Categories list.
Find the Save Dump As entry in the Commands window.
Click OK (the Save Dump As... command is added to the top of the Debug menu).
Click Close
You can get detailed steps about how to get the dump file and call stack at http://blogs.msdn.com/debugger/archive/2009/12/30/what-is-a-dump-and-how-do-i-create-one.aspx
If you find the problem is with Resharper Addin you can then report the issue via - http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/RSRP
Suspending Resharper Worked for me.
Goto
Tools -> Options -> ReSharper -> General -> Suspend Now
Now your solution will load very fast.
After your solution fully loaded, you can change the Resharper settings to Resume Now.
Are you using any node modules in your project? Or can you identify that it is a ReSharper specific issue?
If you've got NPM modules (eg. for Grunt), mark your 'node_modules' folder as 'hidden' (no need to make child folders hidden though), and try again.
Visual Studio was hanging on open for me, turned out it was trying to scan deeply nested node modules with file paths longer than the Windows maximum (260 characters), and this was preventing me from opening the solution in VS, but marking the folder as hidden solved the problem.
I had this issue recently as well, and found that disconnecting my computer from the internet when loading the project fixed it. With this, I managed to cut loading times from several hours down to seconds. Since my network cable is not particularly accessible, I simply disabled my network adapter before loading the project (in Control Panel).
This soon became frustrating, however, and I recently looked into the problem again. It seems that logging on to my Microsoft account in Visual Studio ultimately fixed the problem, and I now have no more issues loading projects.
This may work for you as well (if you haven't yet fixed it - but since there is no accepted answer here, I assume that the problem is persisting), so I suggest that you at least try disconnecting from the internet, even if you would rather not enter your Microsoft credentials.
I went into the %LOCALAPPDATA%\JetBrains\ReSharper\
and opened all the directories looking for the SolutionCaches, and emptied all of them. Problem solved. The application was quite large, so this helped.
Check for Windows updates
I had this problem too. Furthermore, I couldn't open my Windows firewall settings (trying to block VS's internet connection).
When opening update settings (Windows 8), I saw there was a pending update ("found today"), so I rebooted my computer, letting Windows update. After that, VS and the firewall worked fine again.
Check your hardware
I've had the problem a second time; even Windows 8's update page would keep loading forever. It was an issue with my (non-OS) hard drive: https://superuser.com/questions/756261/various-parts-of-windows-8-and-visual-studio-2013-get-blocked-by-possibly-comm?noredirect=1#comment978074_756261
I get this issue now and again - VS 2013 Update 2, Win 8.1, IE 11.
Try this - Open task manger, kill the VS app hanging, and then close any IE sessions that are running in the Background Process list - there may be one or more hanging around.
Restart VS
Seems to clear it for me, without a reboot.
The problem I had was the Perforce connection.
When opening the solution, it would ask if I wanted it to connect to Perforce. Allowing it to try would make it hang and allocate 1.5 GB of RAM.
Not allowing the P4 connection let it load properly (allocating 1 GB RAM). Then I could tell it to connect to P4 after, and it is now fine.
For me , whether computer crashes with power outage, or sometimes with mandatory reboots in the middle of the night. What does WORK for me
DELETE ALL FILES IN THIS DIRECTORY:
C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache\
For anyone still referring this helped me:
I had to always delete .vs12.suo file to load the project.
I came across this thread from Microsoft and following that I created registry entry which fixed my issue with Solution load.
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/860685/visual-studio-hangs-after-10s-when-loading-solution-corrupt-suo
I had similar issue, when i checked the solution file it was created by VS.Net 2012. To resolve the issue, I created dummy solution file and reloaded the projects from vs.net 2012.
Also observed when nuget package update got screwed up, while you reload the solution, Visual Studio might get hang.
The Visual Studio might go hang, when there was a problem in loading the nuget packages.
In my case, VS 2013 Professional was hanging on every startup, even without opening a solution because the license was no longer valid.
Last item in the log file:
<entry>
<record>367</record>
<time>2015/07/13 20:11:05.051</time>
<type>Information</type>
<source>UserConnection</source>
<description>myemailaddrs#gmail.com signed in for IDE user</description>
</entry>
And on the msdn.microsoft.com subscription page: "Your subscription is no longer active, contact your administrator."
I had to get an updated subscription from my employer.
Deleting Test Results from my TestResults folder actually did the trick for me. Just another thing to try.
VS2012 hangs on me e.g. when opening a csproj file on a network share (in fact on a share that was on the VirtualBox host, connected as a smb share using a VirtualBox feature).
Copying the project over to a local drive fixed it for me. Not sure if assigning a drive letter would do the trick.
Also not sure why it does not work via network share, if it is a VS limitation or perhaps some plugin (I use resharper, of course).
For me this appears to have something to do with the project having the MVC 4 project type guid (E3E379DF-F4C6-4180-9B81-6769533ABE47). Removing this guid from the .csproj resolved the hanging for me. (An additional wiping of the .vs folder was required after removing the guid.)
I just removed "packages" folder from root of solution and it helped for me (Visual Studio Express 2015)
Sorry for having to create a new post instead of commenting on the selected answer .. I do not have enough rep to comment at this time.
My issue was was temporarily resolved by the "...delete the .suo file ..." solution, and as other folks pointed out, I had to delete the file every single time.
Since it (apparently) is impossible to stop the creation of the file I started to dig a little more into what the file did. In addition to saving user settings, I believe it is also saving session settings, like which files you have open when VS is closed. I suspected that my project is attempting to open a file that no longer exists and that is what is causing the hang. What fixed things on my end was to delete the .suo, open VS, open a file within my solution, build and close the solution. After doing this I have had no hangs.
tl:dr
In my case, a user setting file(.suo) was attempting to open a file in my solution that no longer existed. I resolved the issue by performing the following steps.
Delete the .suo file (for me this was in /[projectfolder]/.vs/[projectname]/v14
Open Visual Studio
Open your project
Open a file (I simply opened a random .cs file)
Build and save your solution (Simply saving may do the trick, I built by habit)
Close Visual Studio
Hope this helps someone ... we spent way too many hours on this issue :)
Lots of suggestions here and elsewhere but the only thing that permanently worked for me had to do with the start-up project I'd set. This is what I did:
Delete the .suo file as suggested elsewhere.
Start VS and open the solution. All should be well at this point.
Leave the start-up project as-is, even if it's not what you want.
Save the solution. (Possibly do as someone else suggests and open a file, clean, build/re-build, etc, but I didn't have to do any of that.)
Close the solution and exit VS.
Re-start VS and open the solution.
Change the start-up project to whatever it should be
Save the solution. (Possibly again do the open file, clean, build/re-build, etc.)
Close the solution and exit VS.
Restart VS and re-open the solution and all should be well.
This might or might not work for you but I'd tried everything I could find - registry changes, debugging VS from a second VS session, you name it - but nothing else worked for more than a single start/open.
Try to uninstall extensions with "Control Panel" or disable any add-in in [Tools]=>[Add-in Manager] then try to reopen the solution.
My problem was fixed by uninstall "Visual Localizer".
In my case the Fusion log has been enabled. Log files has been growing for months as I forgot to turn it off after investigation. This way the antivirus software started to check these big log files several times during opening the solution, and "Preparing solution..." message is visible for long-long time. When I noticed this, I turned off the fusion log, and problem solved. Solution loads in 10 seconds instead of 20 minutes.
I've had this issue multiple times, in pretty much all versions of VS. The one solution that seems to work most of the times is to delete the .vs folder located in the solution folder. Sometimes it's enough to delete the .sou file located in .vs///
The folder is hidden by the way, so you will have to enable "Show hidden files and folders"
For me the solution was to disable source control (Set plugin to None in Tools->Source Countrol). I think it was trying to sync some huge Git repo for some reason (have a couple of massive repos, but not in the tree I was trying to open).
I have fixed the issue by uninstalling these two plugins:
Productivity Power Tool
Web Essentials
I restored a previous version of the .vbproj file and it solved it.
I don't know what was in the newer version but the problem was something inside the .bvproj file itself.
When I debug my project, I get following error:
"Unable to copy file "obj\Debug\My Dream.exe" to "bin\Debug\My Dream.exe". The process cannot access the file 'bin\Debug\My Dream.exe' because it is being used by another process."
Using Process Explorer, I see that MyApplication.exe was out but System process still uses it although I stopped debug before.
Whenever I change my code and start debug it is going to happen. If I copy project to USB and debug, it runs OK.
Why? How can I fix this error?
I use Window 7 Professional. With Xp I have never got this error.
Ugh, this is an old problem, something that still pops up in Visual Studio once in a while. It's bitten me a couple of times and I've lost hours restarting and fighting with VS. I'm sure it's been discussed here on SO more than once. It's also been talked about on the MSDN forums. There isn't an actual solution, but there are a couple of workarounds. Start researching here.
What's happening is that VS is acquiring a lock on a file and then not releasing it. Ironically, that lock prevents VS itself from deleting the file so that it can recreate it when you rebuild the application. The only apparent solution is to close and restart VS so that it will release the lock on the file.
My original workaround was opening up the bin/Debug folder and renaming the executable. You can't delete it if it's locked, but you can rename it. So you can just add a number to the end or something, which allows you to keep working without having to close all of your windows and wait for VS to restart. Some people have even automated this using a pre-build event to append a random string to the end of the old output filename. Yes, this is a giant hack, but this problem gets so frustrating and debilitating that you'll do anything.
I've later learned, after a bit more experimentation, that the problem seems to only crop up when you build the project with one of the designers open. So, the solution that has worked for me long term and prevented me from ever dealing with one of those silly errors again is making sure that I always close all designer windows before building a WinForms project. Yes, this too is somewhat inconvenient, but it sure beats the pants off having to restart VS twice an hour or more.
I assume this applies to WPF, too, although I don't use it and haven't personally experienced the problem there.
I also haven't yet tried reproducing it on VS 2012 RC. I don't know if it's been fixed there yet or not. But my experience so far has been that it still manages to pop up even after Microsoft has claimed to have fixed it. It's still there in VS 2010 SP1. I'm not saying their programmers are idiots who don't know what they're doing, of course. I figure there are just multiple causes for the bug and/or that it's very difficult to reproduce reliably in a laboratory. That's the same reason I haven't personally filed any bug reports on it (although I've +1'ed other peoples), because I can't seem to reliably reproduce it, rather like the Abominable Snowman.
<end rant that is directed at no one in particular>
I've had this error crop up on me before, even in Visual Studio 2008. It came back and more prevalent in Visual Studio 2012.
Here is what I do.
Paste this in the troublesome project's pre-build event:
if exist "$(TargetPath).locked" del "$(TargetPath).locked"
if exist "$(TargetPath)" if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked" move "$(TargetPath)" "$(TargetPath).locked"
Computer (right-click) -> manage -> Service & Application -> service -> Enable Application experience
Worked For me!
I had the same issue in Visual Studio 2013. I'm not sure what caused this for my project, but I was able to fix it by cleaning the solution and rebuilding it.
Build > Clean Solution
Build > Rebuild Solution
I understand this is an old question. Unfortunately I was facing the same issue with my .net core 2.0 application in visual studio 2017. So, I thought of sharing the solution which worked for me. Before this solution I had tried the below steps.
Restarted visual studio
Closed all the application
Clean my solution and rebuild
None of the above steps didn't fix the issue.
And then I opened my Task Manager and selected dotnet process and then clicked End task button. Later I opened my Visual Studio and everything was working fine.
At least in my case I've noticed that visual studio 2012 was creating at least two msbuild.exe ghost processes, which did not perish after build. These zombies apparently are causing file locks to appear.
Killing msbuild.exe's is one time solution, it needs to be done per build basis.
But then I've figure out that I could disable parallel build once and for all - went into Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > Build and Run > "maximum numbers of parallel project builds" - by default it has value of 8, I've switched to 1. Works like charm.
Of course builds are bit slower now, but better safe than sorry.
At least for this particular small project I did not need more than one build thread.
See my answer here if you're having this problem while running unit tests. Answer copied below:
Building upon Sébastien's answer, I added a pre-build step to my test
project to automatically kill any vstest.* executables still
running. The following pre-build command worked for me:
taskkill /f /im vstest.*
exit 0
The exit 0 command is at the end to prevent build failure when there
are no vstest.* executables running.
I solved this problem..
near the debug you see drop down menu with some configuration. Default there was Any CPU. Select x86 and run the program it will work. If x86 not there go to configuration manager and add the x86
Recently I've been in a trouble with Visual Studio 2012 with same error description: "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process..."
To fix this first of all you need to understand the application which still use it. I've shutdown all processes like "MSBuild" and "MSBuild host". But this is not enough. If you have installed "Code Contracts" and turned on then it sometimes takes your DLLs for checking and hanging up on this operation.
So, you need to stop all processes of "CCCheck.exe" and that's all.
Finally, to understand that process is using your DLL you always may try to just Delete "obj" folder in your File Manager and this operation will fail, you may see the "Message Window" with description of the hanging operation. Also, as a variant, you can try to use "Sys Internals Suite" application.
Worked for me.
Task Manager -> Name of project -> End task. (i had 3 same processes with my project name);
VS 2013; Win 8;
Make sure that any previous run of the application (for example, start without debugging option) is actually stopped. I was working on a WPF application, started without debugging and had it minimized when I kept getting the error. After closing the application VS behavior got back to normal.
I have been plagued by this issue in Visual Studio 2017. It started about two or three weeks ago, and has severely eaten into my productivity. Clean and Rebulid haven't worked; even restarting my machine doesn't do the job.
One way to deal with the issue is to clean the offending assembly, and to build (as opposed to rebuild) the project you want to run immediately afterwards. This works about 30% of the time.
However, probably the most reliable solution I've found is to open a Developer Command Prompt, and use msbuild directly. I've been doing this for the last three days, and so far the problem hasn't happened once.
In my case was that I have enable "Show All Files".
Visual Studio 2017
Run taskmanager.
Locate netcore and delete it.
You can then delete the file manually or by running Clean.
This is pure speculation, and not an answer.
However, I have been having this problem for a while.
I came after a time to suspect an interaction between VS and my AV precautions.
After some playing, it seems that it may have gone away when I modified my antivirus so that everything under the
C:\Users[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ProjectAssemblies
folder was not included in the real-time protection.
It looks as if the build actually writes the DLL here first, then copies it to the final build location.
It could be too late. But, I encountered similar problem and in my case the project had self reference. Hence, deleting it from the References worked like a charm!!!
I've found the quickest way without closing forms or restarting VisualStudio is go to the project's compile page and click "Advanced Compile Options..." button. Then make any change to one of the options (say, changing Generate Debug Info from Full to pdb-only), then click OK.
It works every time and will have to do until MS fixes this bug (I've never had this problem until I switched from VS2012 to VS2013)
Another note, if you can't clean the project or solution, it won't build. The files are definitely locked by VS (not a antivirus problem, at least not in my case)
I tried all these suggestions as well as other suggestions found elsewhere and the only thing that worked for me was restarting my computer. Then I did a clean solution followed by rebuilding. I am using Visual Studio 2013 for reference.
I have run to this same issue, and what I found is there are actually running mulitple Windows form application in the background. It happens when your application has two forms and you close the 2nd form which is not your main form so the application will not totally exited.
I usually run my application
through its exe or
run without debugging
Solution is close the other instance of Windows form application.
This is one way to always close your application instance.
Pre build command
(if exist "$(TargetDir)*old.pdb" del "$(TargetDir)*old.pdb") & (if exist "$(TargetDir)*.pdb" ren "$(TargetDir)*.pdb" *.old.pdb)
Helped
[Solved] Error: Cannot access file bin/Debug/… because it is being used by another process:
I am approaching that you get this error while you was trying to run two windows form one after another such as first loading a form then after sometimes it will automatically disappear and the second form loaded onto the screen.
Basically, you need to close your first form which is running in the background and the main reason behind this error.
To close the first form you have to add these two lines of code in the second form load event handler.
Form1 form = new Form1();
form.Close();
This will solve the error perfectly.
One simple solution is you go to bin\Debug folder, delete all the files in that folder, then rebuild. If it doesn't work, close Visual Studio then go to bin\Debug folder using file explorer, on the left coner, click on File> Open Command Prompt> Open Command Prompt as Administrator > Enter this command "DEL /F /Q /A *" > then rebuild
i found Cody Gray 's answer partially helpful, in that it did direct me to the real source of my problem which some of you may also be experiencing: visual studio's test execution stays open by default and maintains a lock on the files.
To stop that predominantly useless behaviour, follow the instructions from https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/771994/vstest-executionengine-x86-exe-32-bit-not-closing-vs2012-11-0-50727-1-rtmrel
Uncheck Test menu -> Test Settings -> "Keep Test Execution Engine Running"
My problem was dotnet got hung up and whenever VS would try to make a new dll, or access an old one, the dotnet process would latch onto the dll and stop visual studio from cloning the dll. Solution is just to end all dotnet tasks in task manager(it will only actually remove the dead one, if you are trying to end one and it won't shut down, that means it's working).
Close VisualStudio, ctrl-alt-delete, select Task Manager, find and end all MSBuild processes - VisualStudio basically has a pretty severe bug where it loses control of its debugger and the debugger maintains a lock on the .pdb file in the debug/bin folder. After you end all the MSBuild (debugger) processes, delete the /debug/bin folder and reopen your solution in Visual Studio. You're good to go now. Microsoft needs to fix this crap.
I have opened a separate question regarding VS 2017 that had a similar behavior after one update. The problem seemed to be generated by the antivirus program although.
I have added the bin folder to the antivirus exclude list, restarted the machine and now it seems to work.
I have faced the same issue, but none of the answers above helped me! I just simply closed my Visual Studio 2017 then re-run it, and It worked!
I've tried every answered here and this worked for me
Close your Project.
Stop running tasks in task manager
Restart your pc
Open and build project again
it worked for me.
I got this error because I was running my solution, but not in debug mode. I had forgotten this. I realized it and stopped my solution from running. This cleared up the issue.
Another kludge, ugh, but it's easy and works for me in VS 2013. Click on the project. In the properties panel should be an entry named Project File with a value
(your project name).vbproj
Change the project name - such as adding an -01 to the end. The original .zip file that was locked is still there, but no longer referenced ... so your work can continue. Next time the computer is rebooted, that lock disappears and you can delete the errant file.
Anybody else's VS2010 is extremely slow when closing code editor tabs?
Opening a .cs file is instantaneous but closing a tab takes ~8 seconds. I have uninstalled Power Commands and the Productivity Power Tools, the only other installed extensions are ReSharper (disabling it did not help) and the Color Theme Editor. I do have the UI Automation Performance Fix installed.
I tried most suggestions from Visual Studio Optimizations question; made sure the settings are saved locally; disabled the outlining mode; disabled the Anti-Virus -- nothing helps.
Googling only finds generic "VS2010 is a pig" complaints back from the Beta1 times. I even tried installing a few recent hot-fixes from https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads (KB2201993, KB2123002, KB2106584, KB981107, B2268081) but nothing seems to help.
Any ideas anybody?
--UPDATE---
Another clue: it only seems to happen for some solutions but not for others! Why would it be solution-specific?!!
Deleting .suo file helped!
Similar case was reported here but it involved a huge .suo file while mine was <1Mb
Another mention of similar problem can be found here in their case it was the debugger that was impacted.
Thanks to Sysinternals ProcessMonitor for the clue!
I know you already tried disabling antivirus, but I wanted to post what worked for me. We're inflicted with Symantec Endpoint Protection where I work and I fixed the problem by excluding the solution's folder(s) from auto-protect. Closing file tabs in VS2010 used to take several seconds, now it's nearly instantaneous.
Here's how: Under your Symantec's Antivirus and Antispyware Protection -> Options -> Change Settings -> (tab) File System Auto-Protect -> Centralized Exceptions -> Add...[your folder(s)].
After half a year suffering, I just discovered that adding the project's folder to Security Essentials' excluded files & folders list clears this problem for me. Removing the exclusion brings the problem back.
I was having this same issue. used procmon to find that visual studio was slamming my solution's .suo file. I deleted that file and immediately my file closings are immediate. no more 60 second closing all files!!! Man, MS needs to fix that problem, It's very bad.
I have a VS solution containing several projects. While debugging a particular project all the source files are locked by VS. I would like to unlock sources that the debugee doesn't have dependency on. Is there any way to do this within one solution?
UPDATE:
I'm using Win XP SP3 32bit. Visual Studio 2010, C#. Edit and Continue is enabled. The solution contains 6 projects (number in not important actually), 5 of them depend on the data access layer project which uses Entity Framework. None of the 5 have any mutual dependencies. They are WinForms and Console applications. I would like to be able to run one of the projects and make changes to others without stopping the first. The problem is starting and stopping the project take considerable amount of time.
The Edit and Continue feature is preventing you from editing files if the debugger hasn't stopped the program. The simple workaround is Debug + Break All, you should then be able to edit the files, your changes will be immediately effective provided your changes do not violate the restrictions imposed by E+C. This is the most efficient work flow.
The heavy-handed approach is to disable Edit and Continue. Tools + Options, Debugger, Edit and Continue, uncheck the Enable check box.
I don't think that there is a way to avoid that. While debugging Visual Studio lock all files to prevent any change on them, including those on other projects.
You can try to open the project which you are interested on with another Visual Studio instance to make changes to your files or open files singularly with another editor.
This doesn't quite answer the OP's question per se, but for anyone who has stumbled upon this page in the same (very frustrated) boat as I am, this might help.
The solution: start without debugging.
It was driving me absolutely crazy that Visual Studio would not let me edit files while the app was running. My typical workflow is:
Make some changes
Run the app to see the effects of those changes
Based on the results, make more changes, etc. etc.
The problem is Visual Studio was preventing me from step 3. It demands that you STOP running the app before you can even make any changes (including to a XAML file or adding a file to the project), which also means that you can't go back to the app to double-check something while you are actually programming it at the same time (which is how I work, bro).
Thank god I finally discovered if I run without debugging it doesn't impose this ridiculous limitation. It's still a pain in the butt if you actually need to debug something you have to re-run the app in debug mode, but it sure beats having to kill the app before it will even let you edit a file.