Visual Studio hangs when adding forms or opening designer - winforms

I have a major problem with a Winforms application with a large number of projects. VS 2019 threw an exception and closed a few days ago, and on reopening restored two files since then I have been unable to:
Add a new form to the vast majority of projects, whether the most basic MS template or not
Open the designer for any form that is already in the vast majority of projects
Access the navigation bars (the three combo boxes at the top of the VS work area that normally contain the project, namespace and content information) on any class referencing to WinForms in the vast majority of projects
When trying to do either of the first two things an 'Opening File' message is shown endlessly. If you try to do anything, a notification is shown that Visual Studio is busy, and that Microsoft will be notified but nothing else happens and you can only get out by using the Task Manager to kill all VS tasks.
In the case of the third one, a message is shown saying 'Refreshing Navigation Bars' but again it goes on forever. However, in this case you can click the Cancel button to cancel the loading attempt.
The navigation bars issue I believe is Resharper related. In addition CodeLens is not working at all, so the space for the number of references is generated but there is no content. This is true for ALL files in the solution, not just the form related ones.
Here is what I have tried so far:
Cleaned and Rebuilt the solution - works fine but no difference
Built and deployed the solution - works fine
Deleted the SUO file and reset
Cleared the Resharper caches
Disabled Resharper
Performed a repair install of Visual Studio
Created a new Solution and added forms etc. which was unaffected and worked fine
Opened a different solution which was also working fine
Tried the same processes with a Project in the same solution that is not part of the application (TestBed) and that works fine too, but is the only project that does
Can anyone suggest where to look now? Since new and existing solutions work OK except for this one I am assuming that it is something Solution related rather than something related to VS itself, but I have no idea what that might be. For example, what is it trying to do when it says 'Opening File' (apart from the obvious - opening a file :-)) and what could cause that to fail? Am I looking for something in the Solution file, or could it be something else?
All suggestions and assistance towards resolving this issue would be gratefully received.

Thanks to Jasimov for the only response, I appreciate your attempt to help.
I have now resolved the issue using the following steps:
Uninstall Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition
Perform a fresh install of Visual Studio 2019 Professional
Reload the main solution
Clean the solution
Rebuild the solution
Deal with some issues that were highlighted in the Output and Errors, none of which were directly forms related
Rebuild the solution
Run the application and ensure it runs as expected
Go back and select forms at random and try opening them. All now work as expected.
In addition CodeLens is now working not only properly but actually better than before giving more information more quickly. On the other hand, I have not yet reinstalled Resharper which will be the next step.
I have included all the steps I took just in case anyone else has a similar problem. I have not been able to find this exact issue anywhere else in my searches so I hope it helps someone.
UPDATE: I have since re-installed Resharper with no problems and the designers are all working fine so now back into full flow!

I had a similar issue with the web forms designer in VS2019 hanging as soon as I clicked on anything on the design surface. The same projects were OK in VS2017. Uninstalled VS2019, rebooted, reinstalled VS2019, found that the designer was now working OK. Progressively added back 3rd party toolbox components, one VSIX, and the .Net 4.8 targeting pack. Still working. Thanks for your hint about the reinstall.

Related

Visual Studio 2013 crashing when saving Windows Forms solution

I have been working on a particular solution for a few months now without any problems. The last thing of significance that I remember doing was refactoring the name of a custom control inheriting from RichTextBox. I don't know if that is related to the problem but it seemed to be when the problems started occurring. For some reason now when I show the main form in design view and save any changes I get the message "Visual Studio has stopped working blah blah" and it restarts.
I seem to be able to load and make changes to other solutions ok.
So far I've tried:
Deleting .sln and v12.sln files
Have tried uninstalling NuGet. (I don't have any extensions other than NuGet and Visual Studio Extensions for Windows Library for JavaScript)
I don't have resharper
I have tried to start in /SafeMode but I keep getting the error "'Visual Studio Component Model Host Package' package did not load correctly". I can't seem to load any solutions in SafeMode.
Repaired VS2013 installation twice
Restarted my computer many times
Tried writing a log file using /log switch but can't really understand how to interpret it.
Any pointers would be very welcome.

"The name 'InitializeComponent' does not exist in the current context" - for new WPF projects

I have a similar problem as previously reported (and unanswered successfully/unsolved) as below:
"If I create a new project in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and select "WPF Application" it generates the application, but I get the error "The name 'InitializeComponent' does not exist in the current context" even before i build it.
I get the same error when I try to build established projects. Yesterday, I had no problems with it.
"
Im pretty sure that this issue is nothing to do with the project, source files or generated settings, but may have to do with a corrupt visual studio installation, registry, .net or windows itself because the same project (exactly the same) builds fine on my coleagues computer and vice-versa does not. Also, i have reinstalled Visual Studio, uninstalled & reinstalled, deleted & reinstalled, install-fixed from the microsoft disks and even tried manually deleting Visual studio/.net/C# and still get the problem. This issue is with both new WPF projects created with the wizard and with existing projects created weeks earlier.
The only option that seems to present itself now seems to be wiping my hard drive and reinstalling windows and Visual Studio again etc.
Any ideas regarding the fault or how best to wipe my system down to a level that will truly eradicate Visual Studio and its registry setting would be gratefully received ?
I had the same problem and eventually discovered (after reinstalling VS and that had no effect) that by removing and re-installing the .Net frameworks the problem went away.
There are two primary causes of this very common and annoying problem!
The most common is the x:Class doesn't match up with the MainPage.xaml namespace. Make sure that x:Class in MainPage.xaml has the correct namespace.
The second most common cause of this problem is that the "Build Action" is not set to "Page" for MainPage.xaml!
This happens with Silverlight or WPF and though it is a PITA when you don't know what caused it once you know what the problem is; it is a simple fix. One of those things we all have to learn the hard way, but thanks for Stack Overflow.
I wrote a blog article that has pictures and explains Initialize Component does not exist in current context problem.

Why does Inspect.exe not display the AutomationId and other UIAutomation properties when running in debug?

I've been using Inspect.exe from the Windows SDK to examine the properties of a WinForms application but noticed that I didn't see any of the properties (for example, the AutomationId) whilst running the application from Visual Studio (F5 to run.) However, if I ran the .exe from the bin\debug folder I could see the properties fine.
The source I was using was example code downloaded from UI Automation Custom Provider Samples - Part 3.
I'm wondering why this happened since I'm sure another machine that I had tried this on worked fine and I wasted time poking around in debug mode wondering why my UI Automation properties weren't visible. Obviously there's a workaround but I'd like to understand why this was happening and have a record of the problem for other people to find!
I've struck upon the answer - because I had launched Visual Studio as Administrator but the Inspect.exe tool as standard user then the properties being reported back were a sub-set of what I should have seen. As soon as I launched Inspect.exe as Administrator it worked!

Editing a Form in Visual Studio when TFS is offline

I'm running Visual Studio 2010 and using Team Foundation Server, and this thing is pissing me off no end.
Here's the scenario: since I work from home it often happens to me to work at strange hours or on the week-end, when our TFS is offline. This has never been a problem, since usually I just reload the solution and when VS detects that the TFS is not available it promprts you to work offline.
Now, I usually work on WPF projects, and working offline has never be a problem, even when editing XAML files it works with no issues. But now I have to edit a Form from a Windows Forms project, and VS refuses to collaborate. Whatever I do to the form, VS just does nothing other than playing that obnoxious "bing" sound that usually plays when an error of some kind occours. It doesn't even popup an error dialog box, just does nothing!
Any ideas??
Ok figured it out, I had to remove the "Read Only" attribute from ALL the files in the project (I had tried with the project file and form file, but that isn't enough evidently).

VS2008 crashes with "Fatal Execution Engine Error"

Has anybody found a fix for Visual Studio crashing with this error (eventlog)?
.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3082 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A2E1132) (0)
It does this when I start debugging with a problem in the xaml. Visual Studio will then silently disappear.
I've looked at SO and MS Connect but haven't found a fix or workaround. I often read that you should disable all addins but I don't have any.
EDIT: Yes, I have SP1 and the following fixes installed:
Version 9.0.30729.1 SP
KB944899 KB945140 KB945282 KB946040 KB946308 KB946344 KB946581 KB947171 KB947173 KB947180 KB947540 KB947789 KB947888 KB948127 KB953256 KB956453 KB957912 KB958017
Every time I've seen this, it's because you end up with two different versions of WPF loaded at the same time (i.e. one from GAC and one from Reference Assemblies).
In the .csproj file, is there a line called something to the effect of "Allow XAML to be Compiled in Same AppDomain"? (Sorry I can't actually remember the real name) - Blend likes to put this in and it causes problems.
I have had crashing problems with VS2008's WPF designer too. I workaround by avoiding the designer and editing the XAML by hand.
Thanks to Paul I found a very strange workaround (I verified it a few times)
open the solution
unload the project (context menu)
edit the csproj (context menu), don't make any changes
reload the project (contect menu)
If I do that before I start the debugger VS will not crash.
I just found another strange way of getting around this problem. I load the solution and before opening any xaml page, I rebuild the project. The xaml pages loads fine afterward and VS2008 does not crash.
Have you updated your VS install to SP1? There are a number of crashes fixed in the SP1 patch.
If you have installed SP1, try installing the following patch as well. It's a further fix for debugger related issues in VS 2008 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957912
I had the same problem when trying to edit an ASP.NET MVC master page or view. I found this link. I had MBUnit Gallio installed on my machine with VS2008 integration. The problem went away when I uninstalled Gallio.
I just solved this problem (well the symptom anyway) by creating a new solution and adding all the projects in the "problem" solution into this new solution. After doing this and discarding the old solution, everything works fine.
I had the same problem after installing devart code compare V2.80.11 - earlier versions did not have this problem. After removing devart the problem went away. Reinstalled and problem came back.
I like devart code compare so I intalled it without VS2008 integration. Everything works fine now.

Resources