Combo Box / Context Menu strange behaviour (invisible) - wpf

I have written an application in WPF/VB.net and have been testing it on a few different computers.
I have never experienced this issue on my development machine but one of my test machines has a strange issue where combo box lists and context menus are invisible.
The objects are there and you can select items from them but they are not being drawn.
I am scratching my head with this and have been searching for evidence of similar issues online but not really found anything.
I would like to completely rule out that this is a programming issue before going down the route of pointing the blame at any particular hardware my company is using.
I am using one click deployment and have transparency enabled on my windows.
This is an intermittent problem and restarting the PC will fix the issue. Restarting the application does not make the issue go away.
Thanks

Check that the machine you have problems with has the correct .net framework loaded. If you are using any other products such as Silverlight then check versions.

This issue was fixed by forcing software rendering on windows XP within the App.
This was done by adding the following line to application start up.
RenderOptions.ProcessRenderMode = System.Windows.Interop.RenderMode.SoftwareOnly

Related

Visual Studio hangs when adding forms or opening designer

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.

All converted apps including samples fail to run with a 'The parameter is incorrect'

I'm trying to convert a WPF oneclick installed application and so everything should be pretty straight forward. However, whenever I run the debug project, I get
'The parameter is incorrect'
in a message box popup and I can never run the app.
This happens for my app while trying to debug, all the samples from github, and even the DAC application from the Windows Store. The error pops up even once the app is installed and showing in my application list.
I'm on the latest build of the Creators Update.
There are various errors in the event viewers, but they seem to be a common occurence for WinRT apps.
Any ideas at all?
If you have the WPF project in VS2017, I'd recommend to package directly from VS without using the DAC. see the article for more information https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-packaging-dot-net
The problem appears to be related to the May Security Update. I restored Windows to the factory defaults and everything works fine.
However, once I install the the May Security Update to address this bug with Sql Server and Filestreams, the Desktop Bridge Debugging project stops working.
I'm going to throw out a random guess that it's related to the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool, as the event viewer logs mentioned an issue with the 'parameter is incorrect' referring to the Microsoft.MRT.
Of course it could be anything, and as only 7500 people have even downloaded the Desktop Bridge Debugging project in the first place, I doubt it's high on the list of Microsoft Developer Priorities.
And to be completely honest, it's really probably my fault for not rewriting the app as a UWP app, after rewriting it as a Windows Forms app, and as a Silverlight app, and as a WPF app and on and on and on. Although, I'm not sure how many glasses of Kool Aid are left in the punch bowl for me.

Incorrect Button State with WPF Command

First, let me start off by stating that I will be more than happy to post whatever code or other information I need to in order to help resolve this issue. Unfortunately, at this time, I am just not sure what I need to post.
I have a WPF application that uses the Microsoft Ribbon library. I know the ribbon control has been rolled into the 4.5 framework but since I am still deploying to some XP machines, I am forced to use the 4.0 framework. I mention this only in case there is some obscure issue with the old library.
In the application, I have a RelayCommand that is bound to one of the ribbon buttons that does not enable itself correctly (or at all for that matter). The code that is in place to determine if the command can execute is the exact same as the code for a few other buttons. These other buttons behave correctly. Even worse, the behavior is correct on my machine but not on any of the other machines that I have tried it on. It doesn't appear to be isolated to XP or Windows 7. Even worse, I have placed a regular button in the interface that calls the CanExecute method for the command and it reports a value of True even when the button is disabled.
I am at a complete loss of where to start looking. Perhaps someone can steer me in a direction of where to begin.
Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to assist me in my desperate state.
* EDIT *
On a whim, I installed .NET 4.5 on the machine that was not functioning correctly as this was a glaring difference between the development (my) machine and the other machines. To my surprise, this corrected the issue. That said, are there updates to the .NET 4.0 framework that are applied by installing version 4.5? As I mentioned above, I am targeting some XP machines so I cannot install 4.5. Perhaps there are some other updates that can be installed without installing 4.5?

Debugging silverlight application problem

My VS2010 doesn't stop at breakpoints inside of silverlight application. It appears that no symbols for it have been loaded during debugging. When I hover over the break point it says "The braekpoint will not currently be hit, no symbols have been loaded".
I have tried all of possible solutions offered by google and have no success. The problem occurs even when I create brand new silverlight app hosted by an ASP .NET web project. All of my project configuration looks fine - silverlight debugging is enabled in the Web project.
I am using silverlight 4.
here a link to the sample project created out from the tepmlate.
Any thoughts ?
P.S I just tried to reinstall VS2010 and the problem still exists.
EDIT: I just tested the same project on another machine and it stops at the break point it seams that the problem is somewhere in the configuration of VS or silverlight.
with Matt Dotson's help I managed to attach the debugger manually. However this solution is not good enough for daily use.
Depending on my experience in Silverlight following these steps keep your project debug-gable.
Condition 1>
Firstly we need to be ensure that in Web Project's properties there is a Web section, as you see below Silverlight checkbox must be checked.
Condition 2>
Follow In Menu Debug => Attach Debugger>
Visual Studio sometimes can't attach debugging platform you need to lead the way :) . By this way you may debug other platforms,(also you may debug your product platform but pdb files must be sync and don't forget you may suspend your product platform using this).
Condition 3> Your default web browser may be Firefox,Chrome or other than IE.By Visual Studio default try to attach to IE. But when you run VS calls default browser,so you need to have a manual attachment in Condition 2 or set your default browser by right clicking on default page > Browse with .
Condition 4> There is xap file generally located in web project\ClientBin directory. Sometimes after build operations this file can't be replaced and your ProjectDll and your Project PDB files not be sync. This cause wrong line match while debugging or can't find a debugging file attached caution. I strongly suggest delete all generated files in Bus project and delete Clientbin\ProjectName.xap file. After rebuild all it must be ok!
Hope helps.
What broswer are you using? You need to be using Internet Explorer to debug silverlight projects.
I have had a similar frustrating experience with this but in my case the solution was very simple. It seems that somehow, and I really have no idea how, the debugger option for Silverlight had become unchecked in the properties on the hosting ASP.NET project.
I just assumed that as I had been previously debugging, this option was set and I didn't bother to make sure that this was this case. Just goes to show that one should always check the basics first; if I had done that it would have saved me some time.
To check this in VS2010, right-click on the project and select properties, change to the Web tab and check the Silverlight option at the bottom of the page, in the debuggers section.
Also see the debugger to a silverlight process
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838267(VS.95).aspx
If that doesn't work, then
reset iis (if you are debugging in that)
delete temporary asp.net files (%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\versionNumber\Temporary ASP.NET Files)
clean and rebuild your solution
The resolution came after 2 days of headbanging. It appears that the link which Malcolm gave covers exactly my problem but my I was narrow-minded enough not to pay it enough attention because when I run the debugger as long with the app my default browser was FF. So I thought that after the FF starts I can load the page from IE or Chrome.
Actually the problem is that the debugger cannot be attached to the silverlight project because of the FF. And when I load the app from IE or Chrome the debugger dis still not attached.
Thanks to everyone that tried to help.
if you have multiple project, Rebuild the project separately that you want break point. Its work for me
Try also picking internet explorer from browser list menu as your browser

Running a WPF application on Windows XP

I recently built a new application using WPF, so that I can learn the new technology. Now that I am trying to deploy the application, it appears as if it is running fine on a Vista system, but on a Windows XP SP2 machine with the .Net fx 3.5SP1, it's not able to load the PresentationFramework.dll file.
I did some further investigation into this and discovered that there is a slight build difference between the PresentationFramework.dll files on my xp test machines vs. what is on my Vista development machine.
What I'm curious about is if anyone else has run into this issue as well, and what they did to remedy the situation so that they could develop on Windows Vista, but deploy the developed application to both Vista and XP clients.
Thanks.
I need to add to this a bit... on the vista machine and on the client machine, I've got .Net Fx 3.5 SP1. I had done a bit of digging, and found out that the PresentationFramework.dll file is the same, except the last set of versioning numbers.
Has anyone found a decent work around for this issue?
Sorry that I left this stagnant, but I figured out the issue I was running into. Turned out that there was corruption in the Windows XP box I was using as a test bed.
I was working between stackoverflow and another forum for the package I was writing the Add-in for. When I learned of the answer, this is what I posted, in case I ran into issue in the future.
I thought that I'd post this here, so
that I would have reference, and also
in case anyone else would need
reference to it for the future... I'm
working on another Dinerware Add-on
using WPF, and although it was running
fine on my development machine, every
time I'd go to run it on a test
machine (a machine ghosted like it was
in the field at a customer's
location), I kept getting weird
processing errors.
I did hours of searching online, only
to come up empty handed until I ran
across this article:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/thread/6e5de3d8-fc02-4504-b00f-7a2192d24a48/
which gives a link to the download of
the WIC (Windows Imaging Components),
located here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8e011506-6307-445b-b950-215def45ddd8&displaylang=en
For some reason, what is/was happening
is that the Windows Imaging components
have become corrupt against what my
application is looking for. TO fix
the issue, you have to:
1) navigate to
%windir%\$NtUninstallWIC$\spuninst\
and run the spuninst.exe file in
there. That will remove the Windows
imaging components. 2) after you have
completely removed the components, you
will then re-install them using the
second link from above.
So far, I've not run into any further
issues.
What a crazy thing that
was?!?!?!?!?!?!!
Hopefully, if someone else runs into this issue, I may be able to help them out quick by >putting this out there.
As I said on that forum... hopefully this helps someone else out that runs into this issue in the future.
I've done a bit more experimentation and built a test WPF project and used a Setup and Deployment project instead of a WiX installer. for some reason, the application is working fine when its installed with the Setup and Deployment installer, but when using WiX, it's having issues...
Beginning to think the issue has to do with WiX, and not the .Net Fx version/build
You can have this problem sometimes with templates and Blend, although I thought it had been fixed in the latest Blend. Basically when Blend "pulls in" information for making a new template, it can sometimes copy in Aero only stuff from Vista, which means the control you then create is then reliant on Vista :-(
I did think this was fixed though, although you may have been bitten by it if the project has taken a while to put together.
Make sure that .NET Version on your Vista and XP machine are same.

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