In Visual Studio 2010, I have just one project that cannot be published using the "Publish Now" button.
If I publish using the menu option instead, it works fine. I can then increment the version number, click "Publish Now" (or use "Publish Wizard..."), and get this error:
Cannot publish because a project failed to build.
However, no other error message is given. I managed to get screenshots of the output screen before it clears and flips to the Error List tab, but there is no mention there of any error. Clean & Rebuild doesn't fix the problem.
What do these two options do differently? Why is the build failing one way but not the other?
Since "rebuild solution" and "clean Solution" are not solving these issues, it might be either logs or assemblies in Bin.
This error seems to be caused by various issues :
Solution 1. set the build log verbosity to Diagnostic from the menu Tools->Options->Project and Solutions->Build and Run in Visual Studio 2010.
After that, if you build and publish your project, you can see the detailed build log from the Output window. From there, we should get futher information about why it failed to build.
Solution 2. Do you have Google Desktop by chance? If you do, close the sidebar and try once.
Solution 3. Click here for an another solution
Solution 4. Do you work with people from other timezones ? Files modified in future time may also cause this issue. check this utility
Solution 5.
I suggest you to try running the Visual Studio in safemode that will force the visual studio loading only the default environment and services, and shipped versions of third party packages. If the problem disappears you may stuck with some version of IDE tools with bugs. update them then.
If nothing seems to work, try this.
*Solution 6*
After researching it, it appears that the built in build/publish script that Visual Studio (2010 in our case) uses has a flaw in the order that it does things. Most importantly it runs a cleanup on the OBJ directory deleting the target EXE file before the publish step can grab it.
The solution
This is somewhat of a hacky workaround, but it solved the problem for me.
The fix is to copy the file back to the /obj/ folder from the /bin/ folder right before the publish step. Unfortunately there is no way that I know to specify a BeforePublish event through the IDE, so you will have to edit the .vbproj file in a text editor.
Add the following section just before the final tag.
<Target Name="BeforePublish">
<Copy SourceFiles="$(TargetPath)" DestinationFolder="$(IntermediateOutputPath)" />
</Target>
Clean and Rebuild worked for me. It seems like Google desktop and some browser extenstions causing this bug often. looking for a security update is good way to go with this.
I eventually created a new branch, and that branch did not have this problem. I never discovered what the actual cause was.
For some reason, visual studio (2012) is not reading any changes in my code. It will recognize an error but, for example, if I get rid of something that makes a window appear, a window will still appear. I am also unable to debug my code (I get the 'symbols not loaded for this document' error). This has been going on for a few days.
I'm not quite sure what to do. I've cleared the visual studio cache but that didn't help. I've changed the startup project settings around but that doesn't change anything either. This is all from my local machine (no source/version control). Does anyone know why this is?
I fixed this by deleting the .suo (silverlight user options) file, as was suggested in the link below, thanks #amalgamate
http://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2011/08/why-visual-studio-debugger-is-not.html
Try Build > Clean Solution then Build
This may not be your answer and I do not know silver light, but I have found the symbols not loaded error often when the solution file lost track of where a project file was, or when a project file lost track of a library. Maybe the file is missing, or maybe someone else on your team directed it else where etc.. To fix this in project explorer, right click on the solution or project and re-add the particular reference or project (using the add menu item). You may then have to remove the old project/ or reference. You will know the references and projects are bad because of the icon next to them in the project explorer. The bad links will also be listed in the output of your build with the bad links named.
Just recently, my Visual Studio 2010 stopped displaying IntelliSense suggestions automatically while I am typing. I can still press ctrl+space to get it to work, but it doesn't automatically show a list of suggestions like it used to. I have already tried disabling all my extensions, restarting VS and the computer, and I have checked all the appropriate settings (Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> IntelliSense) to make sure that it is set to offer suggestions after a character is typed.
Has anyone seen this behavior before? Does anyone have any other suggestions for how I can get IntelliSense to go back to the way things were before? If not, I might just have to do a fresh reinstall of VS...
In prose, in case you can't see the above image:
Open Tools > Options > Text Editor. If you're only having this issue with one language, find that language; if it's for everything, click "All Languages". Right at the top, there'll be a few options labeled "Auto list members", "Hide advanced members", and "Parameter information". Make sure all of those are enabled (though the second may be disabled; if so, ignore it).
I have found that at times even verifying the settings under Options --> Statement Completion (the answer above) doesn't work. In this case, saving and restarting Visual Studio will re-enable Intellisense.
Finally, this link has a list of other ways to troubleshoot Intellisense, broken down by language (for more specific errors).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ecfczya1(v=vs.100).aspx
I'll start off my noting that this hasn't happened since I upgraded my RAM. I was at 4GB and would often have multiple instances of VS open along with SSMS. I have since gone to 8GB and then 16GB.
Here's the steps I go through when I lose intellisense.
If only one file/window appears to be affected, close/reopen that file. If that doesn't work, try below.
In Visual Studio:
Click Tools->Options->Text Editor->All Languages->General
Uncheck "Auto list members"
Uncheck "Parameter information"
Check "Auto list members" (yes, the one you just unchecked)
Check "Parameter information" (again, the one you just unchecked)
Click OK
If this doesn't work, here's a few more steps to try:
Close all VS documents and reopen
If still not working, close/reopen solution
If still not working, restart VS.
For C++ projects:
MSDN has a few things to try: MSDN suggestions
The corrupt .ncb file seems most likely.
From MSDN:
Close the solution.
Delete the .ncb file.
Reopen the solution. (This creates a new .ncb file.)
Notes:
This issue does not appear to be specific to C# as C++ and VB users
report the same issue
Tested in VS 2013/2015
Steps to fix are:
Tools
Import and Export Settings
Reset all settings
Back up your config
Select your environment settings and finish
I also faced the same issue but in VS2013.
I did the below way to fix, It was worked fine.
Close all the opened Visual studio instance.
Then, go to "Developer command prompt" from visual studio tools,
Type it as devenv.exe /resetuserdata
Restart the machine, Open the Visual studio then It will ask you to choose the development settings from initial onwards, thereafter open any solution/project. You'll be amazed.
Hope, it might helps you :)
Deleted the .suo file in solution folder to solve the problem.
Sometimes i've found Intellisense to be slow. Hit the . and wait for a minute and see if it appears after a delay. If so, then I believe there may be a cache that can be deleted to get it to rescan.
I hit this today after the following sequence:
Added a new class to my project.
Closed Visual Studio, but accidentally selected No when it asked if I wanted to save changes.
Reopened Visual Studio, and found that it reopened the new file automatically but without my previous changes (as expected). However, IntelliSense was no longer working in the new file.
The problem was in addition to not saving changes to the new file, it didn't save changes to the project, so after reopening Visual Studio the file was not part of the project. The Show All Files command in Solution Explorer, or Add → Existing Item..., resolved the problem.
I had the file excluded from the project so i was not able to debug and have intellisense on that file.
Including the file back into the project solved my problem! :)
A new cause for this in the .net core era is having a project loaded for an unsupported .net core version. For instance if you loaded a project from GitHub that was set to use:
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.2</TargetFramework>
<AspNetCoreHostingModel>InProcess</AspNetCoreHostingModel>
</PropertyGroup>
But you only have 2.1 installed or find yourself using Visual Studio 2017 then the compiler wont be able to find the SDK code and thus provide intellisense.
The solution in that case might be to right click on your project and select Edit MyProject.csproj from the context menu and change the target framework as necessary:
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>
<AspNetCoreHostingModel>InProcess</AspNetCoreHostingModel>
</PropertyGroup>
This assumes whatever project you loaded can actually be run under a lesser target framework.
I simply closed all pages of visual studio and reopened ..it worked.
Deleting the .vs folder in the solution solved my issue. You have to exit from Visual Studio and then delete the .vs folder and start Visual Studio again.
Closed all my VS windows
Started the Visual Studio Installer and clicked 'Modify'.
Under 'Individual components' > 'Code Tools' > Deselected NuGet package manager and re-selected it.
After modifying and restarting VS, IntelliSense was working correctly again.
Found my answer on https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/130597/unity-intellisense-not-working-after-creating-new-1.html
[Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> All Languages -> CodeLens]
Check if check box "Enable CodeLens" is checked
I have just come to about this problem while installing one of the extensions and its file was deleted by my anti virus so I just disabled my anti virus and reinstalled visual studio. Suggestions are working properly without any changes made after installation.
At the bottommost right look at the blue line where Ln, Col, Spaces, UTF, CRLF,..... here the language is specified.
Check that your language and the language specified there are the same.
In my case, it was Django Python while I was trying to use HTML.
This may be due to the solution configuration changed to Release Mode instead of debug. Right click on solution -> Properties -> Configuration Properties -> Set Configuration To Debug if it is in Release.
I am working on a WPF, C# 3.0 project, and I get this error:
Error 1 Metadata file
'WORK=- \Tools\VersionManagementSystem\BusinessLogicLayer\bin\Debug
\BusinessLogicLayer.dll' could not be found C:\-=WORK=- \Tools
\VersionManagementSystem\VersionManagementSystem\CSC VersionManagementSystem
This is how I reference my usercontrols:
xmlns:vms="clr-namespace:VersionManagementSystem"
<vms:SignOffProjectListing Margin="5"/>
It happens after every failed build. The only way I can get the solution to compile is to comment out all my user controls and re-build the project, and then I uncomment the usercontrols and everything is fine.
I have checked build orders and dependencies configurations.
As you can see, it seems to have truncated the DLL file's absolute path... I have read that there is a bug with the length. Is this a possible problem?
It's very annoying and having to comment, build, and uncomment, the build is becoming extremely tiresome.
I just had the same problem. Visual Studio isn't building the project that's being referenced.
Written Instructions:
Right click on the solution and click Properties.
Click Configuration on the left.
Make sure the check box under "Build" for the project it can't find is checked. If it is already checked, uncheck, hit apply and check the boxes again.
(Optional) You had to do it for both Release and Debug modes on the solution properties.
Screen capture Instructions:
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Click on the GIF to zoom in, and hopefully it will be easy to follow:
This can still happen in newer versions of Visual Studio (I just had it happen on Visual Studio 2013):
Another thing to try is to close Visual Studio and delete the .suo file that is next to the .sln file. (It will be re-generated the next time you Save all (or exit Visual Studio)).
I've had this problem when adding new projects to the solution on another machine and then pulling the revisions in, but the .suo file can be corrupted in other cases as well and lead to very strange Visual Studio behaviour, so deleting it is one of the things I always try.
Note that deleting the .suo file will reset the startup project(s) of the solution.
More on the .suo file is here.
The suggested answer did not work for me. The error is a decoy for another problem.
I found out that I was targeting a slightly different version of .NET and this was flagged as a warning by the compiler, but it was causing building to fail.
This should have been flagged as an error and not a warning.
Well, my answer is not just the summary of all the solutions, but it offers more than that.
Section (1):
In general solutions:
I had four errors of this kind (‘metadata file could not be found’) along with one error saying 'Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)'.
I tried to get rid of ‘metadata file could not be found’ error. For that, I read many posts, blogs, etc. and found these solutions may be effective (summarizing them over here):
Restart Visual Studio and try building again.
Go to 'Solution Explorer'. Right click on Solution. Go to Properties. Go to 'Configuration Manager'. Check if the checkboxes under 'Build' are checked or not. If any or all of them are unchecked, then check them and try building again.
If the above solution(s) do not work, then follow sequence mentioned in step 2 above, and even if all the checkboxes are checked, uncheck them, check again and try to build again.
Build Order and Project Dependencies:
Go to 'Solution Explorer'. Right click on Solution. Go to 'Project Dependencies...'. You will see two tabs: 'Dependencies' and 'Build Order'. This build order is the one in which solution builds. Check the project dependencies and the build order to verify if some project (say 'project1') which is dependent on other (say 'project2') is trying to build before that one (project2). This might be the cause for the error.
Check the path of the missing .dll:
Check the path of the missing .dll. If the path contains space or any other invalid path character, remove it and try building again.
If this is the cause, then adjust the build order.
Section (2):
My particular case:
I tried all the steps above with various permutations and combinations with restarting Visual Studio a few times. But, it did not help me.
So, I decided to get rid of other error I was coming across ('Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)').
I came across a blog post: TFS Error–Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)
I tried the steps mentioned in that blog post, and I got rid of the error 'Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)' and surprisingly I got rid of other errors (‘metadata file could not be found’) as well.
Section (3):
Moral of the story:
Try all solutions as mentioned in section (1) above (and any other solutions) for getting rid of the error. If nothing works out, as per the blog mentioned in section (2) above, delete the entries of all source files which are no longer present in the source control and the file system from your .csproj file.
In my case it was caused by a .NET Framework version mismatch.
One project was 3.5 and the other referencing project 4.6.1.
Visual Studio 2019 this worked for me:
Close Visual Studio
Delete the hidden .vs folder
Reopen Visual Studio and rebuild the solution.
Closing and reopening Visual Studio 2013 worked for me!
Well, nothing in the previous answers worked for me, so it got me thinking about why am I clicking and hoping when as developers we should really try to understand what is going on here.
It seemed obvious to me that this incorrect meta data file reference must be held somewhere.
A quick search of the .csproj file showed the guilty lines. I had a section called <itemGroup> that seemed to be hanging onto the old incorrect filepath.
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="..\..\..\MySiteOld\MySite.Entities\MySite.Entities.csproj">
<Project>{5b0a347e-cd9a-4746-a3b6-99d6d010a6c2}</Project>
<Name>Beeyp.Entities</Name>
</ProjectReference>
...
So a simple fix really:
Backup your .csproj file.
Find the incorrect paths in the .csproj file and rename appropriately.
Please make sure you backup your old .csproj before you fiddle.
In my case, I have my installed directory in mistaken ways.
If your solution path is something like "My Project%2c Very Popular%2c Unit Testing%2c Software and Hardware.zip", it cannot resolve the metadata file, perhaps we should prevent some invalid words like %2c.
When a repository is cloned from certain sites, the directory name is URL encoded. Which would convert space characters in directory names to %20, forward slashes to %2f, underscores to %5f, etc. Although, I'm not sure why the % symbol is breaking things.
Renaming the path into a normal name resolved my issue.
I also met this problem. Firstly you have to manually build you DLL project, by right-click, Build. Then it will work.
In my case, the problem was caused by a simple build error,
error CS0067: The event 'XYZ' is never used
that, for any reason, did not show up in the error window.
Because of that, the Visual Studio build system seemed to miss the error and tried to build dependent projects, which in turn failed with the annoying metadata message.
The recommendation is -as stupid as it may sound-:
First look at your Output Window!
It took me half an hour before this idea hit me...
I got the same error "Metadata file '.dll' could not be found", and I tried several things described above, but the reason for the error was that I was referencing third-party DLL file which was targeting a .NET version higher that my project target .NET version. So the solution was to change the target framework of my project.
I added a new project to my solution and started getting this.
The reason? The project I brought in was targeting a different .NET framework (4.6 and my other two were 4.5.2).
For me, it was trying to find a DLL in a path that used to contain the Project, but we'd moved it to a new directory. The Solution had the correct path to the Project, but Visual Studio somehow kept looking in the old location.
Solution: Rename each problem Project - just add a character or whatever - then rename it back to its original name.
This must reset some global cache of some kind in Visual Studio, because this clears both this issue up and several like it, while things like Clean do not.
It looks like such kind of errors related to the fact that Visual Studio doesn't provide correct information about an error. The developer doesn't even understand the reason for the failed build. It can be a syntax error or something else. In common, to solve such problems you should find the root of the problem (for example, look at the build log).
In my case the problem was in fact that the Error List window didn't show any errors. But really there were syntax errors; I found these errors in the Output window, and after fixing them, the problem was solved.
For me it occurred when I included a new project to a solution.
Visual Studio automatically selects .NET framework 4.5.
I changed to version .NET 4.5.2 like the other libraries, and it worked.
If you have a space in your solution name, this will also cause the issue. Removing the space from your solution name, so path doesn't contain %20 will solve this.
Coming back to this a few years later, this problem is more than likely related to the Windows maximum path limit:
Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces, Maximum Path Length Limitation
For me the following steps worked:
Find the project that is not building
Remove/add references to projects within the solution.
I was pulling my hair out with this problem also, but after trying the previous answers the only thing that worked for me was to open each project in my solution 1 by 1 and build them individually.
Then I closed Visual Studio 2013, reopened my solution and it compiled fine.
It's strange, because if I clicked each project in my Solution Explorer and tried to build them that way, they all failed. I had to open them alone in their own solutions.
In my case the issue was that I'd manually deleted a non-compilation file which was marked as "missing". Once I deleted the reference to the now-missing file and recompiled - all was well.
My instance of the problem was caused by a common project that had a duplicate class name in it (under a different filename). It is strange that Visual Studio could not detect that and instead just blew up the build process.
I got this problem in Visual Studio 2012 in a solution that had many projects. Rebuilding each project in the solution manually in the same order as the Project Build Order (right-click and rebuild in Solution Explorer) fixed it for me.
Eventually I got to one that gave me a compile error. I fixed the error, and the solution would build correctly after that.
I too had the same error. It hides as in the below path.
The path which I referred to for the DLL file is like "D:\Assemblies Folder\Assembly1.dll".
But the original path in which the assembly referred was "D:\Assemblies%20Folder\Assembly1.dll".
Due to this path name variation, the assembly could not be retrieved from its original path and hence throws the "Metadata not found" error.
The solution is in Stack Overflow question How do I replace all the spaces with %20 in C#?.
Most of the methods explained here did not solved the problem for me.
Finally, I fixed the problem by applying the following steps:
1. Close Visual Studio.
2. Delete all the contents in the bin folders of each project.
3. Open solution and rebuild.
I hit and solved this problem today on VS2022 in a solution with a Blazor project.
The underlying problem is that I had introduced a routine C# compilation error
in C# code declared in a .razor file. VS2022 was dropping the display of the error from the Build Error List tab. I found the C# error by scanning the build output in the Output console log tab where my C# error was described as expected.
p.s. In case you are wondering, I had a Unit Test project referencing my Blazor web project. The project DLL reference from the Unit Test project to the Blazor app was complaining about the missing Blazor DLL.
Based on the error message I don't believe the file path is being truncated. It looks to just be incorrect. If I'm reading the message correctly it appears to be looking for the DLL file at ...
WORK=-\Tools\VersionManagementSystem\BusinessLogicLayer\bin\Debug\BusinessLogicLayer.dll
This is not a valid path. Is it possible that you have a macro definition in the build process set to an invalid value?
I'd faced the same problem. In my case I'd referenced to a class library project with higher .Net version than my project and VS failed to build the project and raised the same error you posted.
I simply set .Net version of my class library project(the one that had broken the build) identical to the .Net version of referenced project and problem solved.
Just pointing out the blatantly obvious: if you don't have "Show output window when build starts" enabled, make sure you're noticing if your build is failing (small "build failed" error in lower left)!!!!
I had this error when I was trying to publish a web application. Turned out that one of a class properties was wrapped into
#if DEBUG
public int SomeProperty { get; set; }
#endif
but the property usage was not. The publishing was done in Release configuration without the DEBUG symbol, obviously.