I'm running my .NET 4.0 (C#) project in debug mode after I start VS2013. It runs just fine.
The second time I start it from VS, I get the Dialog box that says "Error while trying to run project: Unable to start program C:\path\to\file.exe"
The process is still alive in the Taskmanager when I dismiss the dialog box.
From Windows Explorer, I can run the program just fine. And after closing it, the process is gone too from the Task Manager.
A rebuild doesn't help.
Is this a common problem with a known solution?
I had an issue similar to this and I had to clear the component cache instruction can be found Here.
Hope this helps.
For my case, it cause by Platform target, you could force choose it to x86 or x64 which your project is:
Each Project's Properties > Build > Platform target
As I pointed out also here, the only solution that worked for me was to disable the ConEmu integration:
ConEmu → Settings → Integration → Default term → disable Force ConEmu as default terminal for console applications
Some users reported that it was enough for them to disable the Aggressive mode in that same settings tab; that wasn't the case for me though.
The topic is old, but this might help someone else.
So in my case I made a file in Visual Studio with .cp extension (accidentally deleted the last 'p') this made visual studio just "include" the the file and not mark it as a compilation unit, thus not compiling it, I looked the *.vcxproj file in a text editor and found out about this, so if you open the project file in a notepad or something just find your file at the bottom usually and change from <Item .../> to <ClCompile .../>
I was getting similar errors. I just had to restart visual studio. Sometime couple times a day.
I had a similar error and resolved it by cleaning the solution. Right-click the solution name in Solution Explorer and choose Clean Solution.
I found a solution here:
Please check "Use Managed Compatibility Mode" under Tools|->Options->Debugging->General.
I'm Brazilian, I don't speak English very well. I did this translation on google translator.
I know the topic is old, but it can still help someone.
I had this same problem in the following situation, I have a dual boot computer (linux debian 11 and windows 10). Inside debian, on my NTFS D disk, I created a folder to perform programming tests. After accessing that same folder with windows, I created a new project in visual studio inside that same folder that I had created in linux. The creation of the project went without problems, however when I tried to run the project (F5), I received the same error from this topic. I tried all the solutions I found on the internet, and nothing worked. I gave all permissions to my admin user and it still didn't work. Then I realized that even going straight to the folder where the application's executable was and clicking directly on it, I still received the access denied error message. So, I took the project out of the folder I had created in linux, and it worked. So, what I could conclude, is that because the folder where my project was was created in linux, for some reason, my windows didn't trust this folder, so it didn't allow running executables from inside that folder, even this one executable having been created by visual studio from within windows.
Just simply create a folder name as "projects" in c drive and copy paste the newly created project in it. Run the project by doing clean & Build or Rebuild method . It will work
open the folder which contains the solution in visual studio.
again, open your *.sln file by double clicking it inside the solution explore once opened try running the solution or rebuild the solution. once rebuild gets completed, it will open without error from next time.
My way of solving the error : error while trying to load project : Unable to start program and c:\Path\to\file.exe was simply by
First restart Visual Studio
Click the build icon
Select the rebuild option
Run the Program or Debug the Program
This was a weird one. Going to put what happened to me here because it might happen to someone else. Everything was fine with the app until suddenly after some fairly insignificant code changes I suddenly started getting this error. Visual Studio was compiling the executable just fine. But, the moment I tried to run it (either from Visual Studio or directly) the executable file would be automatically deleted right out of the Debug folder. Super odd--never seen anything like it. I began to get suspicious that perhaps an anti-virus or the OS was somehow identifying a checksum or some signature in the executable as "dangerous". Or perhaps some obscure compilation bug was corrupting the executable. So on a hunch I made another innocuous change (added a couple of lines of code to color code some text in a rich text box) and the problem went away.
I created a C# Website using Visual studio 2015 in my laptop, i copied the same folder to my desktop system and open in Visual studio 2015, when i try to run the application its suddenly gives following error.
The operation could not be completed. The system cannot find the path specified
Anybody feel same error in your latest Visual Studio 2015? I updated all the latest patches.
following trial are done
Re created the soluition file(.sln)
Deleted Web.config and added new one
Still the error exists, so i cant able to debug or run the application.
(1) Run VS as an admin (or elevated access) and open the solution.
(2) Set up a project as Start up Project (if you have multiple proj)
(3) Set up page as start up page.
this should help you run it
Create manually (Windows Explorer if necessary) a folder with name "Service References". Even if the folder does not appear in the Solution Explorer, is there.
Try adding the wsdl (xml) file again.
I had the same problem, resolved by creating a Connected Services folder in my project.
So juste create a Connected Services folder or a Service References folder in your project
I experienced this error. When I shorten the file path of the solution, the error disappear. I think you may put your solution to a folder with too long path name or your solution have some file with too long name.
I got a more specific project-load error message when I removed the project from the solution and tried to re-add it. In my case, it was because the URL/address of the application had changed in my local IIS. When I updated the tag in the .vbproj (or .csproj) file to the new value, then the project loaded successfully.
I have started a new console project in VS2015. I only have this code :
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using SautinSoft;
namespace PdfParser
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
SautinSoft.PdfFocus f = new PdfFocus();
f.OpenPdf(#"path:\abc.pdf");
if (f.PageCount > 0)
f.ToExcel(#"path:\abc.xls");
}
}
}
When I try to run, I get this :
Unable to start debugging. The startup project could not be launched.
Verify debug settings for the startup project.
How can I fix this? Thanks.
After upgrading MSVC2015 to Update3, I had the same problem: instead of std::map in the Watch window display as a horrible std::_Tree<std::_Tmap_traits... etc., some plugins started to throw exceptions, some projects was not able to run in debug mode.
All was solved by deleting CurrentSettings.vssettings. It is usually located at Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Settings If not, go to `Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Import and Export Settings ' to find the location of this file.
Had this on a brand new scaffolded ASP.NET Core 1.0 web application.
Solved with restart of Visual Studio.
I was also stuck with this. I removed both bin & obj folders, did a rebuild, and then it launched.
A very meaningless error....
I had this problem when I tried to start (without) Debugging my Asp.Net MVC project
are you running Visual studio as Administrator
so just restart visual studio As Administrator
Additionally to "Unable to start debugging"
I also had errors "The operation could not be completed: Unspecified error" when I tried to rebuild.
Thanks to Visual Studio popup: "the operation could not be completed"
it was enough to close Visual Studio 2015 and then open again.
Make sure you're launching Visual Studio as Administrator.
Right click on the Visual Studio 2015 Shortcut
Select the Shortcut tab
Click on Advanced
Check the box to "Run as administrator" at all times(see below)
This has resolved the issue for me with the exact error message in question.
It is not ideal to run the VS in administrator mode at all times. Make sure you un-check the box once your issue has been resolved.
There is no need to delete everything in my case, I just opened the
"CurrentSettings.vssettings"
file and commented this property
<PropertyValue name="DefaultBehaviorForStartupProjects">1</PropertyValue>
and everything fixed.
Sample
Just delete the .vs hidden folder. This folder resides at the same location where the sln file is. Deleting this folder also refreshes intellisense cache and would fix any issues with that. Hope this helps.
VS 2019, two Core 3.1 projects (an MVC and an API), brand new projects created, no other changes to the solution or projects.
I kept getting the referenced error when trying to start both projects within the IDE, despite having checked all the things already mentioned in this SO.
However, I finally realized, I forgot to specify the "Action" after switching the solution to "Multiple startup projects" (they were both still set to "None"). Right-click solution in "Solution Explorer", choose "Properties" (at very bottom).
Such a ridiculously simple thing. Hope it helps someone else.
"Broken"
Working
I just had the same problem and solved it by deleting the .vs directory in the project directory.
Delete all relevant /obj and /bin folders. Run again.
Close the Visual Studio and re-open it again.
Just restart your visual studio and run as admin.
I had this with a Xamarin.iOS project in my Xamarin.Forms solution. I tried every suggestion here, without success.
The source of the error was a misconfigured .csproj of the project. I never edited it myself and not even touched the project properties. I use Visual Studio 2017 RC.
I came across the solution when I compared the project file with previous versions on Source Control.
Solution: Compare the project file with a previous version and try to granually revert changes until you eliminated the problem and know what the cause was.
The solution for me was to delete all *.user files that are normally generated for both solution and project files
I found this problem too. But after restart the Visual Studio Community 2015 as an administrator I found new problem :
And then I try to open another solution, close the another solution, and open the solution which the problem occur, then the problem solved.
Had the Same Issue with the existing application, I deleted the vs settings but still the issue remained,
Finally i just restarted the VS and it worked fine.
I think sometimes when we load the project some library doesn't get loaded with the solution so the best option before doing anything is simply restarting the VS.
After adding a project reference 'MyProjectReference' to my app, then removing it, I was also getting the same error :
Unable to start debugging . The startup project could not be launched.
Verify debug settings for the startup project.
Deleting configuration, running as admin, restarting VS, rebooting machine all had no effect.
After running my web app without debugging (Right-Click Project -> View In Browser (Google Chrome) I got a much more useful error:
Could not load file or assembly 'MyProjectReference' or one of its
dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect
format.
My Solution was then to re-add back to the solution, then remove it again. After that rebuild and debug worked.
How I fixed my issue, I closed project that had that error , created new project build new project then opened the project that had an issue and build it. That worked for me.
Make sure you close all instances of Visual Studio and then restart as Administrator. In my case I had multiple instances of Visual Studio open and I had to close them all and then restart Visual Studio as admin in order to get things working.
I had visual studio 2015 with an ASP.net MVC5 arcitectured with DDD (Domain Driven Design). The problem was the same since I just opened visual studio normally.
The problem was solved when I closed all instance visual studio and restarted as an adminstrator.
I also faced to this issue in VS 2015 , but finally I resolved it by following bellow steps
In VS go to : Tools -> Options - > Projects and Solutions -> Build and Run
Select "Always Build" in "On Run when project are out of date"
This issue happened to me with the Latest VS2019.
I've tried everything here, but unfortunately without any result.
Finally, I've restarted the IIS server, also manually Recycled the "Default Application Pool".
After debugging issue fixed.
For me solution was to run testapp.csproj instead of testapp.sln. This can be selected from drop down next to green play button.
Simply updated visual studio which then prompted PC restart. This is what fixed the problem for me.
Note: I tried some of the above / below but to no avail.
I got this problem solved by clearing MEF component cache.
Use this VS Extension to clear cache very easily.!!
I stop debugging and exit the projects from IIS Express then clean and build the project and my error is gone.
I get this running as non-Adminsitrator in Visual Studio 2019 16.2.5, with two .NET Core projects.
The solution I found is to set at least one of the projects as "Start" (in Solution's Property Page). If both are set to "Start without Debugging" it fails. This happens even if I want to start the entire project without any debugging (Ctrl+F5).
Bug. Still unaddressed by Microsoft and their bug page issue report it is closed as unreproducible.
#Flowerking's commend did it for me.
Right click on you project and select "Set as StartUp Project".
I had this problem developing a react native app for windows in Visual Studio 2019. I started the debugger then stopped it in the terminal by using ctrl-C. I was not able to restart the debugger and the "start debugging" and "start without debugging" options were disabled in the debug dropdown. Restarting Visual Studio, etc, and some of the things described above did not work. Through hunting and testing, I noticed that if I switched views in the Solution Explorer to the MyProject.sln instead of the fileview, the debugging was enabled again. I'm not sure why, but it appears I need to be in the sln view to start the debugger.
I have a WPF project that I am ready to deploy using Visual Studio 2012 but I'm running into missing file issues. I've searched for hours to find nothing but incorrect information about VS2k12 not even having ClickOnce support to it being a bug in VS that was claimed to be fixed in an update but people still complain the update didn't fix it.
If I Start the project in VS it runs fine and my test button works as expected.
When I Publish the project, the publish succeeds, running setup.exe installs successfully and program starts to main window fine.
Clicking test button crashes the application on a FileNotFoundException.
Line that causes crash:
streamReader = new StreamReader("ReceiptTemplates/templates.xml");
FileNotFoundException:
Could not find file
C:\Users\dirt\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\GEDD6PQW.N72\8M9ONPGG.TVB\prof..tion_40c30d08e677b188_0001.0000_985901e6c8ad767f\ ReceiptTemplates\templates.xml'.
Exists:
C:\MyProject\bin\MyMode\ReceiptTemplates\templates.xml
Confirmed Does Not Exist: C:\Users\dirt\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\GEDD6PQW.N72\8M9ONPGG.TVB\prof..tion_40c30d08e677b188_0001.0000_985901e6c8ad767f\ReceiptTemplates\ReceiptTemplates\templates.xml
The templates.xml file has a Build Action of Content.
Note: There are other folders/files in the ReceiptTemplates folder that are present such as folder/item.html and picture.bmp, just not the templates.xml file that I can tell...
What am I missing?
Thanks to #drch for this:
In my case the ReceiptTemplates/templates.xml file was set to be a "Data File" and not "Include".
Solution:
Right click Project -> Properties -> Publish -> Application Files
Find file causing issue and change it to Include
If it says 'Data File' its in the data folder
If it says 'Include' its in the bin folder
Check in C:\Users\dirt\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\Data for it ;)
I've been moving files around from my debug folder in an attempt to open the executable for my program from a different location. This seemed to have screwed things up, and I'd like to know how to fix them.
The exact error reads as follows:
"Visual Studio could not copy a support file to this location:\Program.vshost.exe'. Please verify the path exists and is writeable."
And ideas on how to fix this?
Right click on the project/solution -> Properties -> Debug -> Uncheck "Enable visual studio hosting process"
Also you can terminate it from Task Manager. if running Win 6 or 7 use end process from admin previlige