I'm working on a moderately sized WebForms project. Due to the peculiarities of management here, I have to upload the site to a remote server in order to test (no localhost testing). I'm using the 'Publish' command in Visual Studio 2008. Sometimes, it even works. Most of the time, I inexplicably get a "publish failed" in the bottom left corner, with no further details.
The few googled articles/forum posts I read suggested making the target local folder for the publish operation readable/writable for everyone. Doesn't help.
Is there are way to get further details as to WHY a publish fails in VS2008, and if not, is there a better way of doing these deployments? I'm spending more time building/pushing to the web server than actually debugging.
It's worth checking the output window. I've just had a publish fail because I had deleted an image outside of VS so VS was complaining that the image couldn't be found, but this information was only displayed in the output window.
See this link for more information:
http://ericfickes.com/2009/08/find-out-why-visual-studios-publish-fails/
It happens to us when there is an error in markup (!). Bad thing is that VS will just swallow the error and just tell you Failed.
What I suggest is to run your publish from command line using MSBuild. It's not that straightforward but it works (once you get into it).
I've since discovered that the reason for these particular publish failures was due the "Delete Existing Files" option being checked. Using Visual Studio 2008 under a non-administrative account on Windows Vista could cause a permissions error while attempting to delete the existing files. The publish would fail silently after encountering a file that Visual Studio had insufficient access to delete. Once the files were deleted manually outside of Vidual Studio, the publish functioned normally.
I have not had this issue with Windows 7; I assume the UAC changes in Windows 7 fixed the problem.
I mostly work with Web Forms, and I encounter this problem daily.
It seems to me that publish fails when it fails to delete a file it is trying to replace. Even if I don't have any files open, it still fails sometimes. Not sure why.
Not only VS publish fails very often, it is painfully slow as well.
I just publish to empty local directory and use separate FTP client to upload files. It's more work, but works.
This is probably not the case for you, but I've seen this happen when I'm publishing a web site. If the app_offline.htm file is not excluded from your project (if you use this file), the publish will fail.
Same happened to me.. what I did was include images files that was not included in the project and delete images that were not used.
After struggling with a similar issue for about 30 mins with no clue as to what was causing it closed down VS and reopened my project. Started working fine. No idea why but it worked.
You should always stop the IIS instance running on the machine your are publishing to. Google the word "iisreset". Other hosting providers like DiscountAsp and Arvixe offer you tools to "Stop" and "Start" your app pool on their IIS remotely. This is very necessary because IIS may have locked some files as "in use", so your publish fails when it tries to write over them. When your publish is complete, then just restart IIS (or press "Start" from a web tool if you're using a 3rd party hosting provider).
When all else fails, check your "Output" window (the tab to the right of your "Error List" at the bottom of Visual Studio). Scroll through all of it after a failed publish and look for anything that says "Unable to add". If you keep seeing the same "Unable to add" errors on the same publish, then ftp into the folder, delete the the problematic files manually, and try publishing again.
I got this when my ProjectName.Publish.xml file was read-only. Once I checked the file out of source control, I no longer got the error and could publish.
Just to add to this thread, I found that, for some bizarre reason, only the Mercurial files were being published to the server, everything else just wasn't being copied across.
Another strange thing was that only the Debug configuration was available; Release was nowhere to be seen.
After reading other threads around S.O., I found that there were many for VS 2010 and 2012, but not much to cover the same problem with 2008.
The fix, I found, was to delete the [solution].suo file and then attempt a publish. That seemed to do the job, though it took a long time to complete.
What I found and work in my case. It is to use a different version of VS.
I recently had the problem, the solution works perfectly in VS2015 build, compile and tested.
However, when I try to publish was failing silently.
So, I closed the solution and open it with VS2017 that use the same file structure for the projects/solutions. Then rebuild it and publish without any problems.
I believe it could be VS related and it is complicated to debug.
This is a workaround if you work with multiple Vs instances in your local machine.
Related
I have several ASP.Net web form apps in a Visual Studio project. In one of the apps, I was working to add a test page for some additional features we wanted to test before adding to our main pages. Afterwards however, I was trying to publish to our server, but keep getting a message box saying: "The publish has failed due to one or more errors.".
Build succeeded Image
Publish Failed Image
I checked the errors, but none are given. The build was successful and other then a few un-used references, there are no other indicators on what the issue exactly is. We have a few other projects that normally allow for publishing without issues. So I don't believe the issue is from Visual Studio, but I am not completely sure. I'm using Visual Studio 2015 version 14.0.24720.00
Figured it out!
There is a Thumbs.db file that was auto-generated in the images folder. I decided to go through the output window line by line to see if I could identify where the publish was failing at. I noticed a line that said the /Images/Thumbs.db file could not be published and that access was denied.
Doing some more online investigating, I found some other questions along the same line as the premise for this one. Specifically the question here was most helpful. Tammy Spencer's (#user:973679) answer to try and delete the file was what made the publish succeed. So thank you Tammy.
In addition, the Thumbs.db file wouldn't let me delete it at first. But after doing some more searching, I found this YouTube video that made the file deletable.
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.
After installing Visual Studio 2012 and opening my solution I get a series of errors in this form:
The Web Application Project Foo is configured to use IIS.
Unable to access the IIS Metabase. You do not have sufficient privilege to access IIS web sites on your machine.
I get this for each of our web applications.
Things I have tried:
Running Visual Studio as Administrator
Running aspnet_regiis.exe -ga MyUserName
Running aspnet_regiis.exe -i
These seem to be common solutions for this problem but I have not had any success with them.
Is there anything else I can try to do?
On Windows 8 Pro:
%systemroot%\inetsrv\config
On Windows 7 and 8.1 and 10
%systemroot%\System32\inetsrv\config
(Where %systemroot% is usually C:\Windows)
Navigate to the appropriate location above in Windows Explorer. You will be blocked access with a popup which says:
"You don't have access to this folder - Click continue to permanently get access to this folder"
Click 'continue' for this folder, and with the Export folder underneath. I changed the shortcut back to "Run as me" (a member of the domain and local administrators ) and was able to open and deploy the solution.
I think you are not running visual studio with administrator permissions. Look that:
http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/rick/archive/2012/10/04/unable-to-access-the-iis-metabase.aspx
To quote
The solution to this is simple: start your Visual Studio with "Run as
Administrator". You can do this by right clicking the shortcut and
selecting "Run as Administrator".
I think we encountered a similar problem at work. For us, the solution was to go into Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Features on or off... inside that, we had to select Internet Information Services -> Web Management Tools -> IIS 6 Management Compatibility -> IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility.
Give that a try and let me know if it helps!
Note: We're running IIS 7.5 on Windows 7 using both Visual Studio 2005 and 2010 and doing stuff with super-old-school WebServices (.asmx)...
I resolved this issue by granting IIS AppPool identity permissions to the %systemroot%\inetsrv\config
If you are working on a project which does not require the use of IIS, then a workaround to open the project with this error is to simply right click on the unloaded project and click edit, search for:
<ProjectExtensions>
<VisualStudio>
<FlavorProperties GUID="">
<WebProjectProperties>
<UseIIS>True</UseIIS>
</WebProjectProperties>
</FlavorProperties>
</VisualStudio>
</ProjectExtensions>
</Project>
and set USEIIS to false
<UseIIS>False</UseIIS>
reload the project by right clicking on it after saving changes.
I have had two seperate types of problem lead to this error, and thought I'd share...
1. The directory was on an network share and due to UAC restrictions, was
unable to be accessed -- even when running as an admin.
2. The directory was on a drive that didn't exist...
Both of these stem from an unfortunate (imo) choice by MS to put things in the Documents or My Document directory, combinee with really lousy error messages. In both of the above cases the fundamental problem was that the IISExpress Config file goes in My Documents, and it either didn't exist or couldn't be accessed.
Thank you to everyone that answered. Since this was closed for a long time I couldn't provide much feedback, but I did eventually fix my problem. I tried many of these other solutions and they didn't fix my issue, but I'm sure they help when the root cause is different.
My Solution
I solved this problem by turning off the IIS and .Net Framework features within Windows 7 and then turning them back on. It seems like this re-installation is what fixed my issue. I still don't know what caused the problem, but at least one other developer on my team had the same issue.
Navigating to folder: %systemroot%\System32\inetsrv\config presents a security dialog. Click continue and this may resolve the issue. This has worked on two separate Win 10/VS 2017/IIS machines.
On a windows 81, from an admin command prompt, use:
icacls "C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config" /t /grant "IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool":(R)
Then go back in VS, right click on the failed project, choose Reload.
Credit to: IIS7 Permissions Overview - ApplicationPoolIdentity
I had this problem - the symptoms were the same, but the issue I had was that I had set the "My Documents" folder to be on a network share, and the share was not accessible.
The root problem was that the IIS config files located at %USERPROFILE%\Documents are not accessible. Once I changed the "My Documents" folder location (I modified the reg value), it started working again.
I know that this may not be a common scenario that you might run into, but I've posted it here because it gives the same symptoms.
I came across this today and fixed the problem by removing the IISUrl from the Project file:
Right click project
Click Edit
Delete the following line:
<IISUrl>http://localhost:xxxxx </IISUrl>
Reload project
Now add a new IIS virtual directory by right clicking Project > Properties > Web and selecting Use Local IIS Web Server (Uncheck Use IIS Express) and clicking the Create Virtual Directory button.
You might run across this problem and have same problem as me. I "solved" it before and then power outage and computer crashed, not sure why a registry setting reverted but it is the SOURCE of my problem.
I tried all the running as adminstrator
All the IIS / IIS express re-installs.
Various "hacks"
Came down to having to fix the registry again.
Could not as administrator even open regedit (Need to access registry since problem is not with gpedit.msc admin template )
UnHookExec.inf on desktop
Just save UnHookExec.inf and install it by right clicking and selecting install. Installing the file will not show any popup or notice box.
http://www.tweakandtrick.com/2011/04/enable-regedit-registry-editor.html
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal pointing to non-existant fileshare. Changing that to local path solved this problem for me. – Pasi Savolainen Jul 14 '14 at 8:41
(changed from \\cs2data\home\stickelt\my documents to c:\dev )
Now ALL is good and Visual Studio opened solution with 15 projects and connects to IIS and does not complain about not being able to access iis metadata
I had never ran into this before, as nobody at current job had this problem ( many have been here a long time, some got clones of other machines that "worked" and many are on another domain etc.. )
I just had this issue today and I found that I didn't open VS as 'Run as Administrator'.
After doing this, I was able to publish the Service.
If you have administrator permissions, Right Click to Visual Studio icon > properties and then advanced, "Run as administrator" check.
You can run visaul studio as administrator directly anymore.
This way, formal and so basic.
In addition to the answer by #nologo, I also had to use IIS. So I changed the
<UseIIS>True</UseIIS>
to 'False' first.
Opened the solution and ensured that the project could be loaded.
Close solution and that instance of Visual Studio
Change the value to 'True' again
Open the solution.
This time, I didn't get any error/warning. I could also run with Ctrl+F5 or F5 without any problem while my project was mapped to an IIS website.
Changing this key worked for me:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal
The location didn't exist.
Go to the root directory of your project and find the following file:
YourProjectName.csproj.user - inside it, make sure UseIISExpress is set to false:
<UseIISExpress>false</UseIISExpress>
If that alone doesn't work try the following as well and try again:
YourProjectName.csproj - inside the main project file, make sure both UseIIS and UseIISExpress are set to false:
<UseIIS>True</UseIIS>
<UseIISExpress>false</UseIISExpress>
After changing these I was able to load the project again.
Note: Make sure you run your VS as an Administrator, as mentioned in the other answers.
I also had a similar problem. My solution is an extension to the answer "Run as admin" which I hope someone might find useful.
I was running VS2012 and almost every time I had to do the Right Click, Run As Administrator. I got tired of this so instead I went into its properties on the shortcut, clicked advanced, and then clicked the "Run as Administrator" option. Now VS2012 always runs as administrator whenever I open it from that shortcut.
The from that shortcut bit is important. I proceeded to branch my project, and download the branch to a new local folder. Then, when I opened it from the shortcut I had no problem. But if I went directly into the folder, and ran the project locally without the shortcut, it did not run as administrator and I got this error.
Once I opened VS2012 as usual first, then using File/Open/Project It worked again no problem. (because I was running as admin). But I wasn't running as admin when I opened the solution using windows file manager.
The other suggestions seem somewhat extreme, but this is pretty simple so I would tend to give this a try first.
Hope this was helpful.
This seems like one of those "All errors lead to this message" type of bugs.
Mine was that the App Pool was just turned off. I turned it back on, and everything worked fine.
One more thing you could try:
Check if you have pending Windows updates.
If you do, please reboot before trying anything else.
I tend to never shut down my machine, so I had plenty of them waiting for a reboot. And that fixed it.
I tried everything above. The credit goes to all of the responses above. Having tried all of the suggestions on their own, I just assembled this combination of suggestions in an order that made sense to me. Note my Documents folder is on a shared drive. The subst/IISExpress stuff is not applicable unless you're in the same boat.
Configure VS to run as admin
Uninstall IIS via Add/Remove Programs, Windows Features
Reboot
Run WinRAR or something similar as admin and archive C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\
Run cmd as admin and rmdir /s c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\ to completely remove all traces of the last install. Leave elevated cmd prompt open for later.
Reinstall IIS with IIS 6 Metabase compatibility (doubt this was necessary)
Leave Default AppPool and Default Website as-is (I had previously deleted both)
Ran C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -ga MYDOMAIN\scottt732
Ran C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -i
Also, because my Documents folder is on a share drive, I was having IIS Express issues. I don't use/like IIS Express, but Visual Studio complained about it.
From elevated cmd prompt, ran subst U: c:\Temp. Created C:\Temp\Documents\ and copied the IISExpress folder from my U drive.
Created CustomUserHome key in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\IISExpress with C:\Temp\Documents\IISExpress
This allowed me to get Visual Studio to open my web projects and edit the properties. I tweaked the projects to store web server settings in a user file and adjusted it to use a Custom URL (not sure if this was necessary)
I may/may not have to run the subst command each time I restart. Don't care.
And after throwing in the towel 3 times and spending roughly ~6 hours I can open web projects in Visual Studio (2015 Update 2).
I just had the same issue with me today. And I found it annoying. Though I have other two websites already under development from the same IIS but still was not able to create new site. Strange, but I did this.
Delete the site from IIS
Create new site, give it a name "new_site"
Select Application Pool other than the site name itself. So it wont be messing up with default settings.
Keep IP "unassigned" if you are running it from same machine
give it some unused port
Run Visual Studio as "Run as Administrator" by right-clicking on VS executable shortcut.
You are done!
You do not need to turn off/re-install anything other than what I have stated since it works.
Let me know if anybody had the same issue just like me and solved the same way. I think it was not the issue but a wrong way of creating website on localhost which Visual Studio rejects to open.
I hope this will help newbies.
Create a shortcut to the "devenv.exe"
select the "Run as administrator" option for the shortcut
doble click on the short cut and reopen your project
I had the same problem after Adding feature from this link afterward I followed this article the issue was gone.
I did a repair of Visual Studio 2015 to solve this.
The repair took a long time, but it solved the issue while doing much of the above did not. I am running Win 7 enterprise.
Open visual studio command prompt and type below command and run
aspnet_regiis -ga machinename\ASPNET
After running the above command Reset the IIS and test the application that resolve your issue.
If above command doesn’t resolve your problem then try to run below command in visual studio command prompt:-
aspnet_regiis -i
Alternatively we can run above command from our windows command prompt also
Go to the Start menu and open Run and enter and click OK
%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe –I
After that Reset the IIS and test the application that resolves your issue
In Visual Studio 2015:
I changed UseIIS in .csproj file to false and it worked for me.
<UseIIS>False</UseIIS>
In my message, beside complaining about "Unable to access the IIS metabase", it also mentions can't access "<IISUrl>http://localhost:6416/</IISUrl>". Right click on the unload project, click Edit, find the line "<IISUrl>http://localhost:6416/</IISUrl>", comment it out. Reload and it should work. This has to do with administrator doesn't have permission to access that address.
I had a similar problem. Visual Studio would not load any web projects and showed the error: creation of virtual directory <myproj:myport> failed. Unable to access the IIS metabase.
In my case it was actually IISExpress that was at the root of the problem. Right clicking on IIS Express in Programs and Features in the control panel and choosing repair fixed the issue in less than two minutes.
I'm using Win 8 Pro and VS 2013.
After trying everything in this page... I simply reinstalled IIS Express 8 and everything works fine now (even without running as an admin).
My conclusion is that this is a rather generic error and there are multiple root causes.
When I try to build my project, it returns the following error:
Error 1 Unexpected error creating debug information file 'D:\Documents\Lance\Documents\School\Capstone\GG\GG\obj\Debug\GG.PDB' -- '' GG
I've recently had the misfortune of having my PC restart on me, due to sudden power supply problems (maybe). This is while the project was building, before this problem started.
When the PC came back online I've noticed that the changes I've made to the program prior to the sudden power down was not saved. And, it won't build anymore.
This worked for me:
Shut down VS.NET
Browse to the project in Windows Explorer
Delete the /obj/ folder.
Delete the project outputs (.dll and .pdb) from /bin (not sure if this step is necessary)
Can't hurt but might help: delete the project outputs from any other project /bin folders in the solution that is having issues (wasn't necessary for me)
Restart VS.NET
Rebuild
http://weblogs.asp.net/ssmith/archive/2003/08/12/23755.aspx
As requested, my comment as an answer:
Try cleaning the solution (under the Build menu in VS).
Since the build was interrupted half-way through by your power failure, the file isn't locked -- the build system is probably just in an inconsistent state (which a Clean Solution should fix).
This happens once in a while in my environment and the problem probably has to do with the PDB file being locked (i.e., I'm guessing the last part of the error message is missing in your post). This is how it looks on my machine:
Unexpected error creating debug information file 'c:\dir\obj\file.PDB' -- 'c:\dir\obj\file.PDB: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.'
In my case, cleaning the solution does not solve the problem and restarting is an overkill, so I usually just copy the full name of the pdb file (from the error) and execute this on the command line:
ren c:\dir\obj\file.PDB *.old
This worked for me: Close Visual studio and open visual studio using Run as Administrator and problem was solved.
Not need to restart or delete the file.
Just rename the file and that is enough. If you try to delete the file it will give an error. Better just rename it & it will work. :)
If you are having this problem with a web application, this can happen in the unusual situation that you have used DebugDiag and created a rule that listens on your project's app pool. Deleting the rule prevented this problem from recurring.
This might happen, for example, if you followed these instructions for diagnosing a stack overflow exception in IIS.
If you are working on VM with two user, make sure the other user has not attached all the process while debugging.
Cons of restarting VS:
Clipboard will be lost
Redo/undo will be lost
Files open will be lost
You will loose the tempo
Solution:
Give your Assembly a new name. No cons. Except you will have to rename your assembly back to its original name when you are ready for final deployment. And I think anyone can find how to make it work for the last time :)
Sometimes all the files from \bin folder are used by a running process, i.e. web site on IIS or windows service run automatically after build. In such cases turning off the service or stoping IIS app pool for specific site should also help (like in my case)
Sometimes I run into this problem, when compiling the same project for (very) different targets:
VS2008 and net35
VS2017 and net462
dotnet core 2.0
My guess is, that either bin and/Or obj directory are used by the compiler, but the outputs are not compatible (of course). Solution clean from VS indeed helps.
Often we specify different dll names for the output (e.g. mylib.dll, mylib35.dll) and the issue never happened on those projects.
I've got a C# webforms app, that until today had been working just swimmingly.
Now today, all of a sudden, every time I try run the app, I get a file locking error:
Unable to copy file "obj\Debug\MyProject.exe" to "bin\Debug\MyProject.exe". The process cannot access the file "bin\Debug\MyProject.exe" because it is being used by another process.
Googling the error doesn't come up with anything beyond the obvious, i.e. VS thinks the file is locked. And it is definitely Visual Studio itself that locks the file, because when I close VS and reopen it, the project executes fine - the first time. When I try to run it a second time, I get the file locking error.
Closing VS and reopening every time I want to run the app is not a viable workaround! How do I find out what's locking the file, and stop it from getting locked?
EDIT: Another interesting discovery: I don't even have to run the app. Just compiling it once causes the file locking; I cannot compile twice in a row!
This problem is specific to one project in my solution. All other projects work fine and can be executed as many times as I like. It's only this one project that gets itself locked up.
I have found a simple solution which works for me. It goes like this:
When the problem occurs, just change the building configuration at the top (if in “Release” to “Debug” and vice versa), build and then change back to previous configuration and build again.
I suppose that changing the configuration releases the vcshost and devenv.
Well, I solved the problem myself - though I still have no clue why. I decided to isolate the problem by removing all files from the project, then re-adding them and determining that way which file was the source of my trouble. So, one by one I reintroduced files to the project, compiled & cleaned each step of the way... until... I added the last one...
... and everything still worked fine.
I did a compare to the source control of my original .csproj; no real differences. And even when I tried reverting to the previous version of the .csproj, it still worked.
Black magic. If it works, sometimes it's better not to ask why - just accept it and move on...
EDIT: The problem is a recurring one, and I believe I've isolated it to when I have the form designer open of an abstract/generic form at compile time.
Lesson learned: Make sure the Form Designer of any abstract or generic forms or controls is closed before you compile! If not, you have to close VS and reopen!
What we have discovered here, is the following:
In the project properties page, Debug tab, uncheck the "Enable visual studio hosting process".
I am unsure what this property is for, but it does the work once unchecked.
Solved by closing all instances of MSBuild.exe in the windows task manager
Actually you should want "Enable the Visual Studio hosting process" checked. At least for VS2010 anyway. And I also have:
if exist "$(TargetPath).locked" del "$(TargetPath).locked"
if exist "$(TargetPath)" if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked" move "$(TargetPath)" "$(TargetPath).locked"
in the pre-build options. This problem has dogged me for a very long time and it wasn't until John W. mentioned this check box that I even took notice that it existed and low and behold it was already unchecked.
Also notice that -app-vshost.exe runs in the background even when not debugging. Which is what makes it successfully build and run every time I guess. It wasn't running before. And I also tried cleaning out the debug and release folders and changing the target type constantly and nothing worked except as described above. My solution before was to just wait 5 minutes between builds, which got super annoying and time-consuming to get anything done. I haven't seen any change in behavior where it mattered what tabs where open or XNA vs windows form or designers being opened. This issue occurred in 32-bit or 64-bit builds and didn't matter if I killed an app with ALT-F4 or killing it with task manager, which would, in theory, not allow the app to close or release resources. At first I thought it was a garbage collection issue.
I have overcome this problem by renaming the locked file (using Windows Explorer). I was not allowed to delete the file, but renaming the locked file works!
Little late to answer, but I solved this by going to the properties of the project > tab "Debug" > unchecked "Enable the Visual Studio hosting process" option.
I solved this by deleting the folder bin\Debug and, possibly, restarting VS
Run this command from the Run box:
net stop iisadmin /y
and then
iisreset
worked for me.
vs 2003
For me, it was a Windows Service that was installed and running. Once I stopped it, the build was successful.
I had a similar error but during the deployment of the UWP application. Finally, I found out the process that used a file that caused this error and stopped it. Credits to this link. Copy-pasted version is below.
How to Solve the Issue?
One of the easiest ways to handle locked files or folders is to use Microsoft Sysinternals Process Explorer.
Identify what program is using a file
Using Process Explorer there is a simple way to find the program:
Open Process Explorer (running as administrator).
On the toolbar, find the gunsight icon on the right.
Drag the icon and drop it on the open file or folder that is locked.
The executable that is using the file will be highlighted in the Process Explorer main display list.
Identify which handle or DLL is using a file
Open Process Explorer (running as administrator).
Enter the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F.
Alternatively, click the “Find” menu and select “Find a Handle or DLL”.
A search dialog box will open.
Type in the name of the locked file or other file of interest.
Partial names are usually sufficient.
Click the button “Search”.
A list will be generated.
There may be a number of entries.
And then kill this process.
Unfortunately none of the answers worked for me. This is what solved it:
Win Key + R and run resmon.exe. There you'll find the EXE process that VS claims to be using the file. Right click and end the process. Although you might get an Access Denied error message, it will be suspended and you'll be able to build again.
Recently ran into this problem when attempting to build a solution I am working on (not just a winforms proj).
In addition to build failure, I noticed that cleaning projects would quietly fail (checking the bin folder showed that the files had not actually been erased) and closing the Visual Studio did not end the devenv process - rather, it caused it to crash. Windows recovery process would then restart the Visual Studio.
After some trial and error, I found the problems only happened to me when I opened the solution from the "Recent" menu on starting up VS.
Opening the solution from File >> Open >> Project/Solution found it working as per usually.
Currently no idea why - will keep looking into this but for now, at least I can work!
Just check the references and remove the self-reference to the project.
Explanation: My problem started after creating a custom control and drag and drop it to the toolbox palette for use it in design forms. First appeared a warning saying that there was a redundance between the custom control source file (.cs) and the projects executable (.exe). On executing/debugging appeared the error: unable to access the (.exe) because it's being used (and it was true).
I literally removed the whole source code regarding the custom control and the problem still remained, until I checked out the references and it was referencing itself in order to be "able to" get the former custom control. I removed the reference and done!!
I had the same issue on my Xamarin application in visual studio and it was resolved by unplugging my test mobile device. The application was closed and the debugger was stopped but the error was still happening when trying to build or rebuild the solution. It only stopped after i unplugged the device because i had to receive a call.
Just to throw in my 2 cents. My issue was solved by opening Task Manager and killing the application. It was running in the background without any indication that it was running at all (no item in the task bar, no ui, nothing), but I am not sure why this happened. Obviously the debugger was not running and I only had a single instance of VS opened at the time. It amazes me that this is still happening in this VS 2017.
Perhaps I can add a build step that looks for the application running the background and kills it before starting the new one.
I had the same issue and could not rectify by using any of the methods mentioned in previous answers. I resolved the issue by killing all instances of "SSIS Debug Hist (32 bit)" in task manager and now working as normal.
I had this issue (and its an issue I have seen in other places not just VS).
It's caused by Dropbox (in my case). After editing some code and hitting run, sometimes dropbox immediately locks the file (so it can process it).
Solution 1.
Just hit run again
Solution 2.
Pause dropbox. (not good if your using dropbox as your cloud backup)
Solution 3.
Remove the build folder from dropboxes sync list.
Deleting Obj, retail and debug folder of the .NET project and re-building again worked for me.
This got me stuck for over two days, had to reclone the project and save the project folder in a different name, but today I found the solution from a microsoft dev forum.
solution:
Create a pre-build action in your project by going to project properties (right-click on the project in the solution explorer, and select the Properties option), select the Build Events tab. Add this code:
if exist "$(TargetPath).locked" del "$(TargetPath).locked"
if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked" move "$(TargetPath)" "$(TargetPath).locked"
This code will copy the file to a different name, and allows the build to continue successfully.
How is your web app configured? Does it run under Cassini (the tray web server) or IIS?
This shouldn't happen normally though. I think ProcessExplorer can tell you what files a process has locked. If not process explorer one of the other sysinternals tools.
One thing to try before even downloading one of the SI tools is to stop the Cassini web server, and seeing if that frees up the file.
What worked for me was restarting IIS
i had this same problem as well. changing the debug/release config didn't do the trick. at least not without building in between.
in my solution (winform) it was solved by opening the mainform of the winform in the designer. switching to code (F7). Then closing the code, closing the designer of the winform and rebuild all (ctrl-shift-B). This worked for me.
seems like some kind of handle from within the winform app (which runs a backgroundworker) still had a file handle on some of the other libraries used.
I had two instances of Visual Studio opened the same solution.
In my case there were some vstest processes running (with various names but all containing the string vstest). I had to terminate them in taskmgr.
Same error, solved by updating Google Nuget support packages
When I ended the process .Net Core Host, everything built fine. I didn't have to close Visual Studio or do change anything else.
For those who are developing in VS with Docker, restart the docker for windows service and the problem will be solved immediately.
Before restarting docker I tried all the mentioned answers, didn't find a msbuild.exe process running, also tried restarting VS without avail, only restarting docker worked.
One more solution: when the files get locked, blocking process is reported (something like "ServiceHub.Host.CLR.x64 (7764)") with it's id in parentheses.
To get rid of the process, open PowerShell (x + Win + I) and type: "Stop-Process -Id idNumber".
I recently ran into the issue when deploying to Service Fabric. The error is implying a 'file' is in use, however, I found that the port was being used by another IDE. By stopping a running service which was already hosting on the port, I was able to stop this exception from occurring.