Visual Studio Solution Explorer Locks Up

Question

I have an issue with Visual Studio 2005 w/ TFS where, from time to time, the Solution Explorer will stop responding to interaction. Instead it does the beep, like I'm trying to click on a parent window with a modal dialog visible, but there isn't one. The only thing I've found to do so far, is to restart VS, but that's kind of a pain because our solution is rather large. And it's not even a guarantee... it might happen again when I load the solution.

I was curious if anyone else has had this problem and knows of a better solution that restarting VS until it goes away.

[Edit: 6-11-2010] I've since moved over to VS 2008 and haven't had this problem since.

Answer 1

Yes this was a common problem in Visual Studio 2005, a background thread would like Visual Studio and no let anything happen. Then a little icon would should up in the status bar that basically said "Visual Studio is Working Be patient." This happened to me whenever I started the document explorer for the first time.

Answer 2

I have had problems like this with different parts of VS 2005, but they had more to do with network drives that were no longer accessible and IntelliSense refreshing.

I made sure to unmount any unused network drives and disable IntelliSense since I'm using Visual Assist anyway using this method:

http://www.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5550

Answer 3

Try unbinding your solution from source control. You can use the command line TFS tool ("tf") to do the same actions and it should prevent VS from freezing up due to high latency connections / drops, to TFS.

Answer 4

Also, a very large document store will slow down the Team Explorer significantly.. sigh

Answer 5

In Visual Studio 2005, the modal dialogs that pop up remember their position relative to 0,0 on the Windows virtual desktop. If you change your multimon configuration, for example removing a monitor, and the popup dialog restores itself to a position that no longer is a visible part of the virtual desktop, you can have a modal dialog existing off screen. If you enter this situation again, try hitting alt-spacebar to pull down the System menu of the window, and then press M for move. Then press one of the arrow keys and the dialog's position will then bind itself to the mouse. You can then bring the modal dialog back on screen.

This bug was fixed in VS 2008 SP1.

Answer 6

I have this exact problem with VS 2008 only AFTER installing SP1. Ugh. And it happens not infrequently and there seems to be no direct cause.

Has anyone experience this on VS 2008 sp 1 and have any suggestions?

Answer 7

I just had this happen for the first time today, and I have VS2008 with SP1. Quite frustrating...

Answer 8

BTW, I tried ALT-SPACE then 'M' to move the hidden dialog, but it just makes the same "Default Beep" sound as soon as I click ALT-SPACE. It seems that there is no "System Menu" for the dialog box that VS thinks is being displayed. I've tried restarting VS, and even rebooting the PC, but I still can't get VS 2008 SP1 to let me click anything. I do have dual monitors, but I have moved the relative position of my secondary monitor (in the display properties window of control panel) trying to find the dialog box.

I have no idea how to regain access to my VS Solution ... :(

Answer 9

My Visual Studio 2008 would lock up every time I was entering the Designer mode editing an aspx file.

My solution was to reinstall .net 3.5 with sp1 and it seemed to solve the problem.

Answer 10

If VS Editor lockdown is accompanied by creation of Setup.exe process that never finishes (visible in the task manager), then this is an issue with Microsoft Office 2007 components.

The solution that has worked for me - reinstalling Microsoft Office 2007. More details.

Answer 11

I had this same problem with Visual Studio 2008 (and specifically after installing MVC framework). My resolution was to install the .Net 3.5 SP1 Family update, reinstall Visual Studio through add/remove, and reinstall MVC framework... hopefully that helps someone - because the issue was really ANNOYING.

Answer 12

If solutions start behaving badly one of the first things I would try is if deleting the .suo file helps. This file contains information about the current designer and Window state (and more).

Deleting this allows reopening the solution just like when it was just checked out from source control, without designer crashes etc.

If you have some add-in problems, running 'devenv.exe /resetskippkgs' might help. (This re-enables add-ins that have been disabled after previous errors)

Answer 13

I had this same issue with VS2008 9.0.30729.1. SP and once I used Alt+Space, then M, then dragged the model window into view VS2008 was thereafter able to remember where I wanted this model dialog to be displayed.

Note that Google was not able to find this page, but Bing was!

Answer 14

Arg! Having the same issue after upgrading from Office 2007 to 2010 Professional Plus. Thanks Microsoft.

Answer 15

I have visual studio 2008, and just installed MS Office from 2007 to 2010... and I cannot figure out how to get rid of it! I guess I will be uninstalling 2010.

Answer 16

I just started getting the same problem with VS 2008 after a clean install of Office 2010 Pro Plus. Alt-Space-M-arrow keys isn't doing anything.

Answer 17

My OS is 64bit. I had office 2007 installed. I uninstalled it and installed office 2010. Then this problem started occurring. I ran the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\OFFICE12\Office Setup Controller\Setup.exe" application using the repair option and the issue is resolved. A colleague of mine had the same issue for the same reason and the same fix resolved the issue for him also.