views:

348

answers:

3

Visual Studio (SP1) runs fine until I try and view .aspx source files with the lines

    <style type="text/css">
    </stlye>

anywhere in them, upon which it freezes (i.e is totally unresponsive) and I have to use the task manager to shut it down.

I have read a lot of questions about Visual Studio 2008 crashing on viewing some source files. However, I still can't fix this problem.

I have systematically deleted and re-included all other code and it comes down to these two lines, which is very confusing. Sometimes it happens as soon as the lines are added, sometimes it doesn't freeze until I build the solution with any of the problem pages open. I can add external style sheets, and it only started recently. I had Resharper 4.5 installed and have since uninstalled it, and do not have anything else installed.

Also, it happens to other people with the same source code, and re-installing Visual Studio does not fix the problem. So I have several questions:

  1. Is there any way I can find out what's happening?
  2. I don't understand how the code (the css tag itself) could crash Visual Studio, and am thinking that this is unlikely and it must be something else within my solution, would this be a safe assumption?
  3. Could this have anything to do with installing Office 2010?

Thanks in advance to anyone who has ideas on how to troubleshoot this problem.

Edit: I didn't find a good answer for this question, but found that installing Visual Studio 2010 and using it instead of Visual Studio 2008 fixed the problem. I have marked the answer below as right as it gave me an idea on where to start looking. So from this I am going to conclude that this is some sort of Visual Studio bug, but would be happy to see more information if any one else encounters this problem or can shed any light on it!

A: 

MSDN Code Gallery shows 45 items tagged Visual Studio 2008 and hotfix. it's very hard to search for your problem with keywords, but browsing through the 45 might help.

egrunin
Thank you! I will do that, I'd like to know why this is happening. For now it seems that installing Visual Studio 2010 has fixed it.
Kai
I had a mysterious crash with VS2008 last week, and soon afterwards Vista prompted me with a link to the relevant Hotfix.
egrunin
Interesting. I can't see any particular hotfix that fits perfectly, but if I hadn't upgraded VS I would try them. I'll mark this as the best answer as this is a good place to start looking, thanks for the info. Also, the Visual Studio crash logs is another good place to try. I read through some SO questions on how to use these and would use them next time.
Kai
A: 

I just ran into a similar problem (VS2008 freezing every time I tried to open the Manage Styles / Apply Styles / CSS Properties windows).

What fixed it for me was:

  1. Uninstall Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component
  2. Reinstall Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component from the VS DVD (just run WCU\WebDesignerCore\WebDesignerCore.Exe; it doesn't have a UI, so you just have to wait for it to finish).
Matt Bishop
Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately I can't try it now as I no longer have vs2008, but hopeflly it will help the next person! :)
Kai
+1  A: 

The above should work - I actually used the solution here - repair office 2010 web authoring components - http://www.ariankulp.com/archive/2010/03/02/web-form-designer-lockup-in-visual-studio-2008.aspx

David Hilditch
Nice one, worked for me. Updated by Office from 2007 to 2010 before - Visual Studio 2008 was already installed.
Mudu