Troubleshooting "program does not contain a static 'Main' method" when it clearly does...?

Question

My MS Visual C# program was compiling and running just fine. I close MS Visual C# to go off and do other things in life.

I reopen it and (before doing anything else) go to "Publish" my program and get the following error message:

"Program C:\myprogram.exe does not contain a static 'Main' method suitable for an entry point"

Huh? Yes it does... and it was all working 15 min earlier. Sure, I can believe that I accidentally hit something or done something before I closed it up... but what? How do I troubleshoot this?

My Program.cs file looks like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Threading;

namespace SimpleAIMLEditor
{
    static class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

            Application.Run(new mainSAEForm());

    }

}

...and there are some comments in there. There are no other errors.

Help?

-Adeena

Answer 1

Have you accidentally modified your project settings? Do you have source control so you can compare before and after?

Answer 2

That's odd. Does your program compile and run successfully and only fail on 'Publish' or does it fail on every compile now?

Also, have you perhaps changed the file's properties' Build Action to something other than Compile?

Answer 3

Shouldn't it be public static void main()?

Answer 4

Are the properties on the file set to Compile?

Answer 5

Do you have a version control? You can compare the latest versions. Maybe revert to an ealier version of the project file can help.

Answer 6

Is your Output Type Windows Application?

Answer 7

Followup:

1) I am embarrassed by my lack of source control. This started out as just a silly little test project for me to get back into coding. It's turning into something "real", so yes - source control is my next priority.
2) I'm embarrassed at how much I still have to learn about the "MS Visual" environment. I miss my command line interface and makefiles!

thanks everyone!

-A

Answer 8

What I found is that the Program.cs file was not part of the solution. I did an add existing item and added the file (Program.cs) back to the solution.

This corrected the error: Error 1 Program '..... does not contain a static 'Main' method suitable for an entry point

Answer 9

I had the same problem and just managed to fix it with the help of the comments above. I got the error on each attempt to compile the application.

My WPF application App.xaml file had Build Action: Page. As soon as I changed that to 'ApplicationDefinition' the project compiled again.

Hope this helps someone else..

-Konstantin

Answer 10

vocês são todos lindos, mas ninguem ajudou .|.

Answer 11

i also get the same error and build action are compile ....so how to get rid of it???

Answer 12

Hello, Just change from main to Main It works

Answer 13

Also make sure that App.xaml has "ApplicationDefinition" as the BuildAction on the File Properties.