Visual Studio 2008 Crashes When Opening Project Properties

Question

I have a multi-project .NET application which I am developing in Visual Studio 2008. If I try to open the project properties for one of my projects (to change settings or publish) Visual Studio immediately closes. There is no prompt to send a report to Microsoft, and two consecutive errors logged in the Event Viewer:

• .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3053 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A035E00) (80131506)
• .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3053 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A2E0F92) (0)

If I delete all the .user and .suo files in my solution, I can once again publish and access project properties. The error, however, returns over time. This seems to suggest that the .suo or .user files are getting corrupted by Visual Studio. Has anyone else had this issue or know how to fix the problem?

Answer 1

Looks like a bug in the CLR which affects add-ins (see here). Are you running any add-ins, and have you updated Visual Studio and the .NET framework to the latest service pack?

Answer 2

Turn off all of your add-ins and try again. Use Tools->Add-in Manager.

If that doesn't help, run VS in "safe mode", by using devenv /safemode from a Visual Studio Command Prompt window.

Answer 3

I am experiencing the same problem as the original poster, I try to open my project properties and VS just disappears completely, generating the same 2 errors in my event log as described above. I am running VSTS 2008 with .NET 3.5 SP1.

I am not using any add-ins and have tried running VS in safe mode but am unable to open my projects this way. I am using the Composite Application Library as part of my solution and none of my module projects are loading, it says that the project type is not supported by the installation.

Has anyone else found a workaround / fix for this problem?

Answer 4

I don't know what really caused the problem, but I could fix it by File -> Source Control -> Refresh status

Answer 5

I experienced the same issue (VS 2008 SP1) with VSS source control. When viewing the project properties for my WPF project, VS would immediately close.

I tried apandit's suggestion and Pieter's tip and it resolved the problem - everything is working normally now.

Answer 6

VS2008 would disappear when I attempted to open project properties. Finally solved it by doing a clean on the solution. Many hours of frustration wasted when the cure (at least in my case) was so simple (-:).

Answer 7

when opening project properties causes vs to crash I found out that cleaning and NOT rebuilding the soulution worked reliably. I have no add-ons but program WPF and have had quite a few issues with WPF/vs not wanting to cooperate...

Answer 8

I had a similar problem today that was solved by uninstalling Power Commands for Visual Studio 2008. If you have this installed, I recommend removing it and trying again.

Answer 9

I had exactly the same problem. Everytime I open the project properties or a resource file (.resx) vs2008 will stop responding and the task manager will show the cpu utilisation as 100%. I solved it by deleting the .suo file in the solutions folder and got a fresh copy from the source control and then from the VS2008 command prompt I typed in "devenv /resetskippkgs" . This restarted VS2008 and I could open my resources files and also the project properties.

Answer 10

Build / Clean Solution resolved the crashing issue. My Event log (Application) contained

.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.4200 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (6BF56198) (80131506)

Answer 11

Yes, I have experienced it many times. The problem goes away if I delete all the view private files (we use ClearCase here), .suo and .user included.

Answer 12

Same here, deleting just the .suo file fixes the problem and I can load my VS 2008 solution which as 4 projects (C#, C++/Cli, and two native C++).

Steve

Answer 13

I have a similar problem. When I try to open the project properties in stead of crashing it does nothing. I have no plugins, it happens with every project I have, it does not go away by deleting .suo or .user files.

Any boady has an idea of what it might be?