Project Settings - xml false error

Question

I have having a problem with either the VS.NET 2005 IDE or one of the Addons I use. I use VisualSVN, and CodeSmart, and I have the free tools from DevExpress (Refactor!) installed as well. I'm using VS 2005 Pro w/SP2.

My problem is with the Settings tab of the Properties page and occurs for every VB project I work on. The other guy that works on these libraries (my boss) does not get the error.

The only contents of the Settings tab is 1 or 2 connection strings. We use the builtin Connection string type to set the connection string.

The message I get when I go to settings for any of the libraries I work on is this (I'm not allow to use images yet, but the message is short.):

Microsoft Visual Studio

An Error occurred while reading the app.config file. The file might be corrupted or contain invalid XML.

I've checked and rechecked the XML contents of app.config and it is valid. That it's driving me crazy is also valid.

Has anyone using these tools experienced this problem?

Answer 1

I've noticed the same problem. I'm using an external Configuration Strings file ().

When I remove this element, the error message goes away. The problem is that my connection string management strategy requires this approach, so I'm stuck for the moment.