Linq to SQL Designer "The operation could not be completed"

Question

The Linq to SQL designer is broken in my installation of VS 2008, whenever i try to open a dbml file i get a message box saying "The operation could not be completed" (Very usefull error!)

 

Ive been working on a VS addin which uses linq, everything was working fine yesterday but when i tried to open the project today it wouldnt compile because of the following error

Error 1 Build failed due to validation errors in [...]IssueTrackerDataContext.dbml.  Open the file and resolve the issues in the Error List, then try rebuilding the project.[...]\IssueTrackerDataContext.dbml 1 

 

and when i tried to open the dbml file i get an error "Error encountered, check error list window for details"

and so i check the error list only to see the error "could not retreve the current project"

 

None of these errors actually mean anything so I was hoping that I had just somehow stuffed up the dbml file (even though it was checked into source safe and had not been changed) and so i created a new project, added a new linq dbml file and woah, i cant even open that! (This is where i get the error "The operation could not be completed")

 

Next thing i did was to ensure that my addin was removed from the addin directory and i reset all the vs 2008 settings, tryed to create another new project but I get the same issue

 

So basically im stuck with a dead VS 2008 which is a very bad thing as I am in the process of trying to get my boss to upgrade our London and New York offices to 2008... and if i let him know whats happened then there's no way that is going to happen in the forseeable future

 

please help!

 

-Kris

Answer 1

I tried doing a repair and that didnt work, so I un installed VS 2008 and then re installed it and i STILL get the problem!

I'm a bit desperate now, any help would be much appreciated

 

-Kris

Answer 2

I tried all sorts of things and nothing worked, eventually i found this post

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2461259&SiteID=1

 

Quoting the fix from the thread that worked for me:

 

I deleted 'just' the values underneath the subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Packages

It seemed that MSVS had decided not to load my designer tool on startup and marked it to be skipped next startup.

After deleting these values, everything worked again.

Answer 3

From the "Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt" type

devenv /resetskippkgs

This operation will reset the "skip flag" from the designer package, together with other pakages however.

Andrea

Answer 4

 

I got this error after I added an existing project to my solution. I could not figure out why it all the sudden Visual Studio hated my DBMLs.

 

They opened fine.

I check that they were encoded utf-8 (not that I was using linq-to-sql in Beta).

I tried the devenv /resetskippkgs and it was still giving me grief.

 

Finally, I unloaded and re-loaded the projects (right-click) and the errors magically disappeared and it compiles fine.

 

-Sean

 

 

Answer 5

thanks Kris.  that worked.

Answer 6

Thanks so much!!!

Answer 7

Long time after everybody in this post had this problem, but the solution 'devenv /resetskippkgs' worked for me too.

Thanks Andrea.

Answer 8

Thanks Kris.  It's work for me. freaky bug!

Answer 9

both regedit and cmd prompt arg solution did not work for me.

After successfully adding a new dbml and trying to recreate the dataclasses I got a Event Log full error; Once I cleared the event logs I was able to open the faulty dbml files. Hope this helps. 

Cheers

Answer 10

Thanks Andrea! Worked for me.