Problem with VS 10 (VB) Settings Designer and Assembly Not Found

Question

I have a VB solution (VS10) that contains about 8 projects.  Various projects reference various other projects, but in once case ALL projects reference one top level DLL (QVBOB). 

The solution and all projects build and run just fine, however for two of my projects (Common and Main), when I access the settings deisgner, I do not see the settings, instead I see an error stating that the 'Assembly QVBOB.DLL or one of its references cannot be found'.  The error just started today, and I have been wokring on the solution for 3 years,

As noted, the project builds and runs correctly so I know the DLL is fine.  Also, for all of the other projects that reference the same DLL, the Settings Designer works just fine.  For the two projects (Common and Main), where the settings designer does not work, deletion of the App.Config file in each project causes the Settings designer to work, but just one time, untill the App.Config file is re-created, then it fails again.

In the case of one of the projects, there is a setting that references a type in the QVBOB.DLL (so this might make sense), but in the other project, there is no setting that references the QVBOB.DLL, so this makes no sense.  I have deleted ALL DLLs and rebuilt, changed assembly info on the QVBOB.DLL, and I even rolled back the entire solutions to a previous state (loosing a days worth of work), but still it does not work.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Calphalon,

Do you install any other application or any addins recently?

If yes, please try to unistall them, this issue maybe caused by this application or addins.

And then try to use "devenv.exe /resetsettings” to restore Visual Studio default settings.

If this issue remains, please try to use the Visual Studio Setup Wizard (via Control Panel) to repair Visual Studio.

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Lucy Liu [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Lucy,

I should have been more clear in my post. 

I did not install anything new between the issue working and not working.

I also did VS repair prior to my post.

I did not do a reset settings.  Since I did a repair, is there any reason to try that at this point.

Regards

Answer 3

OK, I have done each thing you descibed and I still have the problem.  This is starting to be a reall issue for me.  Getting desperate.

Any other ideas?

Update - Let me add that deleting the .SOU file fixes the problem, but just like deleting app.config, it fixes it only one time.  After that one time and the .SOU file is recreated, then the problem comes back.  I can't work this way. need help. please.

fyi - Here is a screenshot of the error message.