Visual Studio 2010 randomly crashing

Question

Hi, 

 

I'm using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate RTM and I'm experiencing frequent and random crashes (on an avarage of once in 5-15 minutes) of the IDE after which it restarts and any unsaved progress is lost. This is really starting to be irritating.

 

The event log has these entries:

 

1. Event 1023, .NET Runtime

Application: devenv.exe

Framework Version: v4.0.30319

Description: The process was terminated due to an internal error in the .NET Runtime at IP 59ECF146 (59D50000) with exit code 80131506.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Event 1000, Application Error

Faulting application name: devenv.exe, version: 10.0.30319.1, time stamp: 0x4ba1fab3

Faulting module name: clr.dll, version: 4.0.30319.1, time stamp: 0x4ba1d9ef

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x0017f146

Faulting process id: 0x11f4

Faulting application start time: 0x01cae4e1a4469abc

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\clr.dll

Report Id: ab11a505-50d5-11df-a1ae-001fd05d001c

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Event 1001, Windows Error Reporting

Fault bucket 1776371620, type 1

Event Name: APPCRASH

Response: Not available

Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:

P1: devenv.exe

P2: 10.0.30319.1

P3: 4ba1fab3

P4: clr.dll

P5: 4.0.30319.1

P6: 4ba1d9ef

P7: c0000005

P8: 0017f146

P9: 

P10: 

Attached files:

C:\Users\********\AppData\Local\Temp\WER88E0.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:

C:\Users\*********\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_devenv.exe_7849e02bf799ffbbed9bb139a473cdbb26e1e480_2401cc07

Analysis symbol: 

Rechecking for solution: 0

Report Id: ab11a505-50d5-11df-a1ae-001fd05d001c

Report Status: 0

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Event 1023 .NET Runtime

.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.4927 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (79B21CF2) (0)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit, .NET Frameworks: 2.0, 3.0, 3.5sp1, 4.0 (all rtm).

There is no error message, no more info in the event log about it. Attaching a debugger to it only informs about the Fatal Execution Engine Error.

Could anybody from the Visual Studio Team take a look at this?

Answer 1

Hi Karim,

I'm sorry to hear that VS2010 is crashing so often for you.  The best course of action is to collect a crash dump and then file a Connect bug for each issue separately, which will route the problems you're seeing to the right team for investigation and fixing.  Each bug you file will be read and responded to individually by a member of the Visual Studio team.  Crashes can be caused by any number of features, areas, or teams within Visual Studio, and it's much easier to investigate, diagnose, and fix crashes when they're tracked by official bugs.

Thanks for using Visual Studio and sending your feedback,

Brittany Behrens | Program Manager | Visual Studio Platform - Editor | The Visual Studio Blog | @VSEditor on Twitter

Answer 2

I am facing same problem with VS2010 Release version (even same with RC version also).

I did following.

Open VS2010, create new project, Run it------------> Crash (but still in memory when u see at task manager)

Reopen

Add button to form Run--------> crash.

Reopen VS Run ---------> Runs ok

Add text box Run--------> Crash

Reopen VS Run----------> Runs ok

OS: Windows Server 2008 ( I shifted from Windows XP professional SP3 due to same crashing)

language : VB.NET

.NET : 4.0.30319 RTMRel

Visual studio version :10.0.30319.1 RTMRel

Actually we are developing application on WCF+silverlight. Here we are frustrated by crashing Visual Studio 2010 frequently.(Every editing task. more thatn 40 times a day)

 

We are proposing to buy VS 2010 very soon but I am in fear about this crashes.

This is really starting to be irritating.

Answer 3

@UserVS

I am very sorry to hear that you are hitting crashing behavior working in Visual Studio 2010.

You mention that you are working in Silverlight - is this Silverlight 4? If so, are you using the RC2 release of the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 RTM (see http://blogs.msdn.com/wpfsldesigner/archive/2010/04/15/silverlight-4-releases-silverlight-4-tools-for-visual-studio-2010-rtm-available-now.aspx for info)?

Please can I ask you capture a crash dump for the crashes you are seeing (there is a handy tool here to help you capture them: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/e8649e35-26b1-4e73-b427-c2886a0705f4 ) - this will help us immensely in isolating the root cause. Once you have a dump, please file a Connect bug - this will help us track the bug as Brittany indicated up-thread. You can send me mail at mwthomas at microsoft dot com with its ID;  I will assist you in uploading the dump (the files can be quite large and cannot usually be attached to Connect bugs).

It would also be helpful to understand:

1. Are you seeing this on several machines, or just one particular machine?

2. Are you seeing this for all projects or just a particular project (if a particular project, are you able to share it with us for repro purposes)?

3. Has this machine ever had pre-release versions of Visual Studio 2010 or the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 (other than RC2) installed?

Thanks again, and once again my apologies for the difficulties you are encountering.

Regards

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 4

Hi,

 

I've submitted a bug report with an attached dump file (I've just started the upload, so it may take some time to upload 250 MB .rar file) here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/555155/visual-studio-2010-rtm-crashes-randomly-with-fatal-execution-engine-error

Answer 5

Thanks a lot for supplying the crash dump and raising the bug. We will now work with you via the Bug for tracking purposes.

Once again, sorry for the difficulties these crashes have caused you.

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 6

I'm seeing crashes by just opening a new VS 2010 session and pressing the New Project toolbar button.  The whole VS process goes down with a check for solution online/close/debug dialog box.  If I open a new VS 2010 and open an existing solution, close it and then try New Project I get a "Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown" even though I have 2.9 GB of free memory.  The only thing I've done recently is install the April Refresh of the Windows Phone 7 Dev Tools.  The crash I see with New Project causes an AV at address 0x030b4b00. Here's the call stack:

> 030b4b00() 
  msenv.dll!CVsInternalTemplateTreeNode::GetTemplates()  + 0x30 bytes 
  16de2270() 
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll!16ec7402()  
  [Frames below may be incorrect and/or missing, no symbols loaded for Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll] 
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll!16ec7022()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll!16ec59bc()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll!16ec4fc7()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll!16ec442a()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Dialogs.ni.dll!16f19b9a()  
  clr.dll!_COMToCLRDispatchHelper@28()  + 0x28 bytes 
  clr.dll!BaseWrapper<Stub *,FunctionBase<Stub *,&DoNothing<Stub *>,&StubRelease<Stub>,2>,0,&CompareDefault<Stub *>,2>::~BaseWrapper<Stub *,FunctionBase<Stub *,&DoNothing<Stub *>,&StubRelease<Stub>,2>,0,&CompareDefault<Stub *>,2>()  + 0x175b8b bytes 
  clr.dll!COMToCLRWorkerBody()  + 0x80 bytes 
  clr.dll!COMToCLRWorkerDebuggerWrapper()  + 0x34 bytes 
  clr.dll!_COMToCLRWorker@8()  + 0x12b bytes 
  0022a1e2() 
  msenv.dll!InvokeNewProjectDlg()  + 0x1ea bytes 
  msenv.dll!HandleNewProjectCommand()  + 0x131e bytes 
  msenv.dll!HrShellExec()  - 0x181fc4 bytes 
  msenv.dll!CVSCommandTarget::ExecCmd()  - 0x530 bytes 
  msenv.dll!`anonymous namespace'::ExecForController()  + 0x61 bytes 
  msenv.dll!CSurfaceCommandingSupport::ExecuteForController()  + 0x40 bytes 
  msenv.dll!CExecuteVisitor::VisitButtonController()  + 0x1b9 bytes 
  msenv.dll!CControllerVisitorBase::DispatchVisit()  + 0x3bf bytes 
  msenv.dll!CControllerVisitorBase::VisitController()  + 0x22 bytes 
  msenv.dll!CSurfaceCommandingSupport::Execute()  + 0x3c bytes 
  msenv.dll!CommandUI::Models::Impl::CExecutableCommandElementDataSource::Execute()  + 0x62 bytes 
  msenv.dll!GenericRedispatch<CommandUI::Models::Impl::IExecuteVerbDispatch>()  + 0x66 bytes 
  msenv.dll!CommandUI::Models::Impl::CExecutableCommandElementDataSource::ExecuteVerbHandler()  + 0x13 bytes 
  msenv.dll!Gel::CDataSource::Invoke()  + 0x31 bytes 
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0.ni.dll!60ea32f7()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0.ni.dll!60ea32f7()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0.ni.dll!60e8a179()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0.ni.dll!60e8a179()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.UI.Internal.ni.dll!5fab119d()  
  PresentationFramework.ni.dll!570ec08f()  
  PresentationFramework.ni.dll!572a9050()  
  PresentationFramework.ni.dll!57217b31()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.UI.Internal.ni.dll!5fab0943()  
  PresentationFramework.ni.dll!572a8ce9()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!559e6731()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!55ac43c1()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555e7e46()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555e7dc0()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555e7ade()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!559e2b88()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!559e44f7()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!55ac43c1()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555e7e46()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555e7dc0()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555e7ade()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555d8b1d()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555d6855()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555d6802()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555f2f9b()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555f2c85()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!555f2be6()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!556400fb()  
  PresentationCore.ni.dll!55640094()  
  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.ni.dll!6e43be37()  
  msenv.dll!SCM_MsoCompMgr::FPushMessageLoop()  + 0x2a bytes 
  msenv.dll!CMsoComponent::PushMsgLoop()  + 0x28 bytes 
  msenv.dll!VStudioMainLogged()  + 0x22a bytes 
  msenv.dll!_VStudioMain()  + 0x78 bytes 
  devenv.exe!util_CallVsMain()  + 0xdb bytes 
  devenv.exe!CDevEnvAppId::Run()  + 0x693 bytes 
  devenv.exe!_WinMain@16()  + 0x88 bytes 
  devenv.exe!operator new[]()  + 0xa59d bytes 
  kernel32.dll!@BaseThreadInitThunk@12()  + 0x12 bytes 
  ntdll.dll!___RtlUserThreadStart@8()  + 0x27 bytes 
  ntdll.dll!__RtlUserThreadStart@8()  + 0x1b bytes 

Unhandled exception at 0x030b4b00 in devenv.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation.

 

 

Answer 7

I uninstalled the Expression Blend 4 SDK RC for Silverlight and now I don't see this crash anymore. 

Answer 8

Thanks for the information Keith, glad to hear you are now working again.

We'll take a look into this issue and see if we can reproduce locally. In the meantime if you hit further issues, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

 

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 9

Keith: when you were encountering the crashes, before you removed the Blend 4 SDK RC for SL, did you get the "Watson" dialog (this program had stopped working, would you like to send data to Microsoft)? If so, it is likely that a crash dump was sent to Microsoft and we'd like to find that dump and examine it. We can find the dump based on what is called a Bucket ID, which will be found in the event log around the time the crash occurred.

Please could you take a look and let me know? It would be very helpful to have this information in our investigations.

Thanks again,

Mark

 

 

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 10

I never got the dialog that asks to send an error report.  I only got the task dialog with the three options: check for solution online and restart, close and debug.  I checked my event log and here is what got logged for one of the crashses:

Faulting application name: devenv.exe, version: 10.0.30319.1, time stamp: 0x4ba1fab3
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x68c7f400
Faulting process id: 0x1218
Faulting application start time: 0x01caec946ed034ce
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: b2bc55a8-5887-11df-9a27-001e0badc1be

Answer 11

Thanks for getting back to us Keith.

According to my colleagues, there should be another entry next to the one you read, that should have the bucket id in it. If you could have a poke around the adjacent entries and see if any of them mention a bucket ID, that would be very helpful.

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 12

Here ya go:

Fault bucket 1081661473, type 5
Event Name: BEX
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0
Problem signature:
P1: devenv.exe
P2: 10.0.30319.1
P3: 4ba1fab3
P4: unknown
P5: 0.0.0.0
P6: 00000000
P7: 68c7f400
P8: c0000005
P9: 00000008
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\hillr\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VSCommon\10.0\SQM\sqmdata.cvr
C:\Users\hillr\AppData\Local\Temp\WER32B3.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\hillr\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_devenv.exe_908d362e3bc6e52d44a6ef61c8debd59d90d4da_16603de9

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 92cfce63-5887-11df-9a27-001e0badc1be
Report Status: 0

FYI, one other item is that I did uninstall Enterprise Library 5.0 RTM first but that didn't seem to fix the crash issue.  The next thing I did was uninstall the Blend 4 SDK RC for Silverlight as I mentioned before and after that, VS 2010 no longer crashes when select New Project.

 

Answer 13

Uninstall Expression Blend 4 if you have it installed. I just uninstalled Expression Blend 4 and VS 2010 stopped crashing on startup.

Answer 14

I think it is sufficient to just uninstall the one component of Blend 4 i.e. the Blend 4 SDK RC for Silverlight.

Answer 15

I am also having this problem.  VS2010 crashes, usually when I'm not even using VS.  Sometimes, even when I'm away from my PC.

 

This is all I get in the even log:

 

Faulting application devenv.exe, version 10.0.30319.1, faulting module msenv.dll, version 10.0.30319.1, fault address 0x000fa276.

Answer 16

Also crashing repeatedly when opening a .Net website solution.
Loads the first aspx, ...hangs, then crashes.
Dr. Watson comes up.

Faulting application devenv.exe, version 10.0.30319.1, stamp 4ba1fab3, faulting module fpeditax.dll, version 10.0.30319.1, stamp 4ba20479, debug? 0, fault address 0x00039870.

Bucket 1810396678, bucket table 1, faulting application devenv.exe, version 10.0.30319.1, stamp 4ba1fab3, faulting module fpeditax.dll, version 10.0.30319.1, stamp 4ba20479, debug? 0, fault address 0x00039870.

and  here is the one just previous to that crash

EventType clr20r3, P1 devenv.exe, P2 10.0.30319.1, P3 4ba1fab3, P4 mscorlib, P5 4.0.0.0, P6 4ba1da6f, P7 1164, P8 7, P9 n3ctrye2kn3c34sgl4zqyrbfte4m13nb, P10 NIL.

Bucket 1055605948, bucket table 5, EventType clr20r3, P1 devenv.exe, P2 10.0.30319.1, P3 4ba1fab3, P4 mscorlib, P5 4.0.0.0, P6 4ba1da6f, P7 1164, P8 7, P9 n3ctrye2kn3c34sgl4zqyrbfte4m13nb, P10 NIL.

I am running 2010 Ultimate RTM

I do not have Expression Blend isntalled of any kind.
I do see Silverlight,  Silverlight 2 SDK, and Silverlight 3 SDK installed.
I dont program for Silverlight currently. Will removing those fix this from what you know so far?

 

Answer 17

@russweb

Sorry to hear about the difficulties you're encountering. Since you are having this problem with a simple .NET Website solution with no Silverlight or WPF involved, this is almost certainly not the same problem.

I recommend that you raise the issue on one of the ASP.NET specific forums over at http://forums.asp.net, or better still (since you have specific details) that you raise a bug on Connect https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio?wa=wsignin1.0, with the details you have supplied above. This will get the issue attention from the correct people (this forum is specific to issues on the WPF & Silverlight designer), and will let you track the issue to resolution.

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 18

@Mark Wilson-Thomas:

I have been having lots of crashing issues with VS.NET 2010 on my Windows 7 development machine. It seems to always occur when using Blend 4 with VS.NET.  The latest instance of VS.NET (say I have 3 open instances) is always the culprit of crashing.

I followed a bunch of your links and downloaded the 'Performance Diagnostic' tool to create a dump.  I followed the directions and as expected the .dmp file is huge (>800mb). I checked the 'Connect' site link offered earlier in this thread, but it was resolved because the person had a 3rd party plugin causing the issue, so I opened a new issue on the connect site here: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/578469/visual-studio-2010-crashes-randomly-with-exception-code-0xc0000005

Please contact me if you want the .dmp file or have any questions, thanks!

Answer 19

@atconway

Thanks for taking the time to capture a dump and raise a Connect bug. We will make sure the bug is routed to the appropriate team for action.

Since dump files are generally too large to attach to Connect bugs, please make sure you highlight that you have one available in the Connect bug, and the support staff will help by making a private drop location for you so you can upload the dump.

Thanks

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 20

Yes I was able to upload it to Microsoft directly, and created a couple of more in case they have any issues with the one I provided.  Thanks for following up on this.

Answer 21

I'm also getting a crash, but it seems to only happen when the pc comes out of showing a screensaver, e.g. when the display is being redrawn

Oddly enough, 3 times this has happened Java had crashed whilst the screensaver was being shown, which caused the display to be redrawn, which crashed VS2010.

EventType: clr20r3, P1 devenv.exe, P2 10.0.30319.1, P3 4baifab3, P4 NIL, P5 NIL, P6 NIL, P7 NIL, P8 NIL, P9 NIL, P10 NIL

Note, i'll add a bucket id when it next happens

Answer 22

I work in a dev team with 8 members and we are all experiencing the same issue. VS2010 Professional crashes when we close it - EVERY TIME without fail. We have no crashes when using it which is nice - but the crash on close does have us worried. We are Win XP sp3 - Team System 2010 - Expression Suite not installed. SQL 2008 (not R2).

At home I have two machines - one Win 7 Home Premium and one Win 7 Ultimate. Both have VS2010 Ultimate - SQL 2008 R2 64-bit Developer edition - Espression Suite 4. No source contriol (I know). NO CRAHSES.

At my previous job we were XP sp3 - VS2008 - Oracle 10g and SQL 2005 - VSS and we crashed a lot on closiing but not every time like now.

I wonder if source control products could be part of the problem ??

Answer 23

To all who are seeing crashes when using the WPF & Silverlight Designer: I am very sorry about the difficulties you are seeing.

The best way to pursue and get resolution on crashing issues is to capture a crash dump and submit a Connect bug with the dump - this will then be investigated and a root cause should be able to be firmly established. Adding details of what you were doing when the crash happened, any bucket IDs from the event log and error messages preceding the issue, and a repro project if the issue doesn't repro on simple projects, will all help, but a crash dump alone is often sufficient.

Instructions on how to do this can be found here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wpfsldesigner/archive/2010/02/15/general-wpf-and-silverlight-designer-faq.aspx

(see item 2, which contains a link to a crash dump capture tool).

Once again, my apologies for the issues being seen,

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Answer 24

I get constant crashes as well, it really pisses me off, frankly.

Answer 25

Was this resolved? I tried to uninstall the Expression Blend 4 sdk.. still the same? Any information of how to avoid the crash soon after the XAML designer is opened?

 

Thanks

Answer 26

I've got this and I'm as ticked off as everybody else on this thread! What a pain!  http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vcgeneral/thread/406c3c85-e541-4cd2-82ad-15da392d180b 

How do I uninstall the Expression Blend 4 SDK? I tried Add/Remove programs but I don't find it there.

Thanks,

---

Charles

Answer 27

@Keith Hill:

> I uninstalled the Expression Blend 4 SDK RC for Silverlight 

How did you do that?

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Charles

Answer 28

Okay, MSFT, you can see that dozens, perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of customers are getting crash after crash after crash after crash from one of your flagship products. You have gotten dozens, probably hundreds or thousands of crash dumps now. HOW ABOUT SOMETHING IN THE WAY OF A FIX??? WHERE IS VS 2010 SP1???

This is a REALLY aggravating problem. It has started to affect my programming style as well as my productivity. It alters your thought process when 25% of your brain is ALWAYS going "don't forget to save, don't forget to save, don't forget to save, ... I hope it doesn't crash right now, I hope it doesn't crash right now, I hope it doesn't crash right now, ... " I find myself having difficulty focussing on any method longer than about ten lines. HELP!

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Charles

Answer 29

Okay, MSFT, you can see that dozens, perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of customers are getting crash after crash after crash after crash from one of your flagship products. You have gotten dozens, probably hundreds or thousands of crash dumps now. HOW ABOUT SOMETHING IN THE WAY OF A FIX??? WHERE IS VS 2010 SP1???

This is a REALLY aggravating problem. It has started to affect my programming style as well as my productivity. It alters your thought process when 25% of your brain is ALWAYS going "don't forget to save, don't forget to save, don't forget to save, ... I hope it doesn't crash right now, I hope it doesn't crash right now, I hope it doesn't crash right now, ... " I find myself having difficulty focussing on any method longer than about ten lines. HELP!

---

Charles

I entirely agree with you. I stumbled upon this problem a few months ago when I tried VS.NET2010 RC, and as I wasn't even able to go in my main project's settings, I decided to wait a few months before to update to VS2010.

Now I want to use some features from VS2010 for that project, and I simply can't, because VS2010 crash EVERY single time I try to open my project settings... And I have to go in the settings to be able to run the project at all...

Anyway, I find it pretty saddening that we still don't have any fix or answer from MS staff about this issue except: "We need dump files, yay!", even months after so many people started complaining, as this issue is FAR from being a rare one, nor is it hard to reproduce...

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François Boivin

Answer 30

I have submitted Dump files (.dmp) 2x for crashes of VS2010 via Microsoft Connect and had 1 issue resolved as an issue with a DevX extension, and the other one was a true issue that they said was going to be fixed in the next release.

So they do respond, but you have to use the proper channels.  Have all of you complaining of issues filled out formal Microsoft Connect (https://connect.microsoft.com/) bugs? If yes, post the link of the bug so it can be upvoted if needed to get more visibility.

Answer 31

Okay. Done: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/624958/crashes-crashes-and-more-crashes

Hard to believe that one more dump is going to make a difference. About one time in ten (say, twice a day) I click the Submit Feedback to MSFT button on the crash pop-up. What becomes of those? Can the inability to fix a problem that happens hundreds of times to dozens of people really be that I have not submitted one more dump?

I am a pro-MSFT guy. I am the guy who defends MSFT a a party when someone starts bashing MSFT. But I am starting to get REALLY cranky about this issue ...

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Charles

Answer 32

Connect sent me instructions. Took 10 minutes to hit a crash, something about a buffer overrun. I'm uploading the dump right now.

 

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Charles

Answer 33

Hi all.

Any news on this?

As additional information I can say that I had worked fine with VS2010 till I installed SQL Serve 2008 SP2 (KB2447568) one week ago.

After that, VS2010 has started crashing randomly. Now I'm unistalling that guy and see what happen...

 

Cheers

Antonio

Answer 34

Last news I know of is I submitted a mini-dump of "the" problem to Connect on Monday. I am not optimistic because talking about "the" problem is like talking about "the" star in the sky. VS 2010 for me crashes so often and so many different ways (according to the Windows event log). I just don't understand why MSFT is treating this like one or two individual problems when clearly dozens or hundreds or perhaps more people have lots of problems. I don't think this calls for the analysis of a mini-dump; this calls for a major upgrade to the product.

Whatever happens to all of those "would you like to report this problem to Microsoft?" transmissions? If they are useful for solving a problem why haven't they solved it? If they are not useful why is the dialog there? Just to make us feel like something is being done?

Some of my "crashes" are actually this vanishing act in which VS 2010 is running fine one moment and then just silently disappears -- no "we're sorry" pop-up; it's just gone. I wonder how they intend to get a mini-dump for that one?

Ah well. I am trying to be optimistic. I am waiting for Connect to get back to me and I will take it from there. If it still crashes I will report that crash. What a stupendously annoying waste of productivity!

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Charles

Answer 35

@Charles:  I don't work on the WPF Designer and don't know the status of the individual issues on this thread, but I can comment on what happens when you send a report to Microsoft.  Each time you click that button, VS sends logs and crash data to the VS team (with personally identifiable information removed, of course).  This data goes through an automated system that tries to aggregate your report with other reports of the same crash, which helps us know how many times a given problem in happening (which helps address your concern about MSFT treating this like a few individual problems instead of approaching instability more systematically).  In all cases a bug is filed directly in our bug database and usually assigned to a developer for investigation.  We look at every crash that comes in, and we try to work on fixing crashes with the highest number of hits first.  Although you can't check on the status of your issue, as you can for Connect bugs, these reports are by far the most effective way to get your crash on our radar, investigated, and often fixed.

It sounds like nearly everyone on this thread is doing the best things you can do when VS crashes:  opt to send the automated report to Microsoft and, if you can reproduce the crash, file a Connect bug with a crash dump.  The difficulty with forum threads like this is what Charles alluded to - 'random crashes' for N different people are very, very unlikely to all have the same root cause, and they're nearly impossible for us to investigate without repro steps or a crash dump/call stack.

We really do appreciate the time and effort you all spend reporting issues to Microsoft, and we really do look at these issues and take them seriously.  Hopefully any future service packs for VS 2010, which are likely to include fixes for a large number of crashes, will help improve reliability and reduce the crashiness you're seeing.

Brittany Behrens | Program Manager | Visual Studio Platform - Editor | The Visual Studio Blog | @VSEditor on Twitter

Answer 36

Brittany, thank you, I appreciate your efforts and I'm trying not to be negative but this thread goes back to APRIL!!! When would it be reasonable to expect some general relief such as a service pack?

What would you be thinking if some tool you used for a critical part of your job crashed again and again and again, sometimes ten or twenty times in a day? I am getting angrier and more frustrated with each passing day.

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Charles

Answer 37

When this happened to me recently, I ran under the debugger (VS2010) and found the exception at address 0x68c7f400. Googling yielded this link:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsphone7series/thread/35053521-247b-4cad-893e-c56da9b90235/

I'll include the post from Eddie Frederick:

 

1.)  Launch devenv.exe /Log C:\output.txt from a command prompt running as Administrator.  This allows VS2010 to launch in Log mode and will log Information, Warning and Error entries to this text file.

2.)  I noticed in the Log file there were several entries with "Duplicate Project Template Found".

3.)  Renamed the "ProjectTemplateCache" folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common 7\IDE to something else and created a new empty "ProjectTemplateCache" directory.  (* I probably could have just deleted the contents of ProjectTemplateCache and been fine).

4.)  Ran devenv.exe /installvstemplates

This fixed the problem.  This as all after install the April CTP Phone Tools.  I had a different set of problems installing the beta tools that required (at least I couldn't find a different workaround) a complete uninstall of all Silverlight related runtimes/tools and Visual Studio 2010.  Reinstalled VS2010, then all of the silverlight tools/runtimes and then the Beta tools and everything worked as expected.

 

I followed these steps (from an elevated command prompt) and it seems to have fixed the problem. I had the Windows Phone 7 beta, then uninstalled and put the RTW bits on. The problem occurred at some point after that. I have Expression 3 installed but the Expression 4 WP7 only build is still installed.

Microsoft Expression Blend 4, 4.0.20901.0

Microsoft Expression Blend SDK for Windows Phone 7, 2.0.20901.0

Windows Phone 7 Add-in for Visual Studio 2010 - ENU, 10.0.30319

I hope this helps some others. Thanks Eddie!

 

Answer 38

I have no add-ons whatsoever. I don't think Windows Phone 7 is any part of my problem (because I don't have it). In any event not sure why you proposed my rant as the answer ...

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Charles

Answer 39

I can confirm that so far (1 and 1/2 day intensive coding), after Sql Server 2008 sp2 uninstallation, the problem has gone.

 

Antonio

Answer 40

I don't have any SQL Server 2008 but there was some SQLEXPRESS in the service list. I had no idea what could be using it so I stopped it and changed it to manual start to see if anything complained. So far nothing has. VS was perfect all afternoon Friday, and then it crashed twice in a little over an hour today. I am an experienced debugger and there is just no pattern whatsoever that I can pick up, other than that "lots" of open documents seems to make the problem more frequent.

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Charles

Answer 41

I opened a Connect problem as described above. I uploaded a dump almost a month ago. So far I have heard NOTHING back. I am frankly disgusted.

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Charles

Answer 42

I opened a Connect problem as described above. I uploaded a dump almost a month ago. So far I have heard NOTHING back. I am frankly disgusted.

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Charles

Same...

I commented in this thread 2 months ago, sent a dump too.

And now today, I was developing using Visual Studio 2010, and for around the 100th time this month, VS2010 crashed with this same error code, sending me in a huge curse words maelstrom as I hadn't saved for a few minutes. Starting over what I just did. AGAIN.

This ritual being repeated a LOT too often for my tastes...

I can't count how many hours this random crash made me waste over the last year. At least 2hours only last week wouldn't even be exaggerated... So I think I'd prefer not to know how many hours over the last year.

So, I'd love to know : When will I be able to use my main working tool normally, WITHOUT the fear of losing everything I've done, over and over?

I couldn't put it in a better way than tsrCharles did. I am frankly disgusted.

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François Boivin

Answer 43

It is kind of pathetic. It is shareware level support (post your issue on a forum and hope for the best) for a product that is definitely not priced like shareware.

I *just* (after a month !!!) heard back from the connect folks. "Did we Say a mini-dump? We meant a full dump." FOR WHICH OF ABOUT 100 DIFFERENT CRASH SCENARIOS???

I have just gotten into this "type a little -- hit save" habit. That, plus keeping a minimum number of documents open at once seems to help. Also, if you have not already done so, set your auto-save interval down to one minute so VS remembers to save even if you forget.

I think I saw something somewhere that said there was a beta (?) of an SP1 for VS2010 available. (Never heard of a beta for an SP but maybe I'm not very up-to-date on these things.) I think I will give it a try. How much worse could it be?

Also a new machine is on my agenda; maybe I'll have better luck with VS under 7 than under XP.

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Charles

Answer 44

Also a new machine is on my agenda; maybe I'll have better luck with VS under 7 than under XP.

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Charles

I wish you good luck. What I can tell you, is that the issue isn't better on a Vista machine.

For now, yesterday I personally transitionned back to VS2008, picked an old version of my project, transfered every new function I had coded while using VS2010, and now it's working like a charm.

I'm sure not everyone can go back to a previous version of VS like that, but I feel lucky that I could. For now I'll keep using VS2008, AND SUGGEST EVERYONE I KNOW NOT TO BUY VS2010 UNTIL THIS IS FIXED.

And now also, I feel dumb asking my boss that we get VS2010 to improve our productivity and our development, when it did the exact opposite, until I roll back to VS2008...

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François Boivin

Answer 45

<sarcasm>

Obviously my problem is all solved because Connect has closed my problem:

The following feedback item you submitted at Microsoft Connect has been updated: Product/Technology - Visual Studio and .NET Framework Feedback ID – 624958 Feedback Title – Crashes, crashes, and more crashes. The following fields or values changed: Field "Status" changed from "Active" to "Resolved".

Field "Resolution" changed from "Not Set" to "Not Reproducible".

</sarcasm>

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Charles

Answer 46

Here is the link for the SP1 Beta: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2010/12/07/announcing-visual-studio-2010-service-pack-1-beta.aspx

Sounds like what MSFT is doing is adding features, not fixing the crashes:

"Service Pack 1 (SP1) continues that momentum of focusing on improving the developer experience by addressing some of the most requested features like better help support, IntelliTrace support for 64bit and SharePoint, and including Silverlight 4 Tools in the box."

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Charles

Answer 47

Again I would like to apologize for the problems everyone has been having, in addition to the lack of responses on this thread.  I would like to dive into the root of these problems and get VS back up and running without crashing for each of you.  As Brittany mentioned earlier, it is very unlikely that all random crashes N people are having are due to the same root cause. 

To start diagnosing this problem, it would be very helpful to first categorize it.  For anyone that is having crashes when using the WPF & Silverlight designer, please log a connect bug with a callstack and crash dump.  Once logged, please feel free to post the ID on this thread.  If you already have logged a bug and it has not been responded to, I apologize.  We do very much appreciate connect bugs and we look into every connect bug that gets logged.  Please post the connect IDs and I will look into them.  You can email me at: Jeffrey.Ferman <at> microsoft <dot> com.

Also please try the Sp1 Beta and give us some feedback.  @tsrCharles: We on the WPF & Silverlight Designer team did fix crashing issues in the SP.  While features were included in the release, it was not only focused on features - many fixes for performance and reliability were included.

Jeff Ferman | Program Manager | WPF & Silverlight Designer | Jeffrey.Ferman <at> microsoft <dot> com

Answer 48

Jeffrey, thanks for your interest. As I said, I was really beginning to doubt that anyone at MSFT cared.

I am pretty disappointed with the Connect process. I submitted a Connect and gave them what they asked for. Two months(!) later they came back and asked for a full dump rather than a mini-dump, and then closed the problem as "not reproducible."

I agree, I am having more than one kind of crash. To begin with, I have THREE major types of symptoms:

- VS generates a "sorry" box and goes away
- VS generates a "sorry" box but continues running as though nothing had happened.
- VS does this mysterious vanishing act. It just goes poof! and it's not there anymore.

I listed a whole bunch of radically different crash sumptoms in my Saturday, November 06, 2010 11:58 PM post on http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vcgeneral/thread/406c3c85-e541-4cd2-82ad-15da392d180b

In addition, I have at least two OTHER unresolved VS problems: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vcgeneral/thread/9d986862-6e79-4061-8157-83aa90a0a04e and one I have just noticed where one document is open and has the apparent "focus" but keystrokes go into a different tab. Very annoying because you start typing and you end up messing up some file you did not intend to alter.

It's also pretty slow.

As I wrote in the last thread above, I have simply come to the conclusion that VS 2010 is not ready for prime time and perhaps never will be. It may just be one of those "best skipped" MSFT products like Windows 3.0. Yes, I will give SP1 a chance when it goes non-beta. If it is not a significant improvement then I will write VS 2010 off as a bad learning experience and painfully port everything back to VS 2008.

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Charles

Answer 49

Charles,

I apologize on how that particular Connect issue was handled.  I cannot speak for every team across Visual Studio, however if you have a full dump, I am more than happy to re-open the issue and direct it back to the correct team.

I have taken a look at your other post as well to look at the types of crashes you are seeing.  To solve any of these problems, we really need to grab a bucket ID, call stack, and/or crash dump.  If you can grab any of these by using a tool such as this handy one: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/e8649e35-26b1-4e73-b427-c2886a0705f4, it would greatly help.  I know you have heard this often.  Please send me mail once you get these dumps and then we can start diagnose these issues.

Please log other issues as well.  Do you have a set of repro steps for the focus issue?  If you do, I would be happy to pass it on to the correct team to look into (if you have a connect ID - I will pass that along as well).  Please feel free to email me in regard to this as well.  I am also pretty interested in your comment on VS 2010 being pretty slow.  Are there specific actions that are slow?

As a member of the WPF & Silverlight Designer team I would like to work directly with you to diagnose any crashing issues, performance issues, or feature bugs that you are finding while working with XAML based projects.  For all other issues, I would like to understand the issues and pass you on to the proper team who should be able to help diagnose and fix these problems.

Jeff Ferman | Program Manager | WPF & Silverlight Designer | Jeffrey.Ferman <at> microsoft <dot> com

Answer 50

Hi, Even I am getting frustrated with this issue and no response by Microsoft. I had never imagined such an unstable version by Microsoft and that too 'Professional'...... My post could be viewed @ https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/641856/visual-studio-2010-professional-trial-version-crashes-intermittently#tabs

Answer 51

I know this is late, but I had the same problem and it took some time to find a solution.  Hopefully this will help someone else.

This worked for me:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/lightswitchgeneral/thread/db052ef4-b595-4d28-8db1-c9037c4ce435

Delete/Rename the SUO file.

Answer 52

I am getting this same crash problem when I try to add a dataset from an Access database. I was able to catch VS 2010 before it crashed and had it try a debug. It found an issue with Wldap32.dll!75961777(). Does this mean anything to you Microsoft techs?

Answer 53

greeting.

I don't know if this can help but to these guys who get err code "clr20r3", I can say, your problem can be solved right here, right now.

the full info you get from this crush should be like this:

  event name: CLR20r3
  sign 01: devenv.exe
  sign 02: 10.0.30319.1
  sign 03: 4ba1fab3
  sign 04: Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Data
  sign 05: 10.0.0.0
  sign 06: 4ba1d707
  sign 07: 1f6
  sign 08: e
  sign 09: System.ArgumentOutOfRange
  OS ver: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
  section ID: 2052

  other info:
  LCID: 1033

and I try these steps to solve this nightmare:

run devenv.exe /safemode
run devenv.exe /resetuserdata
disable service: Windows Font Cache (run services.msc)
delete font: Deja Vu Sans Mono (in controlpanel\font)
run: cmd sfc /scannow
run: office diagnose
reinstall: .NET framework
uninstall: Silver Light
reinstall: VS2010

but all these issue can't not help even a little.

and just a minute before I want to give up and then go back to VS2008, I find this:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/B/A/EBA0A152-F426-47E6-9E3F-EFB686E3CA20/VS2010SP1dvd1.iso

1.48GB service pack for our VS2010.

althought I still wonder why Microsoft still keep the older VS2010 download link there with no indicator tell us there is a sp1 exist, but after I patch it up, it works!

------------------

frtheva

Answer 54

Thank you - running in log mode made it very clear that my recent client access for windows IBM upgrade actually broke my machine.config by adding an entry with no closing tag:

Log file:

  <entry>
    <record>102</record>
    <time>2011/11/29 18:10:14.123</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>Extension Manager</source>
    <description>Error loading extension: The extension manifest is invalid. There is an error in XML document (0, 0). The type initializer for &apos;System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializationReader&apos; threw an exception. Configuration system failed to initialize The &apos;DbProviderFactories&apos; start tag on line 154 position 4 does not match the end tag of &apos;system.data&apos;. Line 156, position 4. (C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config line 156) The &apos;DbProviderFactories&apos; start tag on line 154 position 4 does not match the end tag of &apos;system.data&apos;. Line 156, position 4. </description>
    <path>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Architecture Tools\Components\extension.vsixmanifest</path>
  </entry>

 

Actual bad lines of machine.config (C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config):

  <system.data>
  <DbProviderFactories>
   <add name="IBM DB2 for i .NET Provider" invariant="IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries" description=".NET Framework Data Provider for IBM i" type="IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries.iDB2Factory, IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9cdb2ebfb1f93a26" />
</system.data>

 

I am on Windows 7 64-bit and have MS Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, and was installing the IBM i Access for Windows Version 7 Release 1 upgrade ,and the patch SI44594_64a.exe.  Not sure which one actually wrote to the machine.config.

Hope this helps someone.

Jeremy

Answer 55

Hi Everyone,

I think I am seeing that everyone has a very similar issue like mine. I have visual studio 2010 utlimate on windows server 2008. Suddenly it crashes on startup a couple days ago and it was working fine. To fix this error please follow steps below. It worked for me.

1. startup your Visual Studio Command Prompt

2. type devenv /resetuserdata

startup Visual Studio should work fine now. The problem seemed to be the solution file is corrupted. doing the command will reset your customize settings.

Answer 56

If it makes you happy to mark this as answer then be my guest, but it in no way solves the problem.

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Charles

Answer 57

Hi Everyone,

I think I am seeing that everyone has a very similar issue like mine. I have visual studio 2010 utlimate on windows server 2008. Suddenly it crashes on startup a couple days ago and it was working fine. To fix this error please follow steps below. It worked for me.

1. startup your Visual Studio Command Prompt

2. type devenv /resetuserdata

startup Visual Studio should work fine now. The problem seemed to be the solution file is corrupted. doing the command will reset your customize settings.

your answer to solve my problem,thank you very much!!!

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我也是.net狂热一族

Answer 58

I experienced a situation where VS crashed more and more often, totally randomly. Finally it crashed all the times when I opened the project. I found out that I opened more and more files. The solution was to delete the .sou file for the solution.

Answer 59

I am experiencing a lot of crashes when developing MVC and WPF, should have something to do with mscorlib and the rendering.

I am trying this to resolve, not sure if this works.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/500696/why-does-visual-studio-crash-opening-aspx-with-mvc-rc1

it tells us to ngen /delete frameworkpackage

don't know while we even have to go through this kind of trouble.

Answer 60

I'm so frustrated by the number of random appcrashes I'm receiving. The only thing I can add to the conversation is they seem to be created more frequently when the focus is changed from the debug session to some other window. I had a cluster of failures this morning that seemed to have been triggered by Alt-Tab actions, or me clicking a window in my 2nd monitor.

I do seem to have more issues when I'm actively using my 2nd screen.

Where's the hotfix for this issue ?