SOS! Designer always crashes in Blend for Visual Studio 11

Question

When I opened Blend for Visual Studio for the first time to work on the snapped view of my Windows 8 app, the designer crashed. I reloaded it, restarted Blend, but it just doesn't work.

Here's the error:

An unhandled exception has occured.

System.Runtime.Remoting.RemotingException: [1692] Designer process terminated unexpectedly!
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.ProcessDomainFactory.ProcessIsolationDomain.Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IIsolationDomain.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String assemblyCodeBase, String typeName)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.IsolationBoundary.Initialize()
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.IsolationBoundary.CreateInstance[T](Type type)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolatedExportProvider.Initialize()
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolationService.AttachEvents(IsolatedExportProvider exportProvider)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolationService.CreateLease(IIsolationTarget isolationTarget)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.CreateLease(IIsolationTarget isolationTarget, DesignerServiceEntry& entry)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.CreateDesignerViewInfo(IIsolationTarget isolationTarget, IHostSourceItem item, IHostTextEditor editor, CancellationTokenSource cancelSource)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.<>c__DisplayClass21.<CreateDesigner>b__1f()
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.InvokeWithCulture[T](CultureInfo culture, Func`1 func)
   at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.<>c__DisplayClass4`1.<StartTask>b__3()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task`1.InnerInvoke()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()

Edit: I've even re-installed Visual Studio 11, Blend still crashes.

Answer 1

I cannot repro this issue in our latest bits. This should be fixed in the next public release of Visual Studio.

Does Blend work correctly for the default landscape view ?

Also if you have a sample repro \ project , I can verify that it is fixed in our latest bits for sure

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Dev@Mic

Answer 2

The designer never works for any view on any projects. Not even if I start a new project.

Answer 3

Can you try this workaround ?

http://blendinsider.com/xaml/known-issue-xaml-designer-in-visual-studio-11-beta-crashes-on-launch-2012-03-07/

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Dev@Mic

Answer 4

I've already tried that when designer was crashing in VS11. That workaround doesn't work for Blend.

Answer 5

For me this workaround doesn't work even for VS 2012. So many bugs in this release, I am disappointed that I installed it very much.

Answer 6

Can you try this this CTP. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797912?wa=wsignin1.0. If it crashes after installing the CTP can you please send me the entire stack to [e-mail]

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Dev@Mic