Debugger error: Unable to Step. The operation could not be completed...

Question

Hello, all -

When stepping through code, I am getting the following error:

Unable to step.  The operation could not be completed.  A retry should be performed.

 

After clicking OK, the following message displays:

The debugger cannot continue running the process.  The operation could not be completed.  A retry should be performed.

 

The problem is sporadic, but it is happening to several developers on the team with alarming frequency (several times per hour).  Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this issue ? 

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Denise

Answer 1

 

I've just started getting this error. Don't know why it just suddenly started happening!!!

 

Did you make any progress on it?

Answer 2

Hello, Will -

I'm afraid we haven't made much progress.  We opened a ticket with Microsoft, and their advice was to check in changes and get latest more often. This seemed to help a little but the error still occurs. 

 

Needless to say, I am completely baffled why being in synch with vss would make a difference.  The Microsoft tech wasn't able to explain this either. 

 

Will let you know what else we find...

 

Denise 

Answer 3

I, too, have begun seeing this error while debugging in Visual Studio 2008.

So far, it has been limited to times when using an asynchronous call, or this is the only time I have noticed it (however, I can't imagine not noticing it happening).

Has any progress been made with this error?  I have been unable to pin-point anything specifically at this time.

Answer 4

Hi,
Several people on my team are also started getting this. We just switched to VS 2008, not sure if that is related or not. Has anyone figured anything out about this?

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi
www.sedodream.com

Answer 5

I have been investigating this issue with one customer. I haven't yet gotten to bottom of this.

 

Gregg

Answer 6

I disabled debugging script from IE, and it seems to work better. Haven't tested it too much yet, but seems to work thus far. I'm using IE 7 BTW.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi
www.sedodream.com

Answer 7

Hi,

I disabled debugging script from IE, and it seems to work better. Haven't tested it too much yet, but seems to work thus far.

I'm using IE 7 BTW.

 

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi
www.sedodream.com

Answer 8

This has been happening for a while under VS2008.  Looking forward to the solution.

Answer 9

How many people who are having this problem are also setup to debug into the .NET source code?

Answer 10

I am not setup on this machine for stepping into .NET source.


Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi
www.sedodream.com

Answer 11

Thanks to the help of one extremely helpful customer, I was able to identify the problem last night. This is a bug in the debugger. There is a race condition that happens when all of the following are true:

1. Script debugging is enabled in IE
2. User is debugging IE and another process
3. The other process stops (hits breakpoint, step operation completes, stops at an exception, etc) at a moment when IE is not running script code
4. IE starts running script code at roughly the same moment that the user hits F10/F5 in Visual Studio. The most likely reason for this to happen is that the code from 'setTimeout' is run, but I am not a JScript expert, so I am sure there are other possible reasons as well.

Now that we have finally found the cause, we are going to work on getting a fix into future versions of Visual Studio. I will try my hardest to get this into Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

 

In the mean time, there are a couple of work arounds which you can try:

1. If you hit this problem, I believe you could detach the debugger and then re-attach.

-or-
2. This problem happens when debugging ASP.NET and when script debugging is enabled in IE. If you disable script debugging in IE, or toggle it on and off when switching between debugger server-side and client-side problems, you would be able to work around the issue.

-or-
3. If your web application is using setTimeout, you may be able to avoid or at least reduce the problem by doing something to ensure that script runs less often. This could mean increasing the timeout value, or this could mean adding conditions around when setTimeout is used.

 

Thanks to everyone's help and we are sorry that you are experiencing this issue,

Gregg

Answer 12

Thanks for the hint! I enabled 'Just my Code' and it's working again.

Answer 13

I was also experiencing this problem and after disabling script debugging everything worked again. Thanks!

Hopefully this issue can be fixed in a subsequent service pack.

Answer 14

Hi,

I follwed all the steps which are illustrated by Gregg, really it couldn't solve the issue .In VS-2008 not only this, lot of issues are still open

1)If ur aspx page contains lot of controls and weight morethan 400kb.while browsing  if u do any changes in design and press Ctrl+s automatically Microsoft visual studio.Net encountered a problem need to restart u will get . I can challenge this error still alive

2)Microsoft recommended  minimum 1 GB to use, but for 2GB also vs.net(2008) launching time takes more...........

remaining i will post soon .................