How to fix Error: "Could not find schema information for the attribute/element" by creating schema

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I have a windows forms application written in VS2010 with C# and get the following errors in the app.config file:

Message 4   Could not find schema information for the attribute 'name'
Message 8   Could not find schema information for the attribute 'name'
Message 12  Could not find schema information for the attribute 'name'
Message 5   Could not find schema information for the attribute 'serializeAs'
Message 15  Could not find schema information for the element 'CCP_Utility.Settings1'
Message 2   Could not find schema information for the element 'CCP_Utility.Properties.Settings'
Message 3   Could not find schema information for the element 'setting'
Message 1   Could not find schema information for the element 'userSettings'
Message 6   Could not find schema information for the element 'value'

What do I have to change in the code to fix this issue? Where can I edit what's in CCP_Utility.Settings1 and CCP_Utility.Properties.Settings ?

Here's the app.config code:

<configuration>
<configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="userSettings" type="System.Configuration.UserSettingsGroup, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" >
        <section name="CCP_Utility.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" allowExeDefinition="MachineToLocalUser" requirePermission="false" />
        <section name="CCP_Utility.Settings1" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" allowExeDefinition="MachineToLocalUser" requirePermission="false" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>
<userSettings>
  <CCP_Utility.Properties.Settings>
    <setting name="SourceDir" serializeAs="String">
      <value />
    </setting>
    <setting name="TargetDir" serializeAs="String">
      <value />
    </setting>
    <setting name="CorpID" serializeAs="String">
      <value />
    </setting>
  </CCP_Utility.Properties.Settings>
    <CCP_Utility.Settings1>
        <setting name="sourceDir" serializeAs="String">
            <value />
        </setting>
        <setting name="targetDir" serializeAs="String">
            <value />
        </setting>
    </CCP_Utility.Settings1>

   </userSettings>
</configuration>

Inspirational answered 14/3, 2011 at 19:32 Comment(4)

This looks like a dupe of this question: #180427. Check the answer by @user57433. – Sheathbill 14/3, 2011 at 20:39

@rsbarro, Where is the EntLib configuration tool and DotNetConfig.xsd file located? – Inspirational 15/3, 2011 at 13:55

Sorry, I didn't realize that user posted two answers to the question. I was referencing the second answer. That answer, while correct, was a little unclear so a provided a more detailed answer below. – Sheathbill 15/3, 2011 at 14:12

Thanks, rsbarro! StingyJack's original question was limited to errors using enterprise library configuration sections, not simply any custom config section. – Frigorific 20/6, 2011 at 5:28

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UPDATE Sept 2015
This answer continues to get upvotes, so I'm going to leave it here since it seems to be helpful to some people, but please check out the other answers from @reexmonkey and @Pressacco first. They may provide better results.

ORIGINAL ANSWER
Give this a shot:

In Visual Studio, open your app.config or web.config file.
Go to the "XML" menu and select "Create Schema". This action should create a new file called "app.xsd" or "web.xsd".
Save that file to your disk.
Go back to your app.config or web.config and in the edit window, right click and select properties. From there, make sure the xsd you just generated is referenced in the Schemas property. If it's not there then add it.

That should cause those messages to disappear.

I saved my web.xsd in the root of my web folder (which might not be the best place for it, but just for demonstration purposes) and my Schemas property looks like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\xml\Schemas\DotNetConfig.xsd" "Web.xsd"

Sheathbill answered 15/3, 2011 at 14:10 Comment(14)

@rsbarro, Thanks your response! Why do you have 2 xsd files? I created the schema and came up with just 1 file- app.xsd which I saved to the root directory. The errors dissapeared but now i get a warning: "The global element 'configuration' has aleady been declared". Any idea on how to fix this? – Inspirational 15/3, 2011 at 16:10

The DotNetConfig.xsd file was there by default. The Web.xsd was generated when I did "Create Schema". You could try this: clear the Schemas properly entirely, and then check if you have a DotNetConfig.xsd file at the location listed in the answer and if so, add that to the Schemas property. See what errors you get, and then try to regenerate the app.xsd. – Sheathbill 15/3, 2011 at 16:45

@rsbarro, Thanks your response! I do have the file at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\xml\Schemas\DotNetConfig.xsd. How do I clear and add files to the schema's property? – Inspirational 15/3, 2011 at 16:57

Just use the Properties dialog to select your schema or add another schema. When you are viewing the app.config, right click in the editor window and select Properties. You should see Schemas in the Property Editor control that pops up. Also, if you click the "..." button in Schemas it lets you select the schemas you want to use for your config file using a nice GUI. – Sheathbill 15/3, 2011 at 17:8

@rsbarro, thanks for your response! How many schemas do I want to use? I added app.xsd schema which I saved to the properties folder and dotnetconfig.xsd which is under the visual studio 9.0 schemas folder. Is there anything else I shuold add? It has reduced my errors for schema but not completely for some reason... – Inspirational 16/3, 2011 at 12:59

@Brian McCarthy, not sure. In my project I just have the dotnetconfig.xsd and the web.xsd, and I'm not seeing any warning messages for my web.config. If you're still seeing warnings messages though I wouldn't worry about it too much. They're more annoying than anything else. – Sheathbill 16/3, 2011 at 14:44

This answer is one of the most useful in SO in my coding memory -- cheers! – Frigorific 20/6, 2011 at 6:6

Thanks. This worked, but is there a good place I can read to understand WHY this happens? It seems like I just all of a sudden needed to generate a schema for my web.config after adding a lot of content for DotNetOpenAuth and then re-generating an edmx file from scratch. It makes sense in a "You changed a lot of things, so something got wonked." sort of way, but it would be helpful to know why the web.config file would spontaneously need a schema. – Expressive 5/1, 2013 at 5:49

When you generate your Web.xsd file, include just the schemas that you add in your web/app.config sections (user sections). Exclude all other that already in default schema or others .xsd included. – Zermatt 11/7, 2013 at 2:59

You can reference the default schemas, not need to create them manually. The default schemas are in: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\xml\Schemas\1033. You can reference multiple schemas, like DotNetConfig.xsd, EntityFrameworkConfig_5_0_0.xsd and RazorCustomSchema.xsd etc. Make sure to put double quotes around the paths, and separate multiple schemas by spaces. – Marylandmarylee 13/5, 2014 at 16:59

NO NO NO!! This is not the "solution", since its not even a real problem. See and vote for @pressacco's answer. Also reexmonkey's answer works. Why is this answer getting so many positive votes? 1. Simply ignore! Close the app.config or web.config and compile you won't even see the messages. 2. Although no need to, solve by right clicking the .config properties correcting the path to the VS supplied XSD. (@pressacco's answer) 3. Or: change project settings DotNet version and back. Repeat twice. (reexmonkey's answer). May cause problems with package updates. – Aftonag 29/4, 2015 at 10:2

Seems like a tedious tedious compared to the below ones. – Asbury 11/10, 2016 at 9:49

root cause analysis would be handy here. is MSDEV confused as to the location of the schema data and this "fix" causes it to relocate the original schema? Or is it looking at the new file. That's not clear to me. I'm getting the error today on a valid schema. It's also not clear if the error is coming from the MSBuild system or some error checking done by Visual Studio (2013 in my case), which would be MSDEV. – Culley 15/3, 2017 at 14:56

Doing this makes the info messages go away, but instead I am getting 2 additional warnings: "Imported Schema for namespace 'urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.vs' was not resolved" and "The global element 'configuration' has already been declared." How to fix that? – Generate 18/10, 2017 at 13:17

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Quickest, easiest laziest way to solve the problem:

Right-click on the project icon in Solution Explorer and choose "Properties".
Go to the "Application" tab and choose an earlier .NET target framework.
Save changes.
Go to the "Application" tab and choose the initial .NET target framework.
Save changes => problem solved!

Sewage answered 19/2, 2013 at 19:20 Comment(12)

This might not work on the first try. I needed to do it twice before it worked in VS 2013 Express. – Gemma 25/4, 2014 at 14:55

Sadly no joy with VS2013 Ultimate. – Duffer 22/4, 2015 at 11:5

if not works. be careful for nuget packages. (open up web.config>XML Menu>Add>yourProject\Packages\BlahLib\blah.xsd)add xsd files in xml schemas if any xsd file is published in your nuget packages. than do this trick. – Scibert 18/5, 2015 at 17:4

this worked in the Enterprise 2015 RC trial on a vb.net win form – Elga 2/7, 2015 at 19:36

Worked for me in Visual Studio 2015. Would be nice if someone could explain why. – Reckless 9/10, 2015 at 20:23

Does not work for me in VS 2013 Professional. This workaround may be laziest but it's neither quick nor easy, simply because it has no effect. – Lucrative 18/4, 2016 at 8:15

wonky. but it worked. changed. saved. changed back. saved. problem gone. VS2015 Update 2, .NET 4.6.0138 – Wellfound 18/6, 2016 at 3:43

Didn't work, VS2015 update 2, .NET 4.5.2. It looks like it makes the messages go away, but then if you simply open up the XML file again, they come back. – Sharpset 10/10, 2016 at 18:1

Worked for me too in Version 14.0.24720.00 Update 1. Only difference I had to upgrade the existing version from 4.5 to 4.5.1 after saving to older 4.0 version. – Moia 5/1, 2017 at 17:41

With VS2017 Enterprise on following these steps left me with two entries in the schema list: DotNetConfig.xsd and DotNetConfig45.xsd, which in turn gave multiple warnings that types were already declared. DotNetConfig45.xsd will remove these messages (as advertised) but since the other schema: DotNetConfig.xsd cannot be deleted from the list, it gives the duplication of types warnings. That said, it's not a big deal, the messages are just an annoyance and are preferable to the warnings. I'm just leaving it as-is. – Meshach 6/12, 2017 at 18:49

Errata:It seems to have only temporarily worked in VS 2019. I'm not sure what changed in my project, but I'm seeing this error again. – Neibart 25/9, 2019 at 23:44

That worked thanks Or you can change the framework then put back the version you had – Ashling 30/10, 2020 at 20:37

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181

UPDATE Sept 2015
This answer continues to get upvotes, so I'm going to leave it here since it seems to be helpful to some people, but please check out the other answers from @reexmonkey and @Pressacco first. They may provide better results.

ORIGINAL ANSWER
Give this a shot:

In Visual Studio, open your app.config or web.config file.
Go to the "XML" menu and select "Create Schema". This action should create a new file called "app.xsd" or "web.xsd".
Save that file to your disk.
Go back to your app.config or web.config and in the edit window, right click and select properties. From there, make sure the xsd you just generated is referenced in the Schemas property. If it's not there then add it.