SpecFlow: "Step bindings are still being analyzed. Please wait."

Question

I keep getting the same message whenever I right click a scenario and "Generate Step Definitions" or "Go To Step Definition".

It worked the first time I tried, but it hasn't since.

I've filed a bug report, but in the mean time, anyone know how to solve this?

Pavid

Steps are generated automatically, so I'm not sure where you are coming from here. – Seafarer

@AdamHouldsworth the issue normally shows up on right click go to step definition. This also generates a dummy step if you haven't already gotten one. I imagine this is what the OP means – Limes

@AdamHouldsworth I've tried to carify what I'm doing a bit. – Pavid

Answer 1

Over five years later and I'm getting the same problem... Here is the solution that worked for me:

1. Close the solution in Visual Studio.
2. Go to your temp directory in Windows Explorer (enter %temp% in the location bar).
3. Delete the 'specflow-blah-blah.cache' file.
4. Reload the solution in Visual Studio, rebuild the solution and give SpecFlow a bit of time to sort itself out.

Woorali

Answer 2

ive gotten this issue before, we have about 800 SF tests in one of our projects and when we first load it can sometimes take quite a lot of time for it to load up. For me its always sorted itself out eventually.

Another thing to try would be to upgrade to 1.9 which came out a few days ago, it may have improved performance.

Limes

This is my first Feature in the project, so it definitely shouldn't be taking this long. Also I'm using VS2010, SpecFlow 1.9.0, SpecFlow.NUnit 1.1.1. – Pavid

Oh ok, in that case it should be near instant. – Limes

Seems like a few people are having issues, Gaspar is normally pretty quick to respond to things, so i suppose see what he says. groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/specflow/… – Limes

Answer 3

Although I'm using the last (1.9.2) I had the same problem. Re-opening VS2010 solved the issue.

Heartbeat

Answer 4

I've found a work around for this problem; close the solution and delete the .SOU file. Re-opening the solution then re-creates this file and the SpecFlow context menu options then work.

Testee

Answer 5

I got the the same issue when I moved external assemblies to specflow.json file from app.config

1) Turned out that I got an assembly reference which didn't even have specflow nugets.

2) I renamed one assembly, but for some reasons the old name wasn't replaces in AssemblyInfo.cs file. I changed it manually, cleaned the project. Cleaned the specflow cache (see previous answers how to do this) and it worked.

So, check if all the references and assembly names are correct.

Cheers

P.S. Don't forget to setup "Copy to Output Directory" option for specflow.json :D

Unthankful

Answer 6

If you are still unable to force the steps to bind, but just need to get to the definition of a given step:

1. Place a breakpoint on the first step of the scenario
2. Debug test
3. Step into the function (F11 by default)
4. There you are! VS navigation may not work but the debugger knows the way:)

I get this may not be a direct solution to the original issue with steps not binding, but I think it gets where the OP wanted to go...

Finsteraarhorn

Answer 7

The root cause of this issue is your code has poor performance and that cause the slowness and hangs your Visual Studio or due to low performance of code Visual studio moves in unresponsive state.

The solution is improve the performance of your code. You need to optimize your code in all the possible ways:

1. Use less inputs in each step
2. Use less parameters in your parametrized methods
3. Avoid unnecessary loops
4. Divide the number parameters into more methods if taking more than 5 parameters. It will improve the performance.
5. Divide the input values into more sub-step or separate steps, it will improve the performance and speed of the code.
6. Use switch case instead of if else statements if there are more cases.
7. Free up the occupied memory if the reference variables or objects are no more of use.
8. Read data from external sources and store them into objects or lists locally and minimize make it one time read from external source once and access the values copied locally in the lists or any other objects/variables.
9. Close or quite the external files or call to them after use.

Hope this is the best way to improve the performance of code and this issue will not happen for sure and your steps bindings and definition will be more smooth and easy.

Gillead

Thanks for your answer but it definitely wasn't the application, the problem happened even with a simple project and a trivial scenario and step definition. – Pavid

Answer 8

We fixed it like this:

1. close Visual studio
2. Deleted the obj and bin folders under the project(s),
3. open Visual studio again.
4. rebuild

After that the .feature files "came back to life"

Syndetic

Answer 9

1. Download Visual Studio. During installation, choose a different location where current Visual Studio files are not present.

2. After installing Visual Studio, open your project and then install Spec Flow.

3. After installing Spec Flow, perform a Clean solution and Rebuild the project.

4. Close Visual Studio.

5. Delete all the data from the debug folder located within the 'bin' and 'obj' directories.

6. Reopen Visual Studio and wait a few minutes until all the test files are loaded.

7. Now perform Clean solution and Rebuild the project again.

8. Select any Spec Flow file from your project and try to step into the definition file.

9. Step bindings are still being analyzed. Please wait message will not display. user will be in stepdefination file.

Bennion

Could you suggest why do we need to download Visual Studio when it works just by removing the debug files, as answered by Jens Kloster 3 years ago. – Javelin