Visual Studio 2013 IntelliSense stops working for ASP.NET MVC5 Controllers

Question

I am facing a weird problem in my Visual Studio 2013 ASP.NET MVC 5 project. All of a sudden, the IntelliSense in the Controller classes of the MVC 5 project are not working at all.

I have other class library projects in my solution and IntelliSense is working in those class library project files, but the problem is only within the MVC project. Usually these kinds of problems are solved by restarting Visual Studio: not only did I restart Visual Studio, but I also restarted my computer, and the IntelliSense problem is not getting fixed at all.

Are there any other steps that can get me IntelliSense back?

Claudication

Answer 1

I have found one way to solve the problem. That is, 1. -> Remove the ASP.NET MVC Project from Solution, 2. -> Then, add the MVC Project back to the Solution.

By doing these steps, I can get the Intellisense again. But, I am not happy with this solution though, because, next time when I double click the Solution file to open the solution, I see the intellisense is not working again. I would like to know the real reason why it is behaving like that.

EDIT:

Finally, I figured out that it was a 3rd party visual studio extension which was causing the problem. In order to find out that extension, I removed all extensions and then, added the extensions one by one and stopped where I found the culprit extension that was taking my sleep away :).

Claudication

Been dealing with this for a month and it's driving me crazy. Removing and readding from the solution (although a pain) did work for me too. Thanks! – Gabel

Which extension was to blame? – Weiland

In my case, it was Xamarin extension, but I do not want to say bad about Xamarin, because, their customer support is super excellent. As soon as I reported the problem, they provided me the fixed version quickly. Moreover, the most recent version of Xamarin extension does not seem to have that problem anymore. My point is, any extension's specific version can cause such problem, we may need to uninstall the extensions one by one to find out which is causing the problem. For example, a future version of today's good extension can cause such problem too. We need to watch out in that case. – Claudication

Unloading the project and reloading it worked for me too thankyou! – Breskin

You should also try this if you got at this point and nothing works: https://mcmap.net/q/172489/-visual-studio-2013-intellisense-stops-working-for-asp-net-mvc5-controllers – Giorgio

That's for this, it really helped me out. It's still a pain, but it's much less a pain then closing out VS completely. I run a plain version with only 1 added extention which is AnkhSVN, that I can't remove. – Hexagonal

In my case it was the Xamarin extension. Uninstalled it and the problem went away. This was the latest version too! – Stock

I had the same issue with the Xamarin extension, but for some reason only with one particular project. It was an expired trial so I just uninstalled it and syntax highlighting came back. – Paleography

Answer 2

Close Visual Studio. Delete the <ProjectName>.v12.suo file. Reopen solution.

Resuscitate

Thanks for the info. I will try this trick next time if my Visual Studio intellisense stops working again. – Claudication

I've found that deleting the suo file fixes a lot of issues. It's like the Visual Studio equivalent of a reboot. Thanks for reminding me. – Goy

Yep... fixed the issue for me right now. My ProjectName.v12.suo was 982 KB in size. Deleted it. Closed the solution. Reopened the solution and a new ProjectName.v12.suo got created. Intellisense is back again but this new .suo file is only 500 KB in size now. Really interesting. Maybe Microsoft should fix this bad behaviour? Somehow it causes VS to lose Intellisense and it's really a pain to work without it. :) – Giorgio

Did not work for me. What worked for me was resetting my settings. – Cusec

This fixes the IntelliSense problem but you also loose all breakpoints, bookmarks etc. at the same time. – Hent

Hmm. I don't have any .suo files, and I haven't seen any since VS2012, so I figured they were replaced with something else. What gives? – History

As some already stated. This is the magic wand for many issues. Kudos! – Latoya

In addition to deleting the .v12.suo file, after relaunching Visual Studio, I have to cut/save/paste/save the content in the front-end .ascx control. As soon as I do that, IntelliSense works again. I'm using VS 2013. – Kantianism

Answer 3

Resetting my settings or importing previously exported, working settings, and restarting Visual Studio worked: Tools > Import and Export Settings... > Reset all settings.

EDIT: This keeps happening to me, surprisingly often in VS Express, and occasionally in VS Professional. One thing I noticed in Pro, is that it has happened after unexpected shut downs (when IT forces a reboot in the middle of the night). So it may be related to Visual Studio not closing correctly. The technique described above has worked every time.

Oresund

Thanks, today, I had the Intellisense problem again and your solution solved the problem. – Claudication

Thanks, this worked for me too. If you read to the bottom try this before you remove all your extensions. – Involutional

:D I actually removed all my extensions first. Anyway, it worked! – Spiritual

this fixed my issue as well – Provitamin

This was the best option. Excellent. – Armourer

Had the issue after installing .net 4.6 targeting pack. This resolved it. – Outwork

This solved my issue after I installed VS2013 (coming from 2010) – Mariehamn

Unexpected shutdowns can corrupt *.sdf SQL Server Compact database. There's a hotfix for that: support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2960153 – Carolyn

Answer 4

Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > General

Make sure that "Auto List Members" is checked

Desperation

This worked for me. Deleting the .suo file has worked on many occasions before, but this time it did not. – Butts

This worked for me. Visual Studio 2013. IT switched us to a new domain and lost all VS settings. – Boarer

Answer 5

You can unload project and reload the MVC project from solution

1. Right Click on MVC project in solution explorer -> "Unload Project"
2. Right Click on MVC project in solution explorer -> "Reload Project"

After this the Intellesense rework quickly.

Bysshe

Excatly what I wrote in Apr 10, nice! https://mcmap.net/q/172489/-visual-studio-2013-intellisense-stops-working-for-asp-net-mvc5-controllers – Hent

Answer 6

• Tools -> Options
• Text Editor -> C# -> Intellisense
• Ensure "Show completion list after a character is typed" is checked

VS2013 intellisense code completion

Trahan

This worked for me. I'm not sure if the install defaulted these to be unchecked, but the following were unchecked for me and this was a fresh install. "Auto list members" "Parameter information". I was not getting the intellisense on method parameters either. The only plugin I have is GhostDoc – Lithography

@Lithography Thank you! This was the correct answer for me with VS2013. – Supercharger

Answer 7

I'm not sure why it occurs, but when it happens to me I can recover Intellisense by simply restarting Visual Studio.

You're right, it's really annoying.

Argueta

Answer 8

Sometimes RESET of VS settings can help:

TOOLS->Import and Export Settings Wizard->Reset all settings->checkbox "No, just reset settings, overwriting my current settings"->Next>Next>Next

I had messed them with RESHARPER, and this helped.

Mucosa

well, it WAS like that for me, sorry. I had messed them with RESHARPER's settings. – Mucosa

Upvoted. Resharper has played havoc with my settings in the past. – Chervonets

This is acceptable only for someone who hasn't customized anything. – Crowther

Answer 9

I found that the best way to fix IntelliSense issues is to simply unload the project in the solution explorer and load the project again. After that IntelliSense is always working for me and I do not loose bookmarks, breakpoints or any other settings.

Hent

This is the simplest way. T.Y. – Taffeta

Answer 10

I have found that if the build fails then the Intellisense seems to break. After fixing my build errors and rebuilding the project the Intellisense will work after reloading the particular Razor file.

Apostate

Answer 11

In my case, restart didn't work.

So I did the following weird steps :

1. Closed the solution
2. Opened another solution
3. Verified that intellisense worked in this other solution.
4. Closed the other solution
5. Finally, reopened the first solution.

And the intellisense worked again.

Homeric

This didn't work, but it was a good troubleshooting step to see if it is the project or visual studio itself that is causing the problem. – Ladysmith

Answer 12

Usually this happens when the buffers have an error in them. Most of the time the local cache error is cleared when you close a, windows form, for example and reopen therefore reloading it into memory. Many of the solutions above work but sometimes it as as simple as closing the item and designer and reopening the item.

Additionally you can try to force a reset by

Ctrl+K, Ctrl+I shows quick info Ctrl+Shift+Space shows you param info

Hundredth

Answer 13

I tried lots of things which didn't work. In the end, I cut code to clipboard, recreated the controller and pasted code in. Problem solved!

Ballroom

Answer 14

I too have the same issue with Intellisense in my Text editor.

i just close example.cs file which is not providing Intellisense and reopen that class without restart Visual Studio it works for me.

Note : i don't have the same issue with all the .CS file in Solution Explorer

Multiplicand

Answer 15

I use VS 2013 and I had the same problem. My solution was update VS to last version. I my case Update 4. Simply reference in project must match with assembly in GAC on computer (OS). Intellisense come from VS not from project.

I hope that will handy for some one.

Messiaen

Answer 16

... Yet another answer - but this was the cause of my pain: I'd installed Developer Assistant which had been working nicely but suddenly stopped providing suggestions. To get it working again:

options -> developer assistant -> Intellisense -> Default Visual Studio Intellisense

Took me 5 hours to find that :(

HTH.

Vassar

Answer 17

Tools->Options->Text Editor->C# (or All Languages)->General

check the check box for enable Auto List Members and Parameter Information in right hand side pane.

If its not selected,select it.

Autopsy

Answer 18

Save everything and restart Visual Studio!

Girt

Answer 19

I get this exact same thing every time I work with one particular MVC5 project. Restarting VS2013 does not work. Deleting suo files does not work. Resetting all tools settings does not work. The only thing that ever works is removing the project from the solution and adding it again. Seeing as I have to do this every day is is really quite annoying. Especially when I have it set to reopen the last files I had open, I then need to track down the ones I was working on and re-open them instead of the popping up automagically..

Lightfooted

Answer 20

I'm using VS 2013 with MVC 5. The solution for me was to add the following to Web.config:

<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5.1">
  <assemblies>
    <add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <add assembly="System.Web.Optimization, Version=1.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
  </assemblies>
</compilation>

Cambrian

Answer 21

Rushonerok's solution works great for me.
For anyone who doesn't know: <ProjectName>.v12.suo is a hidden file in project root folder. You must set on "Show hidden files" in your file browser to see it.

Kimberlykimberlyn

Answer 22

So far some these solutions have not worked for me.

I have the following Workaround

Simply declare the type you want to use explicitly in a new variable and use that instead of Model.

@model MyModel
MyModel mymodel = Model;

@mymodel.MyIntelisenseIsWorkingAgain

Slime

Answer 23

To solve this I closed Visual Studio Express 2013 and I reopened the Solution but double clicking on its .sln file directly from the file system. Opening it from the Start Page had my controllers intellisense broken.

Roose

Answer 24

Closing and opening the Visual Studio Solution worked for me.

Fitzpatrick

Answer 25

Sometimes you close it by mistake. Try ctrl+space for windows or cmd+space for mac to turn it on.

Endora

Answer 26

I know I'm a bit late, but adding this to my App.config file did the trick!

<system.web>
    <compilation>
        <assemblies>
            <add assembly="System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>
        </assemblies>
    </compilation>
</system.web>

Bergamo