Visual Studio freezing (crashing) while loading solution

Question

I've met with a strange problem. I had 7 projects in the solution. I had to add another MVC project. Now when the document (from the new project) is opened (for example HomeController.cs) and when this project is initializing at the start, it freezes the whole IDE like this:

(Some projects do not load)

After that, I have to kill the process. When I open VS again and fast click on another project (which is initializing) the freezing issue is gone. I have no idea what can cause a problem like this. I've tried with and without ReSharper but I get the same result. Also, I restored default settings of VS. Also repaired whole VS.

Maybe someone had the same problem and could give some helpful advice?

Poteet

Possible duplicate of Why Visual Studio 2015 freezes crashes hangs on Designer view? – Hyalo

Answer 1

Usually removing of the hidden .vs folder in solution directory fixes the problem.

Magdeburg

@ElteHupkes, unfortunately, this problem is not reproduced for me for a long time already. Try to delete temp files, disable plugins or load VS in safe mode devenv.exe /SafeMode – Magdeburg

This applies to VS 2019 too! However, do you know what is it with the .vs folder that could case VS to hang. – Padron

This is valid for VS 2022 also! Deleting the .VS folder worked for me. Without it, many sub processes would do don't-know-what, and hangs VS. – Carmina

Visual studio recreate that folder when you start the project next time. – Blitz

After so many years, never improve. It's crazy 80% of the time is spent fixing the tool rather than actual programming. – Nazar

2023 and this still happens, actually happening more now in VS2022 than ever before – Compress

Works, and if it persists, run CCleaner to clean up junk files. – Waverley

Answer 2

Possible solutions:

• Delete .vs folder as mentioned above

• Clear temp files from %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp

• Readjust source control in Tools -> Options -> Source control -> Plugins, set to None, Save, close VS. Then reopen it and reset the plugin.

There is no particular order, but one of them might help.

Nariko

This works for me too. But come on Microsoft. Your own development environment running on your own Operating System and you still can't get it right. facepalm – Raker

Is this answer for Visual Studio 2019? – Maes

For me helped "Readjust source control in Tools -> Options -> Source control -> Plugins, set to None, Save, close VS. Then reopen it and reset the plugin.". I switched off GIT plugin, closed VS and reset again... Thanks. – Socha

Works, and if it persists, run CCleaner to clean up junk files. – Waverley

Answer 3

I experienced the same issue with VS 2019 and fixed it by deleting the user.json file from %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Visual Studio Setup

EDIT

The issue reappeared after a few days, so I located the user settings for Visual Studio 2019 (%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\16.0_f124b472) and deleting the following files seemed to have reset VS to a normal state:

Current.vsk
User.vsk
ObjBrowEx.dat

Please close all your solutions before deleting the files

Taeniacide

Glad I came back here to see your edit because it reappeared for me too! It works now after I deleted only the User.vsk – Noleta

I deleted ObjBrowEx.dat and User.vsk but it didn't fix the issue – Toothbrush

What worked for me was: Opened another solution, ran it, and closed the solution Then opened the solution that was causing "not responding" issue and no more freezing – Toothbrush

Answer 4

I used to have this problem, it was solved just by double clicking any of the stuck projects. This nudges the loading process somehow and causes unloaded projects to complete its loading.

Gaylord

I have been doing that way before knowing the real answer. But at the end your suggestion doesn't solve the problem. – Poteet

Right. I basically ignored the popup. I could still click on the project elements, so when I built/ran the project it went away. – Falsity

After downloading Progress Telerik UI extension, VS 2022 pro was crashing. Double-clicking the solution resolved my issue. Thanks for sharing! – Loutish

Answer 5

Delete the .suo file in the solution folder.

I am pretty sure I found this answer somewhere on Stackoverflow before, but now I can't find it anymore. Credits to whoever came up with this.

Chateau

Answer 6

None of above answers worked for me and found this solution. By opening solution in safe mode devenv.exe /SafeMode will show you details about file causing issue and then

• Search for all the files in the project directory with extension *.user
• and remove them all
• last reloaded the projects

Alyworth

For me a old Database project caused the VS to crash... executing VS in safe mode helped me to find the issue. – Myra

Answer 7

For Visual Studio 2019, I cleared my %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp folder. It worked.

Fervid

Answer 8

When you get over the past install multiply versions and the previous version was not fully uninstalled. This cause this issue in my case.

Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features
Search for all Visual Studio related programs and Uninstall those.

Tonsillotomy

Answer 9

For my case I need to delete the .vs all the time. Then I found out this link and did the setting. The issue never come back ever since.

https://msicc.net/how-to-work-around-ide-freezes-in-visual-studio-2019-when-switching-between-build-configurations/

1. Open Tools / Options in Visual Studio 2019 and find the Projects and Solutions node
2. Unselect ‘Allow parallel project initialization
3. Click ‘OK’ and close the solution

Nazar

Answer 10

Run command dotnet build before open VS

Rumor

Answer 11

What worked for me was: Opened another solution, ran it, and closed the solution Then opened the solution that was causing "not responding" issue and no more freezing

Toothbrush

Answer 12

Solution That worked for me:

Step 1- devenv.exe /SafeMode (Will open your Visual Studio in SafeMode)

It will show the reason, why it's failing to load your project.

For me - ActivityLog.xml was corrupted. You can delete that file. Visual Studio will automatically generate a new activity log file.

Step 2 - Close the Visual Studio and Reopen your project. It worked for me.

For safer side -

1. Delete .vs folder from your project folder
2. Delete temp files under path :: C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Local\Temp

Billhead