Visual studio - Extension installation "Cannot find setup engine instance."

Question

I'm trying to install the Qt add-in for Visual Studio 2019 Preview (Community), but the add-in is causing an error during installation.

First I was trying it with Visual Studio 2017 (Community), but was having difficulties, so I reinstalled VS17 twice. Finally, I uninstalled that, and installed Visual Studio 2019 Community Preview (which this particular extension is also supported for), and am still having issues.

I installed it through the built-in Visual Studio extension service.

I'm new to Visual Studio, normally I use QtCreator, but was wanting to debug my project with Visual Studio's superior debugging tools. How do I go about fixing this problem?

1/25/2019 8:02:28 PM - Beginning to install extension to Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017...
1/25/2019 8:02:28 PM - Found setup instance 883a9c0e but not in launchable state.
1/25/2019 8:02:28 PM - Install Error : System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot find setup engine instance.
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.SetupEngineUtility.GetCurrentSetupInstance(IEngineHost engineHost)
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.SetupEngineService.CreateEngine(IEngineHost engineHost, IServiceProvider serviceProvider, InstallFlags installFlags)
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionEngineImpl.PerformSetupEngineInstall(InstallableExtensionImpl extension, Boolean installPerMachine, Boolean isPackComponent, IDictionary`2 extensionsInstalledSoFar, List`1 extensionsUninstalledSoFar, IInstalledExtensionList modifiedInstalledExtensionsList, IProgress`1 progress, InstallFlags installFlags, AsyncOperation asyncOp, Version targetedVsVersion, IInstalledExtension& newExtension)
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionEngineImpl.InstallInternal(InstallableExtensionImpl extension, InstallFlags installFlags, IDictionary`2 extensionsInstalledSoFar, List`1 extensionsUninstalledSoFar, IInstalledExtensionList modifiedInstalledExtensionsList, AsyncOperation asyncOp, IProgress`1 progress, Version targetedVsVersion)
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionEngineImpl.BeginInstall(IInstallableExtension installableExtension, InstallFlags installFlags, AsyncOperation asyncOp, Version targetedVsVersion)
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionEngineImpl.InstallWorker(IInstallableExtension extension, InstallFlags installFlags, AsyncOperation asyncOp)

Edit: After yet another uninstall and reinstall of everything, it suddenly worked. Yay? I have no idea what was different this time around.

Palpitation

Answer 1

I was experiencing this issue when I was trying to port a Visual Studio Extension forward from 2017 to 2019.

First I updated the Manifest file as appropriate to support Visual Studio 2019.

Then, once I hit the error 'Cannot find setup engine instance', I had a look in the 'Visual Studio Installer'.

The final step turned out to be adding the 'Visual Studio extension development' workload, which was initially not installed.

Tess

Worked fine after installing extension development. Thanks! – Namedropper

Microsoft really dropped the ball on this. Thanks ever so much – Amadeus

This fixed the problem! :-) ... just submitted an issue to the Microsoft Docs page: github.com/MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs/issues/4894 – Bushed

fixes the issue in VS2022 Professional edition – Unholy

Answer 2

I just updated visual studio 2019 and signed in. Afterwards, the issue was fixed and I could easily install extensions.

Jape

There was a pending update. After updating, it worked. – Josettejosey

It was not working for me on 16.4.6 but after updating to 16.4.20 it worked – Embryo

Answer 3

Following Steps are required

1. Click on Control Panel -> Programs -> Program Features

2. Select Visual Studio 2019 and click on change

4. Install Visual Studio Extension Development

6. Restart your System.

Option

Answer 4

In my case, I opened the Visual Studio Installer and found out that there was a paused update. Resuming and finishing the update fixed the problem.

Deva