DataTable visualizer disappeared from my Visual Studio

Question

A while ago I noticed I don't have a magnifying-glass next to my datatables. I used to have it, and somehow, sometime, it disappeared...
Has anyone seen this happen? Do you know how to help me view my datatables again?

Update: I'm still clueless about this. Could anyone point me in some direction, where should I even start looking for an answer? Thanks a lot.

Update: I changed to a new computer, and still the same problem. But I pinpointed it to being only in Visual Studio 2005. On Visual Studio 2008 I have perfectly normal DataSet and Datatable visualizers. So I tried re-installing VS2005, to make sure all the components were installed, nothing left out - but Nada. Still no visualizer.

Update: Found the solution to my problem: My answer

Linnealinnean

.NET Core 2.0 no go for now social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/… – Drillmaster

They seem to have added the visualizer back for .NET Core 2 in Visual Studio 2019 – Planimeter

Answer 1

I was really bothered by the problem, so I turned to Microsoft support, and they solved my problem! The short solution is that apparently one of the DLL's in the My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Visualizers folder was corrupted. I deleted all the contents of the folder, and the visualizer came back.
The long answer can be found in this post written by Faruk Celik - the person from Microsoft who solved my problem.

Linnealinnean

Answer 2

1. Create a new clean project, does the Visualizer show up there?
2. Check if this file exist: "\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8.0\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger.DataSetVisualizer.dll"
3. Check if the dll is loaded in Visual Studio, Open your project, then open anther Visual Studio, attach the debugger into the first Visual Studio (Make sure that managed debugger is selected). Inside the debugging Visual Studio open Debug/Windows/Modules to see if the DataSetVisualizer is loaded.
4. try devenv /ResetSettings from an admin console.

Conyers

I checked, and the file does exist. – Linnealinnean

Thank you for your edit! 1) No 2) Yes 3) I'm not sure I fully understood the process, but I did open 2 Visual studios and the same project in them, and attached the 2nd's debugger to the 1st VS - and I don't see the DataSetVisualizer in Debug/Windows/Modules – Linnealinnean

Thank you for your continuous help - I tried devenv /ResetSettings but it didn't help :-( – Linnealinnean

Answer 3

I know this is an old post, but I have been fighting this same issue. Nothing solved my problem... I finally figured out that I had been running Visual Studio in compatibility mode (Windows 7 os). Once I ran devenv.exe without compatibility mode set, the visualizers showed up again.

Aten

Hi @ablesa. It's fine to answer old questions. Thanks for your input. – Linnealinnean

Answer 4

Give devenv /resetskippkgs a try...

Senzer

at first glance this looked like a horrible typo of "resetsettings" – Leekgreen

Answer 5

I am using Visual Studio 2017 and I had the same issue. I realised the visualizers folder is missing in my documents. I think this is something to do with the recent windows upgrade on the office computer. I have resolved it by creating an empty Visualizers folder.

Fincher

I had the problem in Visual Studio 2019 and it also turned out to be a result of My Documents\Visual Studio 2019 not containing a Visualizers folder. Creating an empty one fixed it. – Peppercorn

This was my problem, while using Visual Studio 2017 and had the folder for this version, another install of Visual Studio 2019 did not. This affected 2017 so I added the folder to the 2019 location and it fixed my visualizer. – Parthena

Answer 6

I have the same problem and it drives me crazy. Finally, I have it works after trying many advice from Googling and trail and error.

1. \Common7\IDE\devenv.exe /resetuserdata at the command prompt.
2. I rename Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger.DataSetVisualizer.dll to Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger.DataSetVisualizer.dll.test on both C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies And \My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Visualizers

Gae

Answer 7

I was having the same problem, nothing would appear when I hovered over my dataset variable. I was finally able to see the dataset visualizer when I added my.forms in front of my dataset variable in the Watch window

Varus

Answer 8

I tried everything in this post but nothing worked for me. I am running Windows 7 64-bit. Eventually I was able to find a solution in this post

C

Answer 9

Execute Visual Studio as administrator. Right click and execute as administrator and the magnifying-glass appears next to datatables.

Eyler

Answer 10

I tried everything here but the only thing that worked for me was to overlay 2 folder using someone else VS 2019 that had the visualizers working.

1. C:\Users\XXXXXXXX\Documents\Visual Studio 2019\Visualizers --< XXXXXXXX = the user folder
2. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers

Ainsley