Software Architecture, Agility & .NET

Visual Studio.Net ruined my day

Argh, today I ran into problems with Visual Studio.Net 2003, and they took me almost all day to solve. Sh** happens I guess.

First, I tried to compile on my system, but Visual Studio.Net kept complaining that he couldn't open the Web project. I tried all tricks that I could think of, including emptying the directory in C:\InetPub\wwwroot, and nothing worked. Then just to make sure the problem was related to Visual SourceSafe -- the team I'm working with is using this terrible source code control system, I'm afraid --, I cleaned up all links with VSS and tried to open the Solution, and that worked. So VSS was the culprit. For that problem at least.

I fixed the issues by:

• completely removing the source code from my hard disk,
• clearing the Visual Studio.Net Web Cache,
• removing the Virtual Directory in IIS, and
• opening the Solution using File / Source Control / Open from Source Control.

Then I could open the Solution just fine and compile...

Only to bump into Problem #2.

Whenever I built and ran the Web site, I got a "Parser Error: Could not load type <xxx>".

Strange. Looked at the code, it was fine. Looked at the reference in the ASPX file, it was fine.

Rebuilt. Same problem.

Cleaned the Web Cache again. Same problem.

Reset IIS. Yep, same thing.

Rebooted the darn-diddly-arn PC. No change.

I once read that, after all else has failed, you should read the manual. So I looked up this error on MSDN and found that you "just have to build" the project... Which is exactly what I was doing. To make sure, I opened the generated DLL with Reflector and surely, the code was fine.

OK, so after rebuilding and cleaning caches and removing bin and obj and so forth for about 20 times, I was ready to kill someone. I strangled the first colleague who happened to enter my office, then I felt much better and continued.

Finally, I:

• rebooted the PC,
• removed the virtual directory from IIS,
• removed all source code related to the project from the hard disk,
• cleared the Web Cache,
• removed all temporary files from my PC with TuneUp Utilities,
• cleaned up and defragmented my Registry with the same utility suite,
• changed the Working Directory of the solution in Visual SourceSafe to a new, fresh location,
• rebooted the PC again,
• opened Visual Studio.Net and did an "Open from Source Control", and
• did a "Build Solution".

and it finally worked!

I still don't know what caused the Parser Error, but now I know what I'll try first next time this happens...