Why does the designer mode crash in visual studio ?

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I have been using Visual Studio for ages, developing WinForms applications.

Though this has always been irking, I am used to the fact that switching from the Code mode to the Designer mode often crashes the Designer, showing a call stack that is of no use to me. It can also occur just launching VS with a file previously opened in Designer.

In such cases, merely closing and reopening the Designer may work.

Interestingly, this occurs with several versions of Visual Studio, from 2008 to 2022. It occurred with many projects, even letting only VS touch the UI (no hacking of the graphical code). What strikes me most, is that the problem seems to be ignored by Microsoft (most of the time they claim that they cannot reproduce), and though it is reported in various forms in forums, I have never seen an explanation nor a fix. Or am I the only one ?

Typical reaction from Microsoft: "Thank you for the feedback, but our team was unable to prioritize it at this time as they are working on problems with broader customer impact." (The problem is present since at least 9 years !)

I am not after a solution, I'd rather like to know if others have the same experience and feelings.

What I have tried:

As said, I tried to find feedback on various forums, to no avail.

For the curious ones, an example of Designer screen:

The data necessary to complete this operation is not yet available. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8000000A) 

Instances of this error (1)  
 
1.   Hide Call Stack 
 
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Designer.Interfaces.IVSMDCodeDomProvider.get_CodeDomProvider()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Design.Serialization.CodeDom.CodeDomDocDataAdapter.get_Provider()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Design.Serialization.CodeDom.CodeDomDocDataAdapter.get_CompileUnit()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Design.Serialization.CodeDom.VSCodeDomDesignerLoader.PerformLoad(IDesignerSerializationManager serializationManager)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Design.Serialization.CodeDom.VSCodeDomDesignerLoader.DeferredLoadHandler.Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop.IVsTextBufferDataEvents.OnLoadCompleted(Int32 fReload)

Posted 13-Feb-24 1:57am

YDaoust

Updated 13-Feb-24 19:29pm

v14

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Comments

0x01AA 13-Feb-24 8:09am

It sounds like one of the components is not OK and does occasionally cause an exception.

YDaoust 13-Feb-24 8:14am

Have you already experienced this ? Component not ok across Windows platforms and Visual Studio versions ? Sounds weird...

0x01AA 13-Feb-24 9:18am

I've experienced designer crashes when my self-developed components misbehaved.

YDaoust 13-Feb-24 10:34am

I am using the standard widgets.

OriginalGriff 13-Feb-24 8:13am

Just so you know for next time: When you paste a "raw link" like:
https://imgur.com/a/ycvdU1g
The system adds the required tags (and grabs the remote site page title for you as well):
<a href="https://imgur.com/a/ycvdU1g">Imgur: The magic of the Internet</a>[<a href="https://imgur.com/a/ycvdU1g" target="_blank" title="New Window">^</a>]

I fixed the link for you, but it's a load easier and better to just copy'n'paste the error text instead of linking - many members won't follow links because we never know what is at the other end (and we've had some unpleasant images posted in the past).

YDaoust 13-Feb-24 8:15am

Thank you for the hint. I was indeed wondering how to insert this.

OriginalGriff 13-Feb-24 8:25am

You're welcome!

[no name] 13-Feb-24 14:58pm

I have "designer crashes" when I have (design time) "invalid constructors" ... i.e. Forms or pages or windows (UWP and WPF) that are not valid in the context of "design time" versus run time. Because VS does "limited instantiation" at design time so you can "see" what you're dragging and dropping; and if there's a problen in the "object hierarchy", you get a "design time" fail. That's why "working in XAML" (for example) minimizes these events; or gets around them completely. Sometimes, a "compile" is all that's needed.

YDaoust 14-Feb-24 1:44am

Thanks. I have no idea of how to spot such invalid constructors, can you tell me more. I am using Windows Forms for legacy reasons.

Maciej Los 13-Feb-24 16:33pm

Take a look here: Developer Community[^]

YDaoust 14-Feb-24 1:41am

Thank you. This is the typical kind of frustrating info that you find on the Web. Frustrating because it contains a lot of garbage such as unanswered "me too" questions, denials from Microsoft, and wrong answers. I tried the Linker settings suggested in one of the posts. Not only it does not solve the problem but it creates a new one by introducing a syntax error. There is also a video where what the speaker types is not visible !

Please avoid such unchecked links.

Maciej Los 14-Feb-24 15:41pm

You're joking, right?
Check this link. At the end you'll find solution: save project, close solution and VS, reopen VS and solution.
I'd suggest to run VS with admin priviledges.

YDaoust 14-Feb-24 17:06pm

Not joking at all, you did not explain. Closing VS and reopening every time you want to edit the UI is not an acceptable solution. It's worse than opening the Designer twice. And... does not work !

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