Visual Studio 2013 Website Publish Not Copying .pdb files

Question

I have checked the answer for VS 2012, it did not work. I do not precompile, I have "Debug Info" set to "full", "Items to deploy" set to "Only files needed to run this application" and "Exclude generated debug symbols" not marked.

I have tested with "All files in this project", and I have tried to edit the pubxml file. Besides not working I cannot find the file schema documentation.

Please help.

Is there a reason for you to copy the debug store files (*.pdb files)? Usually when you publish a website you're publishing to a live environment. — AStopher, Mar 12 '15 at 12:36
The main reason is to allow remote debugging, our relation with our consumers is pretty close so we do not care much for source protection. — levmatta, Mar 16 '15 at 12:26
Another reason might be to have line numbers in call stack when an exception happens. See: http://stackoverflow.com/q/1307482/108374 — Tom Pažourek, Oct 17 '16 at 10:41
Actually, PDBs only include source file names/line numbers, and local variable names ... the actual information is already in your shipped DLL. Try generating a complete project from a DLL with dotPeek, for example. — , Nov 28 '16 at 03:18

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 16 '15 at 14:43

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After a lot of tests, I noticed that "Exclude generated debug symbols" flickered as marked during the publish processing. My error was that I was editing the Active configuration -- which was Debug -- and not the Release configuration used in my publish process.

Please verify the Configuration combo on the project properties page, this was bizarre until I noticed that.

answered Mar 16 '15 at 14:43

levmatta

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I excluded the bin folder from the solution. Then, I was able to publish. – JoshYates1980 Nov 17 '15 at 20:49

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 12 '15 at 15:02

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There´s an option in the Advanced Precompile Settings dialog (which is off by default); you find this dialog via the Settings tab of the Publish Web wizard... watch out for the (unoticable) Configure-link in the File Publish Options-drop-down...

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answered Mar 12 '15 at 15:02

Matze

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I was not precompiling, I did it and interestingly got a App_Code.pdb and App_global.asax.pdb but all my other pdbs are not copied. – levmatta Mar 16 '15 at 14:31

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 13 '17 at 11:32

I've searched for this and tried every trick posted and nothing worked.

The only thing that worked for me was to take a copy of the bin folder and then delete all files from the bin folder and rebuild. When publishing I got a new error of a missing .dll which I had in the backup folder. When I copied it to the bin folder I was finally able to publish.

Visual Studio 2013 Website Publish Not Copying .pdb files

3 Answers3