21

VS 2013 Professional - Version 12.0.31101.00 Update 4

All of a sudden, whenever I try to open a project (MVC project or Python project), I get:

The 'ProviderPackage' package did not load correctly.

The problem may have been caused by a configuration change or by the installation of another extension. You can get more information by examining the file 'C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ActivityLog.xml'.

In my AppData\Roaming, there is no 12.0 folder! In AppData\Local, there is a 12.0 folder but there is no ActivityLog.xml file.

When I ignore the message and press F5 to run, after lots of disk movement, Visual Studio simply closes and disappears.

I have repaired a few times and the exact same behavior persists.

When I try to run devenv.exe /setup or devenv.exe /resetuserdata, absolutely nothing happens. No error, no process is launched, nothing. Running devenv.exe without any parameters does launch VS.

What can be wrong? I hesitate to uninstall and reinstall if there is some other solution.

1 day later: Uninstalled VS 2013 and reinstalled, and then applied Update 4.

Problem is still the same for the MVC project: ProviderPackage did not load correctly, and when running project VS closes and disappears.

Last record in ActivityLog.xml says:

<entry>
 <record>1120</record>
 <time>2015/03/17 06:38:43.882</time>
 <type>Error</type>
 <source>VisualStudio</source>
 <description>An exception was thrown during package instantiation and was caught in the package manager [ProviderPackage]</description>
 <guid>{5F2E5E42-4192-4D79-A0D8-1D881E808829}</guid>
 <hr>8000ffff - E_UNEXPECTED</hr>
 <errorinfo></errorinfo>
</entry>
Old Geezer
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  • Run /setup in elevated command-prompt and wait. It does not launch Visual Studio, so just wait till it completes and then run Visual Studio as you usually do. – bahrep Mar 16 '15 at 17:22
  • You are right! devenv.exe /setup or /resetuserdata launches a Background process. – Old Geezer Mar 16 '15 at 17:30
  • try this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20301697/visual-studio-2013-is-unable-to-open-the-test-window – jessehouwing Mar 16 '15 at 17:41
  • @OldGeezer Have you tried the method I posted below? If it solved the problem could you please mark it as answer? Thanks in advance... – Murat Yıldız Mar 23 '15 at 15:26
  • @MuratYıldız Sorry, it didn't. I now suspect it was due to a hard disk problem. I had to wipe out my PC to get it restored to working condition. – Old Geezer Mar 24 '15 at 02:38
  • After I put in a new 1TB SSD, installed Windows 10 build 10041, reinstalled VS2013 and Update 4, the same project loads fine. Not conclusive what the real cause is. Whatever it is, it cost a lot of time and effort. – Old Geezer Mar 24 '15 at 13:26
  • Thanks, but none worked for me. I had to re-install. – Old Geezer Apr 20 '16 at 01:50
  • **See Also**: [How can I fix the Microsoft Visual Studio error: "package did not load correctly"?](https://stackoverflow.com/q/17574089/1366033) – KyleMit May 21 '20 at 20:08

6 Answers6

37

Deleting ComponentModelCache from

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\ComponentModelCache

works fine for VS 2015.

Note: You will need to close the VS before deleting this folder. Also replace 14.0 with 12.0 in folder path for VS 2013

Furkan Ekinci
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Khalid Choudhry
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7

Open Command Prompt and use the following commands (if necessary, change the directory according to the installation folder):

cd c:\

C:\>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /resetskippkgs"

Murat Yıldız
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7

Delete folder ComponenModelCache

C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\XX\ComponentModelCache

that worked for me

Zinov
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1

Make sure the paths are correct at: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0

Mine for example the VisualStudioLocation key changed from "C:\Documents\Visual Studio 2015" to just "Visual Studio 2015" which was problematic.

piris
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0

I can't leave a comment on Murat Yıldız's answer so this is the next best thing. His solutions works great. I opened the Visual Studio Command Prompt as an administrator and ran from the command prompt: 

C:\WINDOWS\system32>devenv /resetskippkgs

It worked like a charm.

phigits
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0

I also faced the same problem and solution for me was to run Visual Studio as an administrator.

Saikat
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