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I have a fresh install of VS2015 on windows 8 and intellisense doesn't work at all (nothing!) in any environment.

I also have VS2013 (with Resharper 8)on the same machine which works fine.

Any ideas before I go through a re-install?

Edward
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Lee Smith
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5 Answers5

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Probably the problem is with ReSharper, I'm running VS2013 and VS2015 on the same machine without any issues.

I would try: In Visual Studio 2015, go to 'Tools | Options | Text Editor | C# | General both "Auto list members" and "Parameter information" should be checked.

If that doesn't work I would try to disable ReSharper in VS2013 and try to get the normal intellisense working. Same procedure as above if ReSharper fails to restore the settings.

wonea
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thllbrg
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    That was it. It seem to have randomly unchecked 'auto list members' for most languages. Thanks – Lee Smith Jul 28 '15 at 08:49
  • I had the same problem, maybe the Resharper checked both options on installation and I just got used to it. Had to check the options by myself when using a fresh installation of VS 2015 without Resharper. – ar53nic Jul 29 '15 at 10:30
  • Suspend Resharper (which had expired) and restart VS, fixed the built-in intellisense. – Neil Thompson Sep 26 '16 at 09:04
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    I have Visual Studio 2013 and 2015 as well as Resharper Ultimate 2016.3.1. Fixed it by going to ReSharper > Options... > Environment, Intellisense, General and changed the setting from ReSharper to Visual Studio. Worked straight away, no reboot required. – Bern Jan 05 '17 at 12:06
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    I had this problem without Resharper.. odd. – Brian Lacy Jan 11 '17 at 19:58
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    Intellisense stopped working suddenly in VS 2015 Enterprise w Update 3. Had several VS 2015 sessions opened. Simply shutting down the sessions and re-starting VS fixed it for me. – ebhh2001 Jan 15 '17 at 02:36
  • lol these options had got unchecked on my visual studio somehow. I didn't even know they existed, and I've never used resharper. thanks. – Ryan Feb 03 '17 at 01:01
  • The ReSharper setting worked for me. Intellisense came right back. Thank you, @thllbrg – Alex Apr 06 '17 at 12:31
8

Note: Only do this as a last resort, because it will reset virtually all of your user preferences, including where your toolbars are, environment fonts etc.

I reached here because my intellisense was giving 1000's of errors in the Error List after installing Visual Studio 2015 on a clean Windows 7 machine.

The answers here did not apply to me, but this answer on StackOverflow: Razor intellisense not working in VS 2015, worked for me.

Run this command from the VS "IDE" folder:

devenv.exe /resetuserdata

When I restarted Visual Studio it took several minutes to "prepare Visual Studio 2015 for the first time", and when I reloaded the project all the intellisense errors had gone.

For info, this is how I navigate to the command prompt:

Right-click the Visual Studio 2015 shortcut on the start menu to get the context menu:

Start Menu

Select 'Open file location' to open a new Explorer window:

Left-click anywhere on the white to deselect devenv.exe, then shift + right-click to bring up the extended context-menu, then select 'Open command window here':

explorer extended context menu

Then paste the command: devenv.exe /resetuserdata

command window

When Visual Studio starts, it's been reset:

Visual Studio first time

And when I load project, errors are gone:

Errors are gone

Community
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Edward
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    DO NOT do this as it will reset virtually all of your user preferences, including where your toolbars are, environment fonts etc. This is not a good solution to this problem. – pim Oct 26 '16 at 16:58
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    NO, I highly recommand to do this instead of reinstalling the whole software, I was stuck three days in this problem of VS crash everytime I build projects. I tried all the possible solitions. And this, this is what i was looking for. Thank you sir! – Mehdi Souregi Jan 18 '17 at 14:25
  • DO DO THIS because it will fix a huge issue (intellisense not working) and you won't need to spend hours upon hours searching for another way to fix it or reinstalling visual studio (bleh). Instead, you just reset your settings/macros/windows after you open VS, and 10 minutes later you're pretty much rolling again. I was looking at an entire day of reinstalling vs2015. But instead I can keep my 2015 install because this fixed it, it even remembered most of the crucial settings and my most recent projects, etc. DON'T LISTEN TO PIM. It literally took me 10 minutes to get back up and running. – Josh Sep 29 '17 at 13:44
  • Remember that you can export VS settings. – Little Helper Apr 20 '18 at 08:20
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Make sure Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> IntelliSense -> "Show completion list after a character is typed" is checked. I had installed and uninstalled VS 2017 and that's when IntelliSense stopped working in VS 2015 for me.

brandonstrong
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How I fixed it:

I went to Tools -> Extensions and Updates and uninstalled every extension I wasn't using. There were only about 3 of these. One I remember removing was "Microsoft Office Extensions", or something like that. I don't have either resharper or Xamarin, which I've seen mentioned in relation to this. When I'd finished Visual Studio restarted itself, and XAML intellisense was back! Relief...

It may be the case that all you need to do is uninstall any one extension, and the resetting that VS does after that fixes the problem.

Further detail:

I don't recall changing anything specifically (eg. installing anything), when this problem suddenly appeared. I suspect it was due to a Windows update. I was really worried about this one!

I tried restarting VS, and restarting my PC, several times without success, and also checked my intellisense settings. I tried the suggestion of unchecking them and checking again.

My F# code had also lost intellisense. C# was fine, except for XAML.

It was in all VS2015 projects.

Version: Visual Studio 2015, Windows 10. January 2018.

Stephen Hosking
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I might be kind of late for the party, but hopefully this helps out anyone.

Please note, the below is just one possible cause for the issue described in this topic.

Your issue might be that you have one project/library referencing the other, but the Target Frameworks are different.

Make sure the frameworks are compatible and see if intellisense picks up your using references, etc.

enter image description here

Francisco Vilches
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