Visual Studio freezing (crashing) while loading solution

Question

I've met with a strange problem. I had 7 projects in the solution. I had to add another MVC project. Now when the document (from the new project) is opened (for example HomeController.cs) and when this project is initializing at the start, it freezes the whole IDE like this:

(Some projects do not load)

After that, I have to kill the process. When I open VS again and fast click on another project (which is initializing) the freezing issue is gone. I have no idea what can cause a problem like this. I've tried with and without ReSharper but I get the same result. Also, I restored default settings of VS. Also repaired whole VS.

Maybe someone had the same problem and could give some helpful advice?

Possible duplicate of [Why Visual Studio 2015 freezes crashes hangs on Designer view?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37681942/why-visual-studio-2015-freezes-crashes-hangs-on-designer-view) — Khalil Khalaf, Sep 26 '16 at 12:59

Artiom · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-15T09:50:03.310

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Usually removing of the hidden .vs folder in solution directory fixes the problem.

edited Jun 15 '18 at 09:50

answered Sep 26 '16 at 13:39

Artiom

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@ElteHupkes, unfortunately, this problem is not reproduced for me for a long time already. Try to delete temp files, disable plugins or load VS in safe mode `devenv.exe /SafeMode` – Artiom Oct 19 '17 at 12:58
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This applies to VS 2019 too! However, do you know what is it with the .vs folder that could case VS to hang. – shekhar Sep 04 '19 at 08:41
Good answer. Thank you!! – Mar 25 '21 at 08:20
This is valid for VS 2022 also! Deleting the `.VS` folder worked for me. Without it, many sub processes would do don't-know-what, and hangs VS. – Ajay Feb 21 '22 at 10:02
Visual studio recreate that folder when you start the project next time. – Shaiwal Tripathi Aug 19 '22 at 05:58
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2022 and this still happens --- thanks, 2016 – beauXjames Nov 22 '22 at 20:20
After so many years, never improve. It's crazy 80% of the time is spent fixing the tool rather than actual programming. – TPG Mar 27 '23 at 15:14
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2023 and this still happens, actually happening more now in VS2022 than ever before – Donald Jansen Jul 04 '23 at 13:25
Works, and if it persists, run CCleaner to clean up junk files. – Divakar Aug 22 '23 at 14:20

score 38 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 11 '18 at 19:08

38

Possible solutions:

Delete .vs folder as mentioned above
Clear temp files from %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp
Readjust source control in Tools -> Options -> Source control -> Plugins, set to None, Save, close VS. Then reopen it and reset the plugin.

There is no particular order, but one of them might help.

edited Oct 11 '18 at 19:08

Alexander Abakumov

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answered Jul 13 '17 at 11:05

ash

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This works for me too. But come on Microsoft. Your own development environment running on your own Operating System and you still can't get it right. *facepalm* – DrEntropy Oct 17 '20 at 19:16
Is this answer for Visual Studio 2019? – Naman Bansal May 29 '21 at 14:49
For me helped "Readjust source control in Tools -> Options -> Source control -> Plugins, set to None, Save, close VS. Then reopen it and reset the plugin.". I switched off GIT plugin, closed VS and reset again... Thanks. – David Najman May 16 '23 at 14:38
Works, and if it persists, run CCleaner to clean up junk files. – Divakar Aug 22 '23 at 14:20

MJ33 · Answer 3 · 2021-01-11T07:07:00.093

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I experienced the same issue with VS 2019 and fixed it by deleting the user.json file from %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Visual Studio Setup

EDIT

The issue reappeared after a few days, so I located the user settings for Visual Studio 2019 (%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\16.0_f124b472) and deleting the following files seemed to have reset VS to a normal state:

Current.vsk
User.vsk
ObjBrowEx.dat

Please close all your solutions before deleting the files

edited Jan 11 '21 at 07:07

answered Dec 17 '20 at 06:56

MJ33

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Glad I came back here to see your edit because it reappeared for me too! It works now after I deleted only the `User.vsk` – Pieter Buys Jan 13 '21 at 13:50
I deleted ObjBrowEx.dat and User.vsk but it didn't fix the issue – Syed Irfan Ahmad Aug 21 '23 at 18:00
What worked for me was: Opened another solution, ran it, and closed the solution Then opened the solution that was causing "not responding" issue and no more freezing – Syed Irfan Ahmad Aug 21 '23 at 18:11

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 17 '17 at 18:34

4

I used to have this problem, it was solved just by double clicking any of the stuck projects. This nudges the loading process somehow and causes unloaded projects to complete its loading.

answered Nov 17 '17 at 18:34

Sisyphus

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I have been doing that way before knowing the real answer. But at the end your suggestion doesn't solve the problem. – krypru Jan 16 '18 at 19:13
Right. I basically ignored the popup. I could still click on the project elements, so when I built/ran the project it went away. – Dave Jun 19 '19 at 16:25
After downloading Progress Telerik UI extension, VS 2022 pro was crashing. Double-clicking the solution resolved my issue. Thanks for sharing! – Bazinga Dec 19 '22 at 23:18

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 22 '18 at 16:06

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Delete the .suo file in the solution folder.

I am pretty sure I found this answer somewhere on Stackoverflow before, but now I can't find it anymore. Credits to whoever came up with this.

answered Jan 22 '18 at 16:06

vmb100

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 22 '20 at 10:27

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None of above answers worked for me and found this solution. By opening solution in safe mode devenv.exe /SafeMode will show you details about file causing issue and then

Search for all the files in the project directory with extension *.user
and remove them all
last reloaded the projects

answered Oct 22 '20 at 10:27

Aneeq Azam Khan

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For me a old Database project caused the VS to crash... executing VS in safe mode helped me to find the issue. – David Petric May 12 '21 at 08:45

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 01 '21 at 07:44

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For Visual Studio 2019, I cleared my %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp folder. It worked.

answered Jun 01 '21 at 07:44

Pranjal

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 31 '21 at 14:30

When you get over the past install multiply versions and the previous version was not fully uninstalled. This cause this issue in my case.

Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features
Search for all Visual Studio related programs and Uninstall those.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 09 '23 at 06:08

For my case I need to delete the .vs all the time. Then I found out this link and did the setting. The issue never come back ever since.

https://msicc.net/how-to-work-around-ide-freezes-in-visual-studio-2019-when-switching-between-build-configurations/

Open Tools / Options in Visual Studio 2019 and find the Projects and Solutions node
Unselect ‘Allow parallel project initialization
Click ‘OK’ and close the solution

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 15 '23 at 22:55

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Run command dotnet build before open VS

answered Aug 15 '23 at 22:55

Sith2021

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 21 '23 at 18:12

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What worked for me was: Opened another solution, ran it, and closed the solution Then opened the solution that was causing "not responding" issue and no more freezing

answered Aug 21 '23 at 18:12

Syed Irfan Ahmad

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Visual Studio freezing (crashing) while loading solution

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