Visual Studio freezes or hangs on startup

Question

I have been using Visual Studio for a while and found that when I open visual studio and open the project all the files that were open last time remain open.

This causes my Visual Studio to freeze or crash on startup.

I am using a lot of plugins in my installation and wonder if there is a way to prevent this from happening.

Try to remove .vs file in the project folder... – A. Morel Mar 08 '17 at 15:52 — A. Morel, Mar 08 '17 at 15:52

score 33 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 04 '18 at 13:27

33

Have you tried resetting user settings? It did help me:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe /ResetUserData

edited Jan 04 '18 at 13:27

Jean-François Corbett

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answered Oct 21 '15 at 14:00

VidasV

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Yea, I tried your solution and now it is freezing on splash screen! – AaA May 31 '18 at 02:43
If you are upgrading from Visual Studio Community to Enterprise Edition, this is usually the best alternative – ndarriulat Sep 24 '18 at 20:44
Resolved it for me (Community edition) '''"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /ResetUserData''' – May 17 '20 at 12:21
This not only makes my VS2015 now freeze at the splash screen, instead, but also the splash screen is now strangely all white, except "Visual Studio" written at the top in purple. Microsoft just keeps going down hill... – Pulseczar Feb 24 '21 at 18:41

score 29 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 16 '19 at 17:10

29

Run: Devenv /ResetSkipPkgs

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241276%28VS.80%29.aspx

or

You are probably looking for the /SafeMode command line switch:

devenv.exe /SafeMode

This will start Visual Studio with all add-ins disabled.

edited Apr 16 '19 at 17:10

Donald Byrd

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answered Jul 15 '11 at 05:54

Gurpreet Singh

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Run it under the Safe mode and then using Add-In Manager / Extension Manager remove the unrequired installs. – Gurpreet Singh Jul 15 '11 at 06:00
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/ResetSkipPkgs didn't do it for me, but /SafeMode did. Thanks. – SilverSideDown Oct 09 '13 at 14:05
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cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\" and run devenv.exe /ResetSkipPkgs it works. – Hafiz Arslan Mar 09 '16 at 12:51
It worked for me, although the answer is not very clear...delete the folder c:\Program Files\ ?!?! – MAXE Mar 08 '19 at 09:23

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 12 '16 at 13:37

10

devenv.exe /ResetSettings

or

devenv.exe /ResetSetting

Worked fine for me

edited Dec 12 '16 at 13:37

Petter Friberg

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answered Dec 12 '16 at 13:35

Gyuri

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this usually doesnt work for VS2015 and 2017, below from Nicolasd92 is better option using ResetUserData – Emil Jul 26 '17 at 14:29
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This resolved my issue in Visual Studio 2022. I ran devenv.exe /SafeMode first to confirm that Visual Studio 2022 opened normally in safe mode. Then ran devenv.exe /ResetUserData. – Jay Cummins Apr 18 '22 at 12:11

score 10 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

10

You can change your Visual Studio 2010 start up settings.

Tools --> Options --> Startup --> At startup --> Show empty environment --> Save

Visual Studio has a plugins limit. Use only plugins that best for you. There is a list for best Visual Studio 2010 plugins for developers.

Visual Studio 2010 - recommended extensions

edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Community

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answered Jul 15 '11 at 05:55

Soner Gönül

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i am not known what happend i have 5-6 plugin in premium and got found slow problem – Jul 15 '11 at 05:59
You said `I am using a lot of plugins` then i think you use 20-25 plugins. Of course, 6 plugins shouldn't slow your IDE. Maybe your computer not enough for Visual Studio requirements ? – Soner Gönül Jul 15 '11 at 06:08
4GB RAM in 64bit dual core. anything especial i need to got. – Jul 15 '11 at 09:09
Have you tried reinstall with using [Visual Studio 2010 Uninstall Utility](http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2010uninstall) – Soner Gönül Jul 15 '11 at 09:26
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If you use resharper, somtimes initial keyboard setup might take upto 10-15 min (not sure why) – Bek Raupov Apr 18 '13 at 14:44
A Resharper 8 upgrade caused VS to hang on startup. This solution solved the problem. Thanks! (Also, I didn't see @anvarbekraupov's comment so didn't wait 10-15 mins!) – Druid Sep 11 '13 at 08:03

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 07 '16 at 22:22

I had the same issue with Community 2015 version. I solved it with Vidas Vasiliauskas suggestion, which was to erase user settings.

The thing is that I previously had enterprise 2015 version, in which I was logged in with my Microsoft account. When trying to open community version, it tried to do so with that same account, which I believe was the cause of the issue.

Therefore, I would suggest to those with the same problem to run the following command at Command Line Prompt:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe /ResetUserData

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 13 '15 at 21:06

In my case, VS 2013 Professional was hanging on startup because the license was no longer valid.

Last item in the log file:

<entry>
    <record>367</record>
    <time>2015/07/13 20:11:05.051</time>
    <type>Information</type>
    <source>UserConnection</source>
    <description>myemailaddrs@gmail.com signed in for IDE user</description>
</entry>

And on the msdn.microsoft.com subscription page: "Your subscription is no longer active, contact your administrator."

I had to get an updated subscription from my employer.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 21 '16 at 08:25

1

When it hangs on the splash screen:

It could be that an anti-virus solution is blocking Visual Studio.

Kaspersky Internet Security 16.0.1.445 makes Visual Studio 2015 hang on the splash screen. The older version 16.0.0.614 works fine.

answered Jun 21 '16 at 08:25

mark van tilburg

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Thank you, had similar issue with another antivirus and Visual Studio 2017. – Evgeny Lukiyanov Apr 17 '17 at 22:16

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 04 '18 at 13:06

1

Clear the tag's elements in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

Also do the same with C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

The tag should just be <runtime/>

answered Jan 04 '18 at 13:06

Wynand

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 27 '21 at 21:08

If your Visual Studio 2019 is stuck due to a faulty extensions, here is a way to get it back to normal.

First, start Visual Studio in safe mode (devenv.exe /SafeMode) and uninstall the troublemaker.

Hereafter, if Visual Studio 2019 is still unresponsive, you need to do the following:

Browse to %LOCALAPPDATA% and go to Microsoft -> VisualStudio -> 16.0_bb6da863 (or whatever version you have installed)
Delete the following folders (all cache related):
- ComponentModelCache
- ImageLibrary
- MFECacheBackup
- Extensions\*.cache

For reference:

Hope it helps you and safe a VS repair/reinstall.

Happy coding :-)

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 07 '23 at 13:38

I had a hang (not responding) in VS2015 for a about 5 minutes after starting VS 2015 (the hang itself started about 2 minutes after VS 2015 opened).

It turned out that the SQM (Quality Metrics Service) and created thousands of files in C:\Users(me)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VSCommon\14.0\SQM.

Deleting these file fixed the problem.

Turned off SQM via Windows registry by setting the dword to zero under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VSCommon\14.0

John Larimer · Answer 11 · 2017-12-06T15:24:01.387

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I was having this issue when using the Git source-control plugin.

I ran devenv.exe /SafeMode

And then in Options -> Source Control -> Plug-in Selection made sure "None" or "Visual Studio Team Foundation Server" was selected. After that, VS started normally.

edited Dec 06 '17 at 15:24

answered Dec 06 '17 at 14:55

John Larimer

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Dec 29 '17 at 15:19

0

Check Task Manager. I had a Setup.exe running (not sure what it was installing), but once I killed it, VS unfroze.

answered Dec 29 '17 at 15:19

Walter Stabosz

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Nov 08 '18 at 11:39

I have got recently VS2017 stucked on start up . so I did this and worked for me : 1 - start cmd as admin : run the following:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE" devenv.exe /SafeMode

2- once VS is started , go to Tools => Extentions and Updates : then uninstall all plug-ins that installed recently ( notice the installed date ) and unnecessary ones)

score 0 · Answer 14 · edited Jun 13 '19 at 20:07

0

This helped me: I deleted all SDK, JDK & JRE folders that had been rooted in VS settings before. After that I used devenv.exe /ResetUserData and devenv.exe /ResetSettings.

Worked for me on Visual Studio 2015.

edited Jun 13 '19 at 20:07

Kamran

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answered Jun 13 '19 at 16:32

Pasha Kurmak

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Sep 26 '19 at 12:32

This is becuase of rendering IDE UI try this hope it will resolve

1- Open "Visual Studio"

2- Select "Options" from the top menu

3- Navigate to "Environment => General"

4- Unchecked "Optimize rendering for screens with different pixel densities"

5- Restart visual studio

Visual Studio freezes or hangs on startup

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