Controls intermittently fail to render in VS 2008 IDE

[Groovepoets]

I'm seeing issues where controls from the toolkit are failing to create in the IDE, resulting in an inability to preview, and may be linked to occasional crashes when attempting to recode the markup for the controls by hand.

Errors I'm typically seeing are on the designer surface, indicating that the control can not be created, and that a property can not be set to the chosen value (this is typically whatever the next prop after ID/RUNAT in the control markup). If it's a textfield, it'll be the text, for panel's it's been on Title and on Width/Height.

When the error begins, it happens for any of the toolkit controls thereafter - including the script manager.

Restarting VSS resolves this issue until it pops up again.

Has anyone else run into this problem? I can work around it, but it's pretty annoying.

Details:
Standard v.7 Community Toolkit download/install.
VS 2008 Team System SP1, .net 3.5 SP1

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Any chance you could post a screen capture of VS when this happens.

Does the error seem similar to the following...*http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/484172.aspx

[Groovepoets]

Geoffrey,

Thanks for the link. The issues described there are pretty much identical to what I'm running into. I've installed a couple of the hotfixes mentioned in the posts to see if it helps. If so, I'll pop a post here in case anyone else is looking for a fix.

I'll take some screenshots for you should I encounter the issue again. Basically it's just a "failed to create control" error on the design surface for any Coolite controls, if you take out the offending property it just moves to error on the next property in the bag.

You wouldn't happen to know if there's a project file for the examples site would you? I'm working disconnected a lot lately and it would be super handy to have the layout markup examples on my local machine while I'm learning my Anchors from my Listeners :P.

Thanks,

Rick

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Thanks for the link. The issues described there are pretty much identical to what I'm running into. I've installed a couple of the hotfixes mentioned in the posts to see if it helps. If so, I'll pop a post here in case anyone else is looking for a fix.

I'll take some screenshots for you should I encounter the issue again. Basically it's just a "failed to create control" error on the design surface for any Coolite controls, if you take out the offending property it just moves to error on the next property in the bag.

Thanks for the update. If problem appears similar/same, then I'm pretty sure this is caused by a defect in the Visual Studio design time parsing. Hopefully Microsoft can provide a fix for this issue in a future service pack.*

You wouldn't happen to know if there's a project file for the examples site would you? I'm working disconnected a lot lately and it would be super handy to have the layout markup examples on my local machine while I'm learning my Anchors from my Listeners :P.

At the moment the Examples Explorer project is only available with SVN access. The complete project can be downloaded and run locally.*


I'm really hoping to spend some clean-up time on the project soon and release publicly with v0.8, or shortly thereafter.

[Groovepoets]

Geoffrey,

No issues since installing a hotfix, I think you're correct about this being an issue with the VS2008 HTML Designer. Things are smoother, at the least :).

Thanks for referring me to the MS bug sheet on that one.

Regards,

Rick

[Groovepoets]

I spoke too soon:p, Here's a screenshot of the issue ocurring with the script manager. Might still be a VS IDE deal, but just in case, here's the relevant details:

Basic Master Page setup, the Coolite script manager is on the master page, this view takes place from one of the content pages.

Error received is "Unable To Cast object of type 'Coolite.Ext.Web.ScriptManager' to type 'Coolite.Ext.Web.WebControl'.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

yes, I think this might be another nasty defect of Visual Studio 2008. The IDE tends to cache various versions of the .dll which somehow creates collisions and corruptions within Design Mode.*

I haven't run into this particular issue for a while, so maybe I'm running a patch on my local dev box which Microsoft provided to fix the issue. I'll research and try to determine exactly which patches/sp's I'm running.*


My best temporary work-around solution is to do the exact following steps:


1. In Visual Studio, save all open files, the close all files.
2. In the Solution Explorer, right-click on the top "Solution" node and select "Clean Solution", if available.
3. Exit Visual Studio.
4. Restart your machine.
5. Re-open your Visual Studio Solution
6. Rebuild Solution.


That *should* clear the Visual Studio cached files from memory.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

By chance, have you added the Coolite Assemblies to the GAC?

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Here's a full list of patches I'm running in Visual Studio.

I'm researching each of the Hotfix's to try and determine if any related to your Design Mode Exception.


-------------------------------------------------


Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Version 9.0.30729.1 SP
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 3.5 SP1


Installed Edition: Professional


Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 * 91605-270-3900405-60054
Microsoft Visual Basic 2008


Microsoft Visual C# 2008 * 91605-270-3900405-60054
Microsoft Visual C# 2008


Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 * 91605-270-3900405-60054
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008


Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Office * 91605-270-3900405-60054
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Office


Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0 * 91605-270-3900405-60054
Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0


Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 * 91605-270-3900405-60054
Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB944899) * KB944899
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944899.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB945282) * KB945282
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945282.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB946040) * KB946040
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946040.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB946308) * KB946308
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946308.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB946344) * KB946344
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946344.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB946581) * KB946581
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946581.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB947171) * KB947171
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947171.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB947173) * KB947173
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947173.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB947180) * KB947180
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947180.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB947540) * KB947540
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947540.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB947789) * KB947789
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947789.


Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU (KB948127) * KB948127
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948127.


Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU Service Pack 1 (KB945140) * KB945140
This service pack is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this service pack will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945140.


Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU Service Pack 1 (KB947888) * KB947888
This service pack is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this service pack will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947888.


Visual Studio Package Load Analyzer * 1.0
A utility that analyzes package load failures in Visual Studio.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Please ensure you have the following Service Pack installed. The SP includes both an update to .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. Maybe there's a chance you have .NET SP1, but not VS2008 SP1.*

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en



Hope this helps.