Exception in VS2010

[DonMilne]

I’m using VisualGDB Custom Edition 5.3, recently renewed support period ending March 2019.

I typically launch VS2010 by double clicking a shortcut to a .sln file.  For a while now I’ve been getting an error message on startup: “Visual Studio has encountered an exception. This may be caused by an extension. You can get more information by …. etc etc”. The effect is that syntax highlighting and right click “go to definition” etc features are lost in all open text edit windows, however these come back if you close and reopen the file.

Today I finally decided to investigate the crash. I found that “devenv.exe” ran fine on its own, the error only occurred when I opened a VisualGDB STM32 solution file. When I examined the ActivityLog.xml file I found the following error report:

<entry>
 <record>205</record>
 <time>2018/04/17 12:48:00.898</time>
 <type>Error</type>
 <source>Editor or Editor Extension</source>
 <description>System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80004005): Unspecified error (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004005 (E_FAIL))    
at EnvDTE._DTE.get_ActiveSolutionProjects()    
at lq1.n_2(String a)    
at dd1..ctor(IVsTextLines d, gu1 b, x2 a, e c)    
at gu1.t(IVsTextLines a, Boolean b)    
at gu1.GetColorizer(IVsTextLines a)    
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguageService.GetColorizer(IVsTextLines buffer, IVsColorizer&amp; result)    
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Editor.Implementation.LanguageServiceClassifier.TryCreateClassifier(ITextBuffer textBuffer, IVsFontsAndColorsInformationService fontAndColorInformation, LanguageServiceClassifier&amp; classifier)    
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Editor.Implementation.LanguageServiceClassifierProvider.GetClassifier(ITextBuffer buffer)    
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.ClassifierTaggerProvider.&lt;&gt;c__DisplayClass1`1.b__0(IClassifierProvider provider)    
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Utilities.GuardedOperations.InvokeMatchingFactories[TExtensionInstance,TExtensionFactory,TMetadataView](IEnumerable1 lazyFactories, Func2 getter, IContentType dataContentType, Object errorSource)
</description>
 </entry>

When I Googled for this error I find that other people who write VS2010 plugins have encountered the same thing. E.g. discussed here:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/73253b23-30a5-443e-8a60-e78fa232ce47/activesolutionprojects-comexception-hresult-efail?forum=vsx

And apparantly it’s caused when a plugin asks for the handle of the solution explorer window and doesn’t check the result. If the solution explorer window is closed or set to auto-hide (as it is in my case) then the returned window handle can be null. It would be nice if this could be fixed.

• This topic was modified 6 years ago by DonMilne.

[DonMilne]

Oh – I forgot to mention that I confirmed that if I run VS2010 and open the solution explorer window before opening the solution, then I don’t get the error.

[support]

Hi,

No problem, we could add a workaround for this. Please let us know the VisualGDB build number (from the About window) so that we could pinpoint the exact location of the crash.

[DonMilne]

Hi. It’s VisualGDB 5.3 (build 1836).

p.s. I had already looked for an update check feature in the software itself. I saw (and tried) the “Upgrade” button but that seems to do something else. I know that devtool packages get occasional automatic updates, but I don’t think that applies to the software itself?

[support]

 

Hi,

No problem. Please try this build: http://sysprogs.com/files/tmp/VisualGDB-5.4.1.2187.msi

VisualGDB will show the link to a new version once it becomes a stable release. Currently VisualGDB 5.4 is a preview build (i.e. introduces new features, but might be unstable), so we intentionally don’t show it in the update GUI to avoid breaking users who prefer waiting for the stable release.

 

[DonMilne]

Hi. Sorry for the delay – I had a four day weekend off, and only experienced the problem at work (my home PC has a slightly older VisualGDB build installed).

I have now tested build 5.4.1.2187 on my work PC and can confirm that it fixed the problem. Thanks!

[Author]

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