[lbytesxk]

I have a C# project (VS 2008) that I have been working on since last year. The GUI has been pretty much complete for at least 6 months and nothing really was done to it since. I was working on a functionality in of the classes when the IDE crashed on me, on a XP.
I restarted it and instead of seeing my form design I was greeted with this

Also the project properties tab looks like this


After I googled this problem I tried several things, deleted my project user file, also deleted the entire obj folder but nothing seems to fix this.
So I copied the entire project to another desktop this one is a Win7 and continued working on it, thinking that I will uninstall and re install my VS2008 on my XP, when after about 2 hours or so, on this computer too have the exact same problem/ To makes matters worse, all of my projects that uses statusStrip control now has this problem.
I think this might be a serious issue, I'm doing a full security scan on both computers my XP laptop and my Win7 but the infection probability is pretty low since I am behind a firewall with office scan protection.
Does any one have any idea or experienced anything like this before?

[modi123_1]

This could be a number of things.. one being when viewing your gui in the designer it is trying to load data/hits an infinite loop because data is missing.. typically if you have odd crap in the load event this happens.

[tlhIn`toq]

Do you have the same issue if you load an earlier back-up of the solution?
I realized that you might have to re-create a couple hours of work from whatever point you made the backup, but it could help determine if the problem is in Visual Studio, or the solution file.

Or, if this was a huge learning experience because you don't make backups every hour or so... Make a new project and use the control you think is problematic. Continue adding to it until it breaks in a similar way. Then you will know the cause.

It may even turn out that you can make a new solution and copy paste from your original code files and have everything run. I've seen it before. There are a lot of hidden inner-workings in every solution that only VS makes use of and keeps away from the coder so they don't hurt themselves. Sometimes just opening the old file, select all, copy, make a new file in the new solution, paste - repeat... And everything works because all the magic files are built from scratch by VS.

[lbytesxk]

Thanks guys
modi123_1, yes I have a lot of crap in my form load event, actually loading stuff from a small access DB, however everything checks out I can step through the code, and in the event the DB not found it actually shows an error message and aborts loading the form and application.. SO there is no infinite loop anywhere but it was worth a try.

tlhin'toq
I actually have a source safe where I have reloaded the latest saved copy before this happened, from about 3 weeks and it does have this same problem. I also was thinking about redoing the entire project when I tried 2 of my other projects that use the statusStrip control and they are also exhibiting this problem. So re doing every one of my projects is not really an option.

[tlhIn`toq]

Well if the problem seems narrowed to the statusStrip... Where did this come from? Is it a class you built?

Is there a newly introduced project/namespace/framework that has ANOTHER control of the same name? Its not uncommon that 3 different developers all make a 'numericTextBox' class for example. So as soon as you import a new open-source library you accidentally get more than you bargained for and have a conflict.

[lbytesxk]

tlhIn`toq, on 27 September 2012 - 10:18 PM, said:

Well if the problem seems narrowed to the statusStrip... Where did this come from? Is it a class you built?

Is there a newly introduced project/namespace/framework that has ANOTHER control of the same name? Its not uncommon that 3 different developers all make a 'numericTextBox' class for example. So as soon as you import a new open-source library you accidentally get more than you bargained for and have a conflict.

I believe it is a native VS class, statusStrip is a control that you put on the bottom of a GUI to display various things like time/date, login info, etc etc

[Skydiver]

I've seen that error before, but it was usually in the context that I create a custom control and I've added that custom control unto my form or yet another custom control. The fix I inevitable ended up with was to create a new project, and just copy source files only to the new project: .csproj, .cs, .resx, .txt, .manifest files only.

(Of course, my long term fix was just to not VS2008 (and VS2010), and do all my editing a different source editor. I just hand write my forms.)

By the way, ditch SourceSafe as soon as you can. It has been known to lose and corrupt data -- something that you don't want a source control system to be doing. If you are a Microsoft shop, switch to TFS. Let me put it this way: I wouldn't wish SoureSafe even on my worst enemy. Using batch files that backup version to .ZIP files would be better.

[lbytesxk]

Thanks for all the replies.
The problem was caused by...................................................wait for it..............................................a particular font I installed and used in the VS IDE.
The font is not infected but it did manage to cause this horrible nightmare. All of my projects were messed up the same way, and as I was contemplating suicide I remembered the new fonts I installed. So I uninstall them I rebooted and everything is back to normal.
Wow, now back to coding