Visual Studio and the Ritual of Repeat

Segnosaur

Penultimate Amazing
Segnosaur
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Anybody else using VB.Net to develop applications?

I'm working for a company using Visual Studio 2003 to create web applications. The application is composed of multiple projects/DLLs, with one exceptionally large project (the main web DLL, resulting in a DLL that's over 12 meg in size). The problem is, when visual studio tries compiling the application, the compiler crashes. No warning, no messages. It just shuts down. In fact, I can re-open visual studio and try recompiling, and it will continually shut down/crash, until one time by chance it actually works. After that, I can compile repeatedly with no problems. And I'm not the only one that has this problem here. (Its not unheard of to recompile the program over a dozen times before it finally works.)

Does anyone know what the cause of the problem might be, or if there's some way to isolate what's causing the glitch? I'd also heard that there was a patch for Visual Studio 2003, but Microsoft wasn't distributing it widely; might this solve the problem? (There was around here that maybe the problem was a lack of computer memory, but the machines have 2 gig, and when I watch the available physical memory during compilation it never approaches this amount.) There also seems to be no corelation between rebooting and success in compiling.

And as a side note, its rather interesting what people have tried here in order to 'solve' the problem:
- Some think that it helps to download a new version of the code from Source Safe before compiling
- Some try to compile each project separately before compiling the 'main' project
- One person is even convinced that if they run something like WinAmp it will help
 
Music will at least calm you :D.

Sorry, I can't offer anything except a sarcastic "get one of the free compilers" which of course ignores the benefits that .net actually somehow has as well as the fact that everything's already designed on that. I'm just not very familiar with that compiler. I've just gotta ask, even if it sounds simple though. Been to the main MSDN site to see if there is a similar problem listed there yet?
 
Segnosaur said:
Does anyone know what the cause of the problem might be, or if there's some way to isolate what's causing the glitch? I'd also heard that there was a patch for Visual Studio 2003, but Microsoft wasn't distributing it widely; might this solve the problem? (There was around here that maybe the problem was a lack of computer memory, but the machines have 2 gig, and when I watch the available physical memory during compilation it never approaches this amount.) There also seems to be no corelation between rebooting and success in compiling.
Click to expand...
Check you AV software. I know that the McAfee Buffer overflow protection can cause similar problems.

And as a side note, its rather interesting what people have tried here in order to 'solve' the problem:
- Some think that it helps to download a new version of the code from Source Safe before compiling
- Some try to compile each project separately before compiling the 'main' project
- One person is even convinced that if they run something like WinAmp it will help
Click to expand...
Number 2 actually sounds like a good idea. If there were a problem with the code itself, then this would help you localize it.

The other two sound like hocus pocus. If htey have anything to do with the problem, then only indirectly. You would need to track down the real soruce of the problem. The McAfee buffer overflow protection can do this kind of thing. Depending on how stuff is loaded into memory, it may or may not crash.

Another thing that occurs to me is that you might have a problem with circular dependencies. If the compiler has trouble resolving them (or can only resolve to a certain depth) then it could do this, then eventually work its way out as it resolves the dependencies and gets further with each try before going splat.


A really nasty problem. Doesn't it suck when your tools don't work?
 
Upgrade to 2005. I had major problems with 2003 when the project I was working on got to a good size. There has not been one fix pack for 2003, despite searches on the net turning up plenty of people with problems similar to mine.

2005, not a problem at all. Even the Beta was better than 2003, which is saying something. 2005 also has a lot of other improvements. It does need .net 2.0.
 
How much RAM does your computer have?
A 12 MB dll is rather hefty. Maybe VS.NET ist running out of memory.
 
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russell_morris said:
Download the VS.NET 2003 Service Pack 1 (released August 17):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...9F-CE82-46A5-8AEC-072BD4BB955E&displaylang=en

It looks to me like your problem is most likely a result of the problem that is referenced as 'Fixed' by article number 909085 (titled "FIX: The Visual Studio IDE crashes when you compile a large Visual Basic solution") listed on the SP1 fix list at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;918007#3
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You have got to be kidding, (not you, Microsoft). They wait for three years to address the problems that plagued it from the start.
 
a_unique_person said:
You have got to be kidding, (not you, Microsoft). They wait for three years to address the problems that plagued it from the start.
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It seems to me that all of the VS's after 6.0 have had utterly abysmal after-launch support. VS6 had 6 service packs over it's years of service. VS2k3's SP1 is the ONLY service pack MS has released for its VS line since then.

The few problems I've had with VS.NET that would have required a service pack were releived with the 'next' version (2k2 -> 2k3 -> 2k5). But if it costs ANY money, I don't think it counts as proper after-launch support.
 
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russell_morris said:
Download the VS.NET 2003 Service Pack 1 (released August 17):
...
It looks to me like your problem is most likely a result of the problem that is referenced as 'Fixed' by article number 909085
Click to expand...

Thanks. That looks like it will fix the problem.

I had seen the article 909085 before, where they mentioned a hot fix to the problem, but they weren't releasing the fix to everyone (and I just wondered if it was worth the time to follow up on it.) I didn't know about the service pack though.
 
MortFurd said:
And as a side note, its rather interesting what people have tried here in order to 'solve' the problem:
- Some think that it helps to download a new version of the code from Source Safe before compiling
- Some try to compile each project separately before compiling the 'main' project
- One person is even convinced that if they run something like WinAmp it will help
Click to expand...

Number 2 actually sounds like a good idea. If there were a problem with the code itself, then this would help you localize it.
Click to expand...
Well, I know its not a problem with the code... it will (eventually) compile with no code changes. (Unless somehow the source code is getting corrupted between compiles and restoring itself, which I highly doubt.)

The other two sound like hocus pocus. If htey have anything to do with the problem, then only indirectly
Click to expand...
I agree... they are 'hocus pocus'. I just found it rather interesting how programmers (who, in theory, make a living being 'logical') can latch on to any sort of strange 'coincidence' in order to solve their problems.

Kind of like how religions start.

Next step... homeopathic compiler cures....
 
Well, we use Dev studio.net 2003, and we have weird problems. The main problem we get is that DS's dependency checking is horrible. So we have to clean the whole solution and rebuild quite often.

I'd LIKE to move to GCC or something, but businesses are just nervous about using free tools. It's something you have to get used to. :(
 
Almo said:
Well, we use Dev studio.net 2003, and we have weird problems. The main problem we get is that DS's dependency checking is horrible. So we have to clean the whole solution and rebuild quite often.

I'd LIKE to move to GCC or something, but businesses are just nervous about using free tools. It's something you have to get used to. :(
Click to expand...

That was one of the problems I had, I am assuming the fix pack finally gets rid of that problem.
 
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