How do I diagnose and fix a Visual Studio (for exa

I\'m using Visual Studio 2015 in a Windows 10 environment. Visual Studio is constantly crashing. The solution opens up fine, but after typing a few letters I get a message saying that an error occurred and Visual Studio must be shut down. I searched online and found how to run VS in diagnostic mode (devenv /log). I tried this and see several errors in ActivityLog.xml. I don\'t know what any of these mean and I can\'t find anything online about them. I\'ve updated all of the Visual Studio extensions, but that didn\'t help. I tried repairing VS, but that didn\'t help either. Can someone explain how I can diagnose and fix the problem?

Here is the error messages in the log:

  <entry>
    <record>161</record>
    <time>2017/05/08 14:53:38.815</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommonIDE.ExtensibilityHosting.VsShellComponentModelHost</source>
    <description>Still unable to load MEF component DLL: Could not load file or assembly &apos;Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workspaces.Contracts, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a&apos; or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.</description>
    <path>C:\\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\\MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 14.0\\COMMON7\\IDE\\EXTENSIONS\\RV0KRPV2.PBV\\TMLanguage.dll</path>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>162</record>
    <time>2017/05/08 14:53:38.822</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommonIDE.ExtensibilityHosting.VsShellComponentModelHost</source>
    <description>Still unable to load MEF component DLL: Could not load file or assembly &apos;Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.Contracts.1.7, Version=1.7.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a&apos; or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.</description>
    <path>C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\\Common7\\IDE\\Extensions\\2re3mhbz.g1s\\Microsoft.VisualStudio.ApplicationInsights.dll</path>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>163</record>
    <time>2017/05/08 14:53:38.830</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommonIDE.ExtensibilityHosting.VsShellComponentModelHost</source>
    <description>Still unable to load MEF component DLL: Could not load file or assembly &apos;Microsoft.VisualStudio.ApacheCordovaTools.Definitions.14.0, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35&apos; or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.</description>
    <path>C:\\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\\MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 14.0\\COMMON7\\IDE\\EXTENSIONS\\22KH2U4Y.XLJ\\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Azure.ConnectedServices.MobileServices.dll</path>
  </entry>

To diag Visual Studio crashes, you need to generate a crash dump, which includes the current state of Visual Studio.

To generate such a crash dump, you can configure Windows Error Reporting to generate dumps by running regedit.exe, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Windows Error Reporting\\LocalDumps\\devenv.exe create a string DumpFolder and give it a name like C:\\localdumps and create a DWORD 32Bit named DumpType and set it to 2 to generate a Full dump.

After Visual Studio crashed and you got a dump, install the Debugging Tools for Windows, which are part of the Windows 10 SDK.

During Setup you only need to select the Debugging Tools for Windows

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all other can be skipped.

Now run 32 Bit/x86 Windbg.exe (because Visual Studio is a 32Bit /x86 applciation), inside Windbg, setup the debug symbols, open the dmp via File->Open crash dump (or CTRL+D) and type !analyze -v in the command line at buttom

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and now press ENTER. Now Windbg loads the required debug symbols and analyzes the dump and shows you some data. In my example I see this:

BUGCHECK_STR:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException

PRIMARY_PROBLEM_CLASS:  CLR_EXCEPTION

STACK_TEXT:  
00000000 00000000 Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor+0x0
00000000 00000000 Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.WindowBase.CreateMainWindow+0x0
00000000 00000000 Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.WindowManagerService.get_MainWindow+0x0
00000000 00000000 UNKNOWN!EnvDTE._DTE.get_MainWindow+0x1
00aed828 11da97b8 UNKNOWN!VSWindowTitleChanger.VSWindowTitleChangerPackage.DelayedInit+0x90


SYMBOL_NAME:  Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

MODULE_NAME: Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni

BUCKET_ID:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException_Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni!Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

FAILURE_IMAGE_NAME:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.dll

BUCKET_ID_IMAGE_STR:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.dll

FAILURE_MODULE_NAME:  Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni

BUCKET_ID_MODULE_STR:  Microsoft_VisualStudio_Platform_WindowManagement_ni

FAILURE_FUNCTION_NAME:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

BUCKET_ID_FUNCTION_STR:  Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.DTE.MainWindow..ctor

BUCKET_ID_PREFIX_STR:  CLR_EXCEPTION_REMOTE_System.NullReferenceException_

So the Visual Studio crashed because of a System.NullReferenceException in the module VSWindowTitleChanger which tries to change the Title of a Window before it was laoded correctly and accessed an object with was NULL. This is a Visual Studio extension and removing it fixes the crash I had at startup.

If Windbg is too complicated, you can use the DebugDiag analyzer. 1st download the Debug Diagnostic Tool v2 Update 2, now run DebugDiag.Analysis.exe from C:\\Program Files\\DebugDiag, select CrashHangDumpAnalysis, now click on Add Data Files and select the dump.

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