Visual Studio popup: “the operation could not be c

Question

When I try to open a project, local or on a Team Foundation Server (TFS), I get a modal window telling me that:

The operation could not be completed: Unspecified error

Or the same message, but with "Class not defined.." instead of "Unspecified error".

These errors started happening earlier today when I tried to check in some of my work to the team foundation server. I have tried using Visual Studio 2008 on the same computer, but I still get the same error. I've also googled for it but none of the solutions seems to help me.

I have installed the latest updates from Windows Update as well.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Make sure your Output Window is visible before hitting the F5 button. If you have your Output Window maximized, occasionally Visual Studio does not re-open the Output Window when you restart it.

Simple fix: 1. Restart Visual Studio 2. BEFORE building a project, use View->Output Window

Now when you build, it should work.

(I'm pretty sure deleting .suo and .user files only works because it resets Visual Studio to its default layout, which ensures the Output Window is visible.)

Answer 2

I had same error. I couldn't open any class and component of my solution. I deleted the ComponentModelCache and tested any other solutions.. but no result. Finally it helped me: Just CLOSE YOUR VISUAL STUDIO AND AGAIN OPEN IT!

Answer 3

Run eventvwr from the command line to see if it has recorded any Application errors.

This might give you an actual error message that is more useful.

Answer 4

Restart the visual studio as Admin will work on in many cases.

Answer 5

"The operation could not be completed" error can also be caused by a C++ project referencing another project that no longer exists in the solution.

Normally, when you remove a project from a solution, Visual Studio removes any references to it from other projects in the solution.

In my case, however, I was sharing projects between solutions hence a bad project reference managed to sneak in, and deleting the bad references fixed the error.

Using Visual Studio 2012.

Answer 6

In my case, 'Silverlight 5 SDK' was missing and so my silverlight projects are not getting loaded. While trying to reload project it shows “the operation could not be completed” message. Once i installed, problem is solved.