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

I removed an old project from the solution, after that the error occurred. I had to open the .sln file in notepad and delete the .dll reference tot he old project that I removed. After that it worked.

Answer 2

I had a similar problem on opening Razor Views

• I logged on to my Azure account which was asking to re-enter my credntials.
• Restart VS 2015 Update 1

Answer 3

I think StyleCop is the reason of the this issue. So,

1. Close VS.
2. I removed all StyleCop.Settings and StyleCop.Cache files in all solution projects.
3. I removed also all projects *.csproj.user file.
4. Restart VS.

Answer 4

Have you tried to delete the Your_Solution_FileName.suo file?

The .suo file should be in the same folder as your .sln file, or in the .vs folder for newer versions of Visual Studio. The .vs folder might be hidden.

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Update for Visual Studio 2017
In VS 2017 the .suo files are located in a different folder: you can find the .suo file in YourSolutionFolder\.vs\YourSolutionName\v15\.suo

The .vs folder is hidden, and the .suo files is a file without name, with just the .suo extension.

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Explanation

The .suo file contain various information like the opened files list, and some preferences that are not saved in the solution file (like the starting project) and other things.

Normally you can delete the .suo file without problems. You might have to set the StartUp Project for your solution afterwards.

Just to stay on the safe way, you can rename the .suo file, and then retry to start the solution, to see if this help.

In my experience sometime VS crash on start because there is an error in some source code, and due to that error VS can't compile the code, and then crash because without compiled code it's unable to show form in design mode. In this case, deleting the .suo file will solve the situation because it reset the open files list, so the solution can start up without opening/showing any files.

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When deleting the .suo file doesn't works
Here's a list of other things you can try when deleting the .suo file doesn't resolve the issue:

• Restart the computer
• Clean Windows temp folder
• Clean the solution from the IDE (Menu\Build\Clean Solution)
• Clean the solution manually (delete the compiled DLL/EXE in the /bin/ folder and empty the temporary files that VS create during the build process in the /obj/ folder (each project that compose the solution has these folders, so clean them all))
• Try to open each single project that compose the solution 1-by-1 and build it, to understand which is the specific project that generate the issue
• Understand what is the change/edit/modification that triggered the error, and undo it (source control tool can help...)
• If you have custom controls: check the code in the constructor. The VS IDE will call the constructor of your custom controls even at design time, and weird things can happen (at design time some properties dont works, your connection string probably isn't populated...)

As a last resort...

• Try to install any VS update
• Try to disable VS extensions (if you installed any...)
• Try to update any external DLL/Control referenced in your solution
• Try to update Windows

Answer 5

For me, this issue was being caused by conflicting <site> configurations in the following file.

C:\Users\smunro\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config

I edited this file to remove all of the site elements within the following element. You might want to be a little more selective and try to identify the site that is causing the conflict and remove just that.

<configuration><system.applicationHost><sites>

Note that I left the <siteDefaults>, <applicationDefaults> and <virtualDirectoryDefaults> elements there.

When I reloaded the project, a new <site> element was created automatically.

Answer 6

While working on VB.Net projects in Visual Studio 2005, I have faced this issue many times. Usually, disabling the 'Enable the Visual Studio hosting process' option in the application's debug properties solves the issue for me. Usually, when the hosting process is enabled, calls to certain APIs can be affected.

To un-check this option, you need to follow the steps below:

• Right click on your project in the Solution Explorer
• Select properties
• Under Debug tab, you would find a check box option for Enable the Visual Studio hosting process. Un-check this option.
• Save your changes