Visual Studio 2010 always thinks project is out of

Question

I have a very similar problem as described here.

I also upgraded a mixed solution of C++/CLI and C# projects from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. And now in Visual Studio 2010 one C++/CLI project always runs out of date.

Even if it has been compiled and linked just before and F5 is hit, the messagebox "The project is out of date. Would you like to build it?" appears. This is very annoying because the DLL file is very low-tiered and forces almost all projects of the solution to rebuild.

My pdb settings are set to the default value (suggested solution of this problem).

Is it possible the get the reason why Visual Studio 2010 forces a rebuild or thinks a project is up to date?

Any other ideas why Visual Studio 2010 behaves like that?

Answer 1

I had similar problem and followed the above instructions (the accepted answer) to locate the missing files, but not without scratching my head. Here is my summary of what I did. To be accurate these are not missing files since they are not required by the project to build (at least in my case), but they are references to files that don't exist on disk which are not really required.

Here is my story:

1. Under Windows 7 the file is located at %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\%. There are two similar files devenv.exe.config.config and devenv.exe.config. You want to change later one.

2. Under Windows 7, you don't have permission to edit this file being in program files. Just copy it somewhere else (desktop) change it and than copy it back to the program files location.

3. I was trying to figure out how to connect DebugView to the IDE to see the missing files. Well, you don't have to do anything. Just run it, and it will capture all the messages. Make sure Capture Events menu option is selected in Capture menu which by default should be selected.

4. DebugView will NOT display all the missing files at once (at least it didn't for me)! You would have DebugView running and than run the project in Visual Studio 2010. It will prompt the project out of date message, select Yes to build and DebugView will show the first file that is missing or causing the rebuild. Open the project file (not solution file) in Notepad and search for that file and delete it. You are better off closing your project and reopening it again while doing this delete. Repeat this process until DebugView no longer shows any files missing.

5. It's kind of helpful to set the message filter to not up to date from the DebugView toolbar button or Edit → Filter/Highlight option. That way the only messages it displays are the one that has `not up to date' string in it.

I had lots of files that were unnecessary references and removing them all fixed the issue following the above steps.

Second way to find all the missing files at once

There is a second way to find these files all at once, but it involves (a) source control and (b) integration of it with Visual Studio 2010. Using Visual Studio 2010, add your project to a desired location or dummy location in source control. It will try to add all the files, including those that don't exist on disk as well but referenced in the project file. Go to your source control software like Perforce, and it should mark these files which don't exist on disk in a different color scheme. Perforce shows them with a black lock on them. These are your missing references. Now you have a list of them all, and you can delete all of them from your project file using Notepad and your project would not complain about being out of date.

Answer 2

I had this problem in VS2013 (Update 5) and there can be two reasons for that, both of which you can find by enabling "Detailed" build output under "Tools"->"Projects and Solutions"->"Build and Run".

1. "Forcing recompile of all source files due to missing PDB "..."
   This happens when you disable debug information output in your compiler options (Under Project settings: „C/C++“->“Debug Information Format“ to „None“ and „Linker“->“Generate Debug Info“ to „No“: ). If you have left „C/C++“->“Program Database File Name“ at the default (which is „$(IntDir)vc$(PlatformToolsetVersion).pdb“), VS will not find the file due to a bug (https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/833494/project-with-debug-information-disabled-always-rebuilds).
   To fix it, simply clear the file name to "" (empty field).

2. "Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line since the last build."
   This seems to be a known VS bug too (https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/833943/forcing-rebuild-of-all-source-files-due-to-a-change-in-the-command-line-since-the-last-build) and seems to be fixed in newer versions (but not VS2013). I known of no workaround, but if you do, by all means, post it here.

Answer 3

This happened to me today. I was able to track down the cause: The project included a header file which no longer existed on disk.

Removing the file from the project solved the problem.

Answer 4

If you are using the command-line MSBuild command (not the Visual Studio IDE), for example if you are targetting AppVeyor or you just prefer the command line, you can add this option to your MSBuild command line:

/fileLoggerParameters:LogFile=MyLog.log;Append;Verbosity=diagnostic;Encoding=UTF-8

As documented here (warning: usual MSDN verbosity). When the build finishes, search for the string will be compiled in the log file created during the build, MyLog.log.

Answer 5

I've deleted a cpp and some header files from the solution (and from the disk) but still had the problem.

Thing is, every file the compiler uses goes in a *.tlog file in your temp directory. When you remove a file, this *.tlog file is not updated. That's the file used by incremental builds to check if your project is up to date.

Either edit this .tlog file manually or clean your project and rebuild.

Answer 6

The accepted answer helped me on the right path to figuring out how to solve this problem for the screwed up project I had to start working with. However, I had to deal with a very large number of bad include headers. With the verbose debug output, removing one caused the IDE to freeze for 30 seconds while outputting debug spew, which made the process go very slowly.

I got impatient and wrote a quick-and-dirty Python script to check the (Visual Studio 2010) project files for me and output all the missing files at once, along with the filters they're located in. You can find it as a Gist here: https://gist.github.com/antiuniverse/3825678 (or this fork that supports relative paths)

Example:

D:\...> check_inc.py sdk/src/game/client/swarm_sdk_client.vcxproj
[Header Files]:
  fx_cs_blood.h   (cstrike\fx_cs_blood.h)
  hud_radar.h   (cstrike\hud_radar.h)
[Game Shared Header Files]:
  basecsgrenade_projectile.h   (..\shared\cstrike\basecsgrenade_projectile.h)
  fx_cs_shared.h   (..\shared\cstrike\fx_cs_shared.h)
  weapon_flashbang.h   (..\shared\cstrike\weapon_flashbang.h)
  weapon_hegrenade.h   (..\shared\cstrike\weapon_hegrenade.h)
  weapon_ifmsteadycam.h   (..\shared\weapon_ifmsteadycam.h)
[Source Files\Swarm\GameUI - Embedded\Base GameUI\Headers]:
  basepaenl.h   (swarm\gameui\basepaenl.h)
  ...

Source code:

#!/c/Python32/python.exe
import sys
import os
import os.path
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

ns = '{http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003}'

#Works with relative path also
projectFileName = sys.argv[1]

if not os.path.isabs(projectFileName):
   projectFileName = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), projectFileName)

filterTree = ET.parse(projectFileName+".filters")
filterRoot = filterTree.getroot()
filterDict = dict()
missingDict = dict()

for inc in filterRoot.iter(ns+'ClInclude'):
    incFileRel = inc.get('Include')
    incFilter = inc.find(ns+'Filter')
    if incFileRel != None and incFilter != None:
        filterDict[incFileRel] = incFilter.text
        if incFilter.text not in missingDict:
            missingDict[incFilter.text] = []

projTree = ET.parse(projectFileName)
projRoot = projTree.getroot()

for inc in projRoot.iter(ns+'ClInclude'):
    incFileRel = inc.get('Include')
    if incFileRel != None:
        incFile = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(projectFileName), incFileRel))
        if not os.path.exists(incFile):
            missingDict[filterDict[incFileRel]].append(incFileRel)

for (missingGroup, missingList) in missingDict.items():
    if len(missingList) > 0:
        print("["+missingGroup+"]:")
        for missing in missingList:
            print("  " + os.path.basename(missing) + "   (" + missing + ")")