IDE dies during compile

[Kevin Atherton]

Hello.

I work for a large web company, and we are in the process of converting our
old .asp pages to .aspx with VB code-behind. The solution includes 8
projects, all of which are very interwoven.

The problem is that when I first open the IDE and load my solution, if I try
to build or build all, it gets partway through the compile and then IDE
simply goes away. There is no error, no fanfare, no warning, no indication
that there is a problem at all--it just goes away. *pop*

Sometimes, this happens every time. Occasionally, I can get it to let me
Build, but not Build All, but not very often.

The pattern I've noticed over the last few days is that if I load the
solution and then press F5 to RUN it (in debug mode), I get pop-up window
saying there is a W3WP.EXE application error. After I click the OK box on
this error, the compile completes, I can then stop the debug, and from that
point on until I shut down IDE, I can build or build all without problems.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this? Is anyone else besides us seeing
this? It's been driving me and several other developers here crazy for
quite a while, and it's getting worse as the we go forward.

 

[Richard Myers]

Sounds like a monolithic application which you need to break down into more managable chuncks. When
you say you cant compile/are you trying to compile the entire solution at once or on a project by
project basis?

When you say interwoven/how interwoven/i'd check for things like circular references etc. Quite
often when things just go *pop* as you have described its because you have chewed through all
available resources? What does task manager tell you about the resource consumption when you compile
/F5? If it goes thru the roof then certainly look into circular reference theory. This should be
detected by IDE but depending on the stage you at in the conversion process, the problem might not
yet be *detected*....

Otherwise it might be something completely different altogether?

;-)

If you can sometimes F5 then you should be able to set a break point on the very first line of app
and step thru to point of failure. If it falls over before it even hits the first statement then you
know it's in the setup and again;in a *highly interwoven app* i'd be looking for circular
references.

hth
Richard

 

[Richard Myers]

Also if you dont already know how to drill into your IIS worker processes the following Url may be
of some help:

http://www.wwwcoder.com/main/parentid/170/site/3730/68/default.aspx

Richard

 

[Kevin Atherton]

Sounds like a monolithic application which you need to break down into more managable chuncks. When
you say you cant compile/are you trying to compile the entire solution at once or on a project by
project basis?

This is what I meant by "interwoven." There are 8 projects, but none of
them is stand-alone except one. The rest all reference each other, but I'm
fairly sure there are no circular references or EVERYONE would be having
this problem. It is still just a few of us, though.

When you say interwoven/how interwoven/i'd check for things like circular references etc. Quite
often when things just go *pop* as you have described its because you have chewed through all
available resources? What does task manager tell you about the resource consumption when you compile
/F5? If it goes thru the roof then certainly look into circular reference theory. This should be
detected by IDE but depending on the stage you at in the conversion process, the problem might not
yet be *detected*....

CPU goes up to 90% or a little above, but it goes higher than that opening
MS Word. As I type this, 'devenv.exe' is using just under 120M of memory
(it just completed a Build operation; the first time I tried it, it did what
I describe above, but when I did it again after reloading, it worked okay).

Otherwise it might be something completely different altogether?

;-)



If you can sometimes F5 then you should be able to set a break point on the very first line of app
and step thru to point of failure. If it falls over before it even hits the first statement then you
know it's in the setup and again;in a *highly interwoven app* i'd be looking for circular
references.

I'm assuming by circular references, you mean:

Solution
Project A
References: Project B
Project B
References: Project C
Project C
References: Project A

That kind of thing?

 

[Richard Myers]

This is what I meant by "interwoven." There are 8 projects, but none of
them is stand-alone except one. The rest all reference each other, but I'm
fairly sure there are no circular references or EVERYONE would be having
this problem. It is still just a few of us, though.

Are those developers from the same segment of the team though? Im just trying to throw up a few
ideas, if you can definitely rule them out however then it must be something else. You said you
could sometime build but not build all? So you are trying to build the entire solution at once? What
happens when you build on a project by project basis? Can you easily build the first say 3 projects
but not the last 5? Chances are you have probably tried all these things but i always start with the
really simple things, so apologies if this seems a too simplisitic/amatuerish.

CPU goes up to 90% or a little above, but it goes higher than that opening
MS Word. As I type this, 'devenv.exe' is using just under 120M of memory
(it just completed a Build operation; the first time I tried it, it did what
I describe above, but when I did it again after reloading, it worked okay).

Yeah everyones cpu spikes/bursts for this kind of request, i was more interested in sustained
hardloop kinda useage. Increasing memory consumption is generally a very good indicator that
somethings a miss - however that depends on the loop.


You never answered this... can you ever hit a break point?

I'm assuming by circular references, you mean:

Solution
Project A
References: Project B
Project B
References: Project C
Project C
References: Project A

That kind of thing?

Yeah. Normally its quite simple to detect but i figured since you were moving from old technology to
new something might have got mixed up in the transistion.
Do you encounter the same problems when compiling from the command line? If not maybe a VS.Net
reinstall is in order?

Richard

 

[Guest]

The same thing happens to us with a VB DOT NET APP.

there are 6 developers with a large application (16 modules)

Sometimes we can get the latest code try and compile and the IDE will just
dissapear, No error messages or anything.

About the only thing that seems to fix it is to compile each sub project
individually and compile the front end project last.