Website won't build -- build failed with no errors, warnings or messages (VS2005)

[Guest]

I'm having a problem finding the cause for this problem. I have a solution
in Visual Studio 2005 that contains two projects -- a Web Site and a Class
Library. The web site references the class library.

After the project became larger, the build process would sometimes fail with
no errors. The "quick fix" for this was to rebuild the whole solution and
things seemed ok. When this didn't solve the problem any longer, I went to
the property pages and changed the build action (F5) to Build Page and not
Web Site. After running it once successfully, I changed it back to Web Site
and then the build process did not fail. Great!

Still, this leaves me with no answer since I didn't actually find the cause.
What happened?

Any advice appreciated!

 

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hello Kenneth,

Based on my understanding, you will encounter some problem on web
application building/compiling (ASP.NET 2.0/VS2005) when the project grow
large. As for ASP.NET 2.0 web project( web site application), it has been
much different from the original 1.1/vs 2003 one. In VS 2003/asp.net 1.1
web project, when we build the project, it will compile all the codebehind
files and generate a main project assembly(the same as other .net project
such as winform or console project).

While in ASP.NET 2.0/VS 2005, this is not the case, the 2.0 web project use
dynamic compilation by default, so it do not require us to precompile a
website at development time. When we use "build" command to build the web
site application in VS 2005(or use ctrl+F5 to start a page), it actually
perform all the dynamic compilation which will also be done at runtime
(after deployment). And if there is any error during the whole web
application's dynamic compilation, it will report error. (when we only
select one page in the solution explorer to view, it will be opened in
webbrowser and only this certain page and the resource such as ascx it
references will be dynamic compiled). This is the difference between "view
a page" and build the whole project(or use ctrl+F5 to start a page).

Here are some articles which are helpful on clarify the build/compilation
of ASP.NET 2.0 web project:

http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2005/11/15/2464.aspx

http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/417.aspx


For your problem here, I'm wondering the detailed symptom and behavior when
you get the error:

==============
After the project became larger, the build process would sometimes fail
with
no errors.
==============

I know it may be difficult for you to create a simple reproduct project
since it occurs when the project grow large. So you can provide us some
detailed info on how the problem occurs, for example, after the silent
build error, will it cause a page display incorrect or report a compilation
error on the browser screen?

Also, ASP.NET 2.0 project support precompilation, through the
aspnet_compiler.exe or the "Build--->Publish Web Site" IDE menu item. Will
these precompilation options also behave incorrectly when that problem
occurs?

BTW, there is an add-on project for precompile ASP.NET 2.0 web application
which provide more customization options. Here is the link to is in case
you haven't had a chance to have look:

#Visual Studio 2005 Web Deployment Projects
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/reference/infrastructure/wdp/

Please feel free to post here if you have any other finding or any other
information you wonder.

Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead


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