Visual studio - getting error "Metadata file 'XYZ' could not be found" after edit continue

user_900570 0
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I have stumbled into an issue that is really annoying.
When I debug my software, everything runs OK, but if I hit a breakpoint and edit the code, when I try to continue running I get an error:
Metadata file 'XYZ' could not be found

After looking around for a while, I found some a similar issues, but they were all regarding a build failure, which is not my case (this happens only after edit-continue).

What I have tried so far:

  • My code is compiling and running.
  • I cleaned the solution and restarted VS.
  • I made sure that the missing file's project is being build for the configuration I am running (in configuration manager).
  • I manually built the missing file's project.

Some extra info:

  • It does not matter what I change, still get the same error (the change is not related to the missing file).
  • This happens also when I pause and continue (not only breakpoints)
  • I am running the project using a custom configuration (configuration manager...). When I run it using the default Debug configuration the error does not occur.

Any ideas?

visual-studio-2012 edit-and-continue visual-studio configuration c#
27 Answers

Visual Studio 2019 Community 16.3.10
I had similar issue with Release build. Debug build was compiling without any issues. Turns out that the problem was caused by OneDrive. Most likely one could experience similar issues with any backed-up drive or cloud service.

I cleaned everything as per Avi Turner's great answer.

In addition, I manually deleted the \obj\Release -folder from my OneDrive folder and also logged to OneDrive with a browser and deleted the folder there also to prevent OneDrive from loading the cloud version back when compiling.
After that rebuilt and everything worked as should.

user_32798760

A coworker was running into this problem and the cause was eluding us. Eventually we realized that the project directory (and therefore the path to the NuGet packages) contained %20 (thanks, some Git gui tool which shall not be named) and the error messages showed that the compiler was looking for an very similar-looking path but one which had to %20, rather a space. Apparently something in the build system somewhere performs HTML-decoding on local filesystem paths.

Renamed the working copy directory and everything started working.

user_1031670

I had this issue too.

It started after I did a little folder tidying in my project. I then tried to compile and got many duplicate class errors. (despite them not being duplicated. I think the linking was just out of wack)

Upon checking these, the errors would all disappear leaving only the "Metadata file ...debug\application.exe could not be found" error.

I solved this by looking in the build output window to find which classes were duplicated.

I would then right click the class name and "go to definition".

there will be two definitions to select from, open them both, the second definition will seem to open the same file again, however the second one will identify as the error source(red underline).

Delete all the code out of the file and save(This will not effect your actual file).
This should now compile correctly.

user_57058130

Ensure that there are no spaces in the path to your project...

I am using Windows 10 with Visual Studio Community 2019 and I was cloning a multi project solution as it was from a GIT repo. I was having this error with all other dependencies in the solution along with a E_POINTER error. Its path, inherited from GIT, had spaces like C:/repos/MY PROJECT NAME/ ...

I deleted it, cloned it again and make sure that its path contained no spaces like C:/repos/MY_PROJECT_NAME/ ...

That fixed my problem.

user_13401520

I had same issue too.

In my case, I recently add an internal class to somewhere in project. One of the dependencies in solution has same class name and both of them are added correctly to references.

I changed my last activity and rebuild, it works.

Be sure that your compiler messages are valid. In my case I catch reference error from there, not listed as an error in Error List.

user_54830740
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