Hi everyone,

I've installed NCrunch a while ago and I'm experiencing problems with the plugin all the time.
When I fire up VS2010, NCrunch just doesn't respond.

The NCrunch menu shows:
- Disable NCrunch (meaning NCrunch should be enabled)
- The other items
And none of the items react when I click them.

The indicators are not showing and the NCrunch icon that should be next to the Resharper icon does not show.
The tests aren't running, NCrunch is just not doing anything at all.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, I also ran VS with log and everything shows just fine:
- the plugin loads without errors
- In the registry it's not marked for deleting by the extension manager
- The extension manager also shows is as enabled...

I'm running VS2010, Resharper and a client-specific plugin. I don't think it could be connected to that since I have colleagues here with the same setup running NCrunch without experiencing these problems. I love this tool and would really like it just to work, but it just doesn't happen.

Sometimes (not reproducable consistently), NCrunch starts working again after I:
- Close VS
- Delete the nCrunch configuration file
- Restart VS
=> Then I get the configuration wizard again and everything works just fine, up until the point I shut down VS.
Next time I fire up VS it's the same problem all over.

Anybody has a clue of what I can do?
I'd really appreciate any help!

Thanks,
Laila

Hello Remco,

I'd love to submit that bug report, but I think something blocks it here on our network, I saved it though (to a zip), is there an e-mail I can use to send it to you?

Your question about the different solutions:
Well, in a different solution, the menu items are responding, but the ncrunch icon is still missing and so are the indicators.
So the menu works in other solutions, but ncrunch still doesn't do anything.

What to do?

Thanks! Laila

Hi Laila -

Thanks for sending through the bug report. I've taken a look, and there doesn't appear to be any exceptions thrown during your initialisation of Visual Studio and the opening of the solution. This is somewhat unfortunate as it means the problem will be a bit tougher to analyse.

The log indicates that NCrunch hasn't yet started any initialisation. You mentioned earlier that only the Disable option was showing in the top menu (instead of Enable). Was this the case at the time you took the bug report? I wonder if this could be something misfiring in VS that is causing the buttons to fall out of alignment with the state of NCrunch.


Cheers,

Remco

The easiest way to clear out the solution settings is just to delete the following two files:

SolutionName.ncrunchsolution (Will be next to your solution sln file)
SolutionName.ncrunchsolution.user (Will be next to your solution sln file)

Also ensure you delete the _NCrunch_SolutionName directory next to your sln file, as this contains cache information that is solution-specific.

Sometimes it can also be useful to delete the settings for the individual projects. Next to each .proj file you'll find a file called 'ProjectName.ncrunchproject'. You can probably find these quickly using the search features in windows explorer.

I hope this does the trick!


Cheers,

Remco

Ow, just closed down VS again, started it again and now everything is working fine.
It seems like the it doesn't load the first time, but does load the next time... Weird!

What seems to be helping, is deleting the global configuration for ncrunch, and then refiring visual studio until I get the NCrunch initialization wizard.
Sometimes it takes restarting VS 3 or 4 times, sometimes it works from the first time (after deleting the file).

If the file is not deleted, NCrunch won't react at all, which means I cant send you the bug report since the menu item does not respond :(

Bit hard to debug isn't it :)

Do you mind if I throw a bunch of questions at you? This will help me to better understand what is going on:

- When you say you delete the global configuration for NCrunch, do you mean the globalconfig.crunch.xml file under your roaming profile? Are there any other files that seem to make a difference in this behaviour?
- When the issue appears, are there any items in the NCrunch menu that seem to give a response of any kind? If you look under the 'Set engine mode' submenu, do you see any engine modes listed?
- When the issue appears, does it only appear for the solution you use normally? Or does it happen for all of them? (i.e. even small new empty projects?)
- Does removing the 3rd party client VS plugin make any difference?

Thanks!

Remco

Hi Laila,

I've done a thorough code review to try and narrow down where the exception could be happening based on the information you've provided me.

At the moment all is pointing towards the VS integration code that executes during NCrunch's initialisation. This means that even if we were to establish the exception being thrown in your environment (which would be difficult to do), there is a very strong likelihood that the exception is being caused by abnormal behaviour within the IDE itself, which is something NCrunch has little control over.

As I'm sure you're aware, Visual Studio is a complex beast with many moving parts. Often VS configuration can be corrupted by plugins that have been uninstalled or reinstalled, and it can be very difficult to figure out why the IDE is behaving strangely.

Considering the amount of time it takes to do and the number of unanswered questions, I don't like suggesting this as an option .. but reinstalling Visual Studio 2010 may very well resolve this problem. At the moment I'm not sure if I can offer any other ideas..