I am working on a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro (10.0.18362) and trying to get Visual Studio 2019 setup and configured for .NET Core 3.1 Web Development but am running into several issues.
I created a default React.js ASP.NET Core Web Application and ran the project. Things seemed to be working alright, except that after updating JavaScript code the browser updates after a fairly long pause; things seem to be lagging.
After closing Visual Studio 2019 from the default Web App (no updates) there are several processes that seem to hang, and have to be shut down manually:
I have tried installing Visual Studio 2019 with the Node.js provided by the Visual Studio Installer, in addition to installing Node.js V12.4 and V13.6 manually with the same results.
Another problem: If I update the project from JavaScript to TypeScript using npx create-react-app client-app --typescript, Hot Updates stop working entirely. But after updating the JavaScript code and refreshing the browser things seem to update, so it does seem to be recompiling. I have tried debugging in Firefox and Chrome, both with the same results.
I am very hesitant to continue working with this install as I have had several issues when these processes. If these hang unexpectedly and are not shut down they will continue to use the old versions of the code and nothing that is done will update until the processes are shut down, causing complete insanity.
Could there a specific install procedure I need to perform as a workaround? Or am I possibly missing NuGet packages or Add-Ons? Since this is a fresh install of the operating system, are there Windows Features that I need to install? Or other configuration/permission changes that could be causing this?
Prior to this install, only projects created in Visual Studio 2017 seemed to work as expected. But I need to develop this site in .NET Core 3.0 and it looks like only Visual Studio 2019 is supported for that.
Update
After some messing around, it looks like Node is causing the problems. If I manually shut down the Node processes, then Visual Studio will finally shut down—but it leaves other processes like the VSCompiler and Consoles running. This happens even if I run Visual Studio as an administrator.
Should I install node before Visual Studio, or visa versa? Is there possibly some setup that I need to perform with Visual Studio or Node to get things working correctly?
Update 2
After not finding any fix I tried a complete reinstall of Windows, including a disk format, and then only installed Visual Studio and Node.js.
One interesting thing I found when doing this: I originally only installed Visual Studio and selected both the "Web Development" and "NodeJS Development". But when I tried to run a new .NET Core Web Application without any changes, I received an error saying that Node.js was not installed—even though I was able to find a node.exe in the MsBuilds folder under Visual Studio.
I completely uninstalled Visual Studio and all other components, installed Node.js, and then Visual Studio, but the problem still persists. Any time I try to run any kind of JavaScript using the SPA Templates, the Node.js processes don't shut down. If I kill the Node.js process then Visual Studio will finally shutdown, but it leaves the Console Window Host and VBCSCompiler running which have to be shut down manually.
I also tried creating a new .NET Core Web Application, except this time selecting the Angular Template and it works better: The Hot Reload works and it seems to run much faster. But the processes still don't shut down. The only difference is killing the Node.js processes doesn't let Visual Studio shutdown.
Update 3
Also not sure if this helps, but I tried setting the node.exe properties to "Run this program as an Administrator" to see if it happen to be a permission issue. This yielded the same results. I noticed that two windows will pop up, however: First a blank one, then the actual Angular server window.
I'm not sure if it's related, but when I tried to run the Angular Application again it looks like Angular is pointing at another (random) port than is set in the debug settings in the project.
One thing I did notice is that the usual Server Messages are not showing in the Output Window. It used to display the node.js messages such as "the server is running" and other compiler messages, but now it only displays the .NET output.
Update 4
Getting closer, I uninstalled Visual Studio and Node.js, then made sure to clean out any left over Visual Studio and node_modules folders from my AppData and User/Local directories, and then did a disk cleanup. Finally, I reinstalled Visual Studio—making sure to run the installer as Admin—and reinstalled Node.js.
I ran Visual Studio as an admin and created a new Angular App. Now, the Angular app works as expected, HMR works and things seem to run smoothly except that the processes still hang. The major difference is that killing the Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 process kills everything, whereas before it was leaving the VBSCCompiler, Node.js and consoles running.
When creating a React App things load fine. But, again, the HMR doesn't work and also leaves processes running. shutting down the main Visual Studio process seems to clean these up now too.
I'm afraid I don't have a fix but if anyone wants a quick way to kill all the errant node processes and speed things back up they can run:
taskkill /IM "node.exe" /F
I haven't had any issues executing this while VS is running.
In Visual Studio 2019, go to Tools, Options, Debugging, General and towards the bottom there is a checkbox for Automatically close the console when debugging stops. It is unchecked by default on new versions of VS and if you look at your ASP.NET Core project properties you will see that it is a console project. So without the checkbox checked, the console does not automatically close.
The problem is that it is a hidden console so you can't see it to shut it down manually. If you check the box for closing the console automatically, then the consoles and node.js will stop running whenever you stop the debugger. Also in Options, there is a Node.Js Tools area that you may want to look at as well. It has a checkbox for Wait for input when process exits abnormally. If the console is hidden, there is no way for you to do input so that could hold the process open as well.
Another option, if you don't want to change any of the debugging options, is to go to your project properties > Debug and change the Launch settings for the IIS Express profile to Project instead of IIS Express. This will actually make the console / command prompt visible and when you are done debugging you can Ctrl-C to stop the debugger or when you hit stop the console will give you the message to Press any key to close this window . . .
I had the same issue with React SPA, this worked for me:
Tools -> Options -> Debugging -> General -> Enable JavaScript debugging for ASP.NET (Chrome, Edge and IE) (Visual Studio 2017 and 2019) <- unchecked
also the dropdown next to the play button:
Script Debugging -> disabled
There are possibilities to run pre and post build tasks in Visual Studio. I would look for them in project settings.
I use VSCode. So, if you follow the explanation below you'll be able to tackle the problem.
Create a .bat file in your project root folder (for instance kill-node.bat) with the followwing content:
tasklist | find /i "node.exe" && taskkill /im node.exe /F || echo process "node.exe" not running.
Add a pre-build-task executing the .bat file
Add a post-build-task executing the .bat file
Done! Now every single time you start debugging/redebugging your app, the .bat file kills all node-zombie instances. And ditto for your stopping dubug moment.
The VSCode guide:
Perform step 1 of the algorithm above.
Open the file tasks.json in .vscode folder and prepend at top of its tasks the new one:
{
"label": "kill-node",
"command": "kill-node.bat"
},
Now alter the build task code (to activate our kill-node task at the pre-build time):
{
"label": "build",
"dependsOn": "kill-node", // <<< extra string to run kill-node task prior to build task
"command": "dotnet",
//... the rest of build task code
}
Open launch.json file and insert new string:
{
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
{
"name": ".NET Core Launch (web)",
"type": "coreclr",
"request": "launch",
"preLaunchTask": "build",
"postDebugTask": "kill-node", // <<< extra string to run kill-node on debug end
//... the rest of launch.json file
}
}
That's it. Now you can no longer care of the node-zombie instances consuming your memory.
This should be fixed in ASP.NET Core 5.0, try upgrading if possible.
Related
I'm using Visual Studio 2019 to develop a .NET Core 3 application which runs on embedded Linux. I am able to build the code in Visual Studio 2019. If I copy the binaries manually to the Linux machine and then start the application running there then I am able to attach the Visual Studio debugger to the remote process over SSH in Linux and debug the application. This does work, but it's tedious to deploy it, start it and attach the debugger manually for each debug session. I do have a script in Visual Studio Code which works, but I want to use Visual Studio Professional.
I'm trying to write a Visual Studio Extension so that I can press a key in Visual Studio to have the application built, deployed, started and then connected to the debugger. I would then share the extension with my team. It's very nearly working, except for attaching the debugger.
In the extension I am able to list the processes running in the Linux machine and select my application using this code:
EnvDTE100.Debugger5 debugger = (EnvDTE100.Debugger5)dte.Debugger;
EnvDTE80.Transport transport = debugger.Transports.Item("SSH");
EnvDTE80.Engine engine = transport.Engines.Item("Managed (.NET Core for Unix)");
EnvDTE80.Process2 process = (EnvDTE80.Process2)debugger.GetProcesses(transport, "192.168.11.1").Item("app");
process.Attach2(debugger);
There are two problems:
The call to GetProcesses() opens a dialog where I need to enter the Linux username and press enter, how can I specify the username in code to avoid the dialog appearing?
Even though the selected process looks like the right one (process.ProcessID matches what I see in Linux if I run the ps command), I get an exception when I call Attach2(). The exception message is "Exception from HRESULT: 0x8971001E"
I feel like I'm really close to getting this to work, any suggestions for how to finish it?
I also solved the second problem by changing the parameter passed to Attach2() from debugger to engine, as shown below:
EnvDTE100.Debugger5 debugger = (EnvDTE100.Debugger5)dte.Debugger;
EnvDTE80.Transport transport = debugger.Transports.Item("SSH");
EnvDTE80.Engine engine = transport.Engines.Item("Managed (.NET Core for Unix)");
EnvDTE80.Process2 process = (EnvDTE80.Process2)debugger.GetProcesses(transport, "root#192.168.11.1").Item("app");
process.Attach2(engine);
I found out how to add the user Name, but not the Password:
In GetProcess(), set transportQualifier to $"{userName}#{hostName}".
The 1st time the Window will still Pop up and ask for the Password.
But after that VisualStudio has stored the connection including the password.
I recently installed NodeJS Tools for Visual Studio which touts support for Node environments in VS. Notably, it has the ability to set debug breakpoints from the IDE.
It's unclear to me if it is possible to set breakpoints when debugging Gulp tasks. The Task Runner has the ability to detect the Gulp task and output console.log statements to a window, but I haven't found a better means of debugging.
I found this post from a while back: How can I debug gulpfile.js when running it with Visual Studio Task Runner Explorer? However, this post doesn't involve NodeJS Tools for VS. So, I'm re-asking the question to take that plugin into consideration.
You can. Right-click the Node project, select Properties, and configure your app as follows (in the image, default is the Gulp task that you want to run).
Alternative method:
In a terminal, and in the directory where the gulpfile is, run node --debug=44331 --debug-brk ../node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js default. In my case, default is the task name I want to run/debug.
In Visual Studio, go to Debug | Attach to Process. Select Node.js Remote debugging as Transport, and in the qualifier select localhost:44331. Press enter and you should see the Node process appear in the list. Click Attach.
Voila, the breakpoints are hit.
A couple of things to notice:
If you get something like Unable to attach to process. Error 0x80004005 use a different port. I couldn't get it to work with port 5858.
It may not work the first time you attach to the process (see my previous screenshot how I got ECANCELED?). Try again.
The project setup, is a basic express application, generated with express-generator.
The project, vscode-debugging-node is available at GitHub
Please refer the screencast at Visual studio Code - Debugging node application
The Gruntfile.js in root of the project, manages the dev process. The purpose of the Gruntfile.js is simple, it starts the server and watches for any file changes.
On detecting changes in the desired file(s), it restarts the server (kills the existing process and starts a new one).
The Gruntfile.js uses ./task/server.js to start/restart the server.
The Gruntfile.js is developed in this manner, that later on, it will incorporate cookie management, in order to provide a logged in experience.
While executing the $ grunt start task, if a env variable named NODE_INSPECTOR=* is passed, the server is started in --debug mode.
When the grunt task is executed in --debug mode, along with node-inspector running in parallel, I can use Chrome to debug the complete application.
With reference to Debugging in Visual Studio Code, I tried to achieve the same by updating the .settings/launch.json, with "program": "/usr/local/bin/grunt", "args": ["start"] and "env": {"NODE_INSPECTOR":"*"}.
I could find that debugger is attached only till ./task/server.js but on the whole application. I doubt, it may be due to the spawned server.
Is this possible to debug such situation in visual studio code? If yes, it will be of great help to know the details.
Your doubts are correct, you are configuring Visual Studio Code to attach to the grunt task starting the server, not the server itself.
You have two options to order to debug this:
Execute NODE_INSPECTOR=* grunt start form the terminal.
Once the server has started, attach the the running server to the Debugger, using the same Attach configuration available in launch.json. In the Debugger view choose the Attach from the profile dropdown and start the Debugger (green ► play button).
UPDATE --
Sarbbotam recorded a screencast for successfully attaching to his node.js app, you can find it here Visual studio Code - Attaching a Node App to Debugger
Configure VSCode to run the server directly, for that you won't have the grunt task listening to the changes and restarting the server. In order to do that change the program option to "bin/www"
I'm investigating using NTVS (https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/) with Visual Studio 2013 to debug my Meteor/Node application. I can't figure out how to get debugging to work.
The problem is that when Meteor starts it copies all of my sources to the .local directory and runs them in a new instance of Node.exe. This confuses NTVS because it can't follow on into the child process. And I can't set breakpoints because Visual Studio doesn't know how to deal with the fact that the files I am editing being different than the ones that are running in the .local directory.
What I'd like is some way to run my Meteor based code under Node.exe straight from my sources, without the pre-bundling steps. Is this possible?
I'm fine with not having development niceties like hot-code pushing and package updates on-the-fly. I can manage that in other ways.
'meteor bundle' doesn't do the trick because (a) it takes too long and (b) it still makes the copy that throws off breakpoints.
Hopefully there is a way to use Meteor as an awesome library separate from Meteor as a runtime environment so I can debug it with NTVS.
Thanks,
/Michael Ost
if the functionality of the meteor tools for Visual Studio are not sufficient, why not contribute to the project.
It's a bit old (last commit 18 months ago) and hence probably outdated, but it will give you a head start as to how to make things work.
You can run your app in debug mode using meteor debug and then attach debugger to port number 5858, It should work for all type of node.js debuggers e.g. Visual Studio, Visual code, Webstorm etc because they all have "attach" debugger option next to "debug" option.
After I installed Windows 8 perfectly legit statement like this doesn't work anymore:
#if DEBUG
Debugger.Launch();
#endif
Service starts ignoring that thing.
Yes, I am building the project in a debug mode.
if I change that to a Debugger.Break() - the service just fails, and still there's no dialog for attaching a debugger.
The secret lies in changing the registry key for the Visual Studio JIT debugger via the following:
reg add "HKCR\AppID\{E62A7A31-6025-408E-87F6-81AEB0DC9347}" /v AppIDFlags /t REG_DWORD /d 8 /f
Before making this change the value on my machine was 0x28. The above changes it to 0x8. In essence it removes the 0x20 flag.
If you search the Microsoft include files (WTypesbase.h) then you find the following:
#define APPIDREGFLAGS_IUSERVER_ACTIVATE_IN_CLIENT_SESSION_ONLY 0x20
Once you make this change then the JIT debugging window is displayed again. I believe that all of this relates to various session 0 security changes made by Microsoft.
Sourced from this post:
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/69842-Debugging-your-SOE-on-Windows-8
Debugger.Launch would launch an application with a visual GUI. By default services do not interact with a desktop and thus anything they do cannot be "seen".
Support for interacting with the desktop has slowly been removed from Windows services ("Interact with the desktop" option has been removed from some Server versions for example). I would imagine they've continued this trend.
Windows Services by nature are not GUI applications, they can run before and after a user logs into a desktop and thus cannot show a GUI all the time. It's not generally a good idea to depend on an ability to have a GUI in a Service.
If what you want to do is debug a service, I suggest running it as a regular application so that you can do things like Launch and Debug. Shameless plug: you can see Developing Windows Services in Visual Studio for a way to write a service that supports that.
Is this a Windows Store app or a desktop app?
Try right-clicking on your project (the C# executable project if that's what you have) and selecting "Properties". Then in the left sidebar of options, click "Debug". In the "Start Action" section, check the box for "Do not launch, but debug my code when it starts".
Now you can hit F5 and run Visual Studio with breakpoints in your code, and it will sit and wait for you to fire up the process. Then run your application (outside of Visual Studio), and Visual Studio will attach the debugger.