Environment: Win 10, VS 2015, patched to the kazoo. Behaviour: The VS 2015 (as of Aug 2015) has a blank properties window when opening some projects and clicking on some visual items (winforms). Oddly - when I close VS 2015, the properties window suddenly populates with data just prior to closing, as if the data is there, but just not properly shown. Fix attempts: Restarting VS 2015 doesn't appear to fix the issue. For some reason this view element seems 'confused' about which property it's showing content for, as clicking other winforms controls fails to update the property view Restarting the entire OS (a hyperV VM in my case) fixes it. I wouldn't mind just a restart of VS 2015, but the entire OS is both oddly required and frankly an annoyance.

visual-studio-2015

Reputation: 805

Visual Studio 2015 - Properties window is blank sometimes?

Environment: Win 10, VS 2015, patched to the kazoo.

Behaviour: The VS 2015 (as of Aug 2015) has a blank properties window when opening some projects and clicking on some visual items (winforms).

Oddly - when I close VS 2015, the properties window suddenly populates with data just prior to closing, as if the data is there, but just not properly shown.

Fix attempts:

Restarting VS 2015 doesn't appear to fix the issue. For some reason this view element seems 'confused' about which property it's showing content for, as clicking other winforms controls fails to update the property view
Restarting the entire OS (a hyperV VM in my case) fixes it.

I wouldn't mind just a restart of VS 2015, but the entire OS is both oddly required and frankly an annoyance.

Upvotes: 24

Answers (15)

Nima Habibollahi

Reputation: 480

Switch the active window to another window, Then return to the first window, The properties will be filled.

Upvotes: 0

DribbleNibble

Reputation: 117

ok, here's the grand solution. Just double click on any element and the properties would come back.

Upvotes: 0

Corus Deleno

Reputation: 1

Click in the empty area in the properties form and hit Ctrl + S. Close the properties form. Close the Solution Explorer. Right click any item in your Designs window and select Properties.

Upvotes: 0

Steve Crane

Reputation: 4440

I was getting this in VS2019 Enterprise on a work laptop but it's more than the project properties. I also have occasions when property panes of tree nodes in Tools | Options don't populate. Clicking to a different node then back usually makes it populate.

I always thought this was a weird glitch related to just that machine, but have just received a new laptop and after installing VS2019 Enterprise the same problem is there. The laptops are completely different. One was Lenovo with i5 CPU and this one is Dell with i7. Only common factors are OS (Windows 10) and software.

Upvotes: 0

macnerd

Reputation: 391

Same problem in VS 2019 Professional. Properties for projects were displayed, for WinForm controls not.

I closed the form tabs and reopened them. Problem solved.

Upvotes: 19

vapouryh

Reputation: 45

So I'm having the same issue on Visual Studio 2019. I got it to show all the properties after going to my .xaml.cs file and then selecting the object from the Solution Explorer and it came back again. Doesn't work if trying to open from the main .xaml window though which, is annoying!

Anyways, hope this helps.

Upvotes: 0

Seneral

Reputation: 326

Whatever I tried, my custom control (maybe because it's in a DLL) did not throw an exception when debugging with a second VS instance.

So what I did as a workaround was to disable 'Enable Project Code' (On the small option bar in the XAML designer) which disabled all UI code in the editor and made it possible for me to work on it.

Warning: Only last resort.

Upvotes: 0

Peng

Reputation: 37

The properties Window is actually part of the "Solution Explorer". To make it reappear, in the search box next to the minimize button, type "reset", then click on "reset window layout". It should solve this problem.

Upvotes: 2

big kev

Reputation: 337

I'm not sure about your question but I also had that same small issue, at the top right of the properties tab, if you can see a close icon, just click on it. Maybe you tried to search for something... Hope it helps someone.

Upvotes: 1

Are

Reputation: 138

Restarting VS2015 as admin solved this for me. The "reset" option mentioned in another answer is still greyed out though.

Upvotes: 0

Run CMD

Reputation: 3035

Just select the empty properties window and press CTRL + S. It will reload.

I have no clue why this works, but it does.

Upvotes: 13

Joao

Reputation: 1

There's a simpler solution, I had the same problem and I deleted all the *.xsd files and run the Visual Studio again... All is back to normal.

Upvotes: 0

Barbarian

Reputation: 247

I found that my properties window frequently blanks out, but I can restore it by right-clicking on the button toolstrip at the top of the properties window and chosing "reset" from the context menu.

Having said that I've reverted to using VS2013 because I've found VS2015 to be just too buggy at present. I'll try it again after MS publishes SP1.

Upvotes: 1

Simon

Reputation: 2362

David, I had this problem too in Visual Studio 2015 Community. I found out that it was because my XAML Windows [must the the same for WinForm] was undocked from the main IDE. Once the Designer was docked back inside the main IDE Windows, properties pane was working again.

Upvotes: 5

David Ford

Reputation: 805

It appears as if VS keeps running in the background (!) - consuming 50% CPU. Kill VS and all is well.

Upvotes: 2

Visual Studio 2015 - Properties window is blank sometimes?

Answers (15)

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