CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#winformsdebuggingvisual-studio-2008build
sooprise
sooprise

Reputation: 23187

Debug Target Is Missing?

When I try to build my solution, I get the following error:

Visual Studio cannot start debugging because the debug target 'c:\target' is missing. Please >build the project and retry, or set the OutputPath and AssemblyName properties appropriately >to point at the correct location for the target assembly.

My output path is set correctly to bin\Debug, but the exe is never created in that folder. Instead, all I get are the exe.config, vshost.exe, and vshost.exe.config files.

Any idea what's going on?

Upvotes: 56

Views: 110991

Answers (19)

CZFox
CZFox

Reputation: 9275

  1. Make sure that output path of project is correct (Project > Properties > Build > Output path)

  2. Go in menu to Build > Configuration Manager, and check if your main/entry project has checked Build. If not, check it.

  3. Go to properties > Application , and select the output type of your project

Upvotes: 118

Claudio Redi
Claudio Redi

Reputation: 68440

You could open the project file with a text editor and replace 'c:\target' by 'bin\Debug'

EDIT

There are other more helpful answers but I can't delete mine since it's the accepted one.

@CZFox Answer

@Yehuda Shapira Answer

steps for changing target path is

  1. Go to Properties
  2. Then go to Debug
  3. Browse the Start external program and select the bin/Debug/.exe file

Upvotes: 6

Kingsolmn
Kingsolmn

Reputation: 1858

There are many issues that can lead to this problem, after losing 2 days to this issue I think I have the root cause of this issue and also the problem of the Form Designer throwing an error when switching to the Design view (also seems to effect the DataSet Designer):

A language syntax error that Intellisense doesn't catch.

Once I went through my code with a fine tooth comb I found a couple of really boneheaded mistakes that I kept overlooking, once those were resolved the solution compiled just fine and the output was in the correct place.

Upvotes: 0

Vibol
Vibol

Reputation: 785

I tried everything mentioned in this thread but none worked. Then, i tried the simplest thing and it worked. Close visual studio and open it back up again.

Upvotes: 1

Marcin Własny
Marcin Własny

Reputation: 51

Problem: The problem was I had bad nuget source configuration, so the solution could not start properly despite the fact it was build correctly because it still saw old dll references.

Solution: It was not enough to change nugget source url, I just had to remove entire nugget source and add it again with proper url. Clean solution and rebuild it.

Upvotes: 0

George Grainger
George Grainger

Reputation: 172

Although this has already been answered, I found that my own solution was none of the above. Admittedly a rookie mistake, within my solution I had multiple projects, and thus when trying to run solution, the wrong project was set as the Startup Project.

So in my own case, not to say others, the solution was to right click the project and select Set as Startup Project

Upvotes: 1

ptsivakumar
ptsivakumar

Reputation: 437

You can try the following steps to resolve the problem.

Step 1:

Right click on the solution and select the property

Step 2:

In Configureation property select the Build option button

Upvotes: 5

epsi1on
epsi1on

Reputation: 571

I had a very very similar problem, but almost non of the solutions worked for me, finally when i reset the VS setting, it fixed... To reset settings:

  • Tools Menu >
  • Import and Export Settings >
  • Select Reset all settings radio >
  • Next >
  • Next (You can backup your current settings in this step) >
  • Finish

Upvotes: 0

Jon Coombs
Jon Coombs

Reputation: 2226

I had this error too (in VS2010), and in my case (two projects in one solution, with one being for unit tests) the answer was to go into the solution's (not the project's) properties and set a single startup project. I would've thought it also necessary, in that project's settings, under Application, to specify the "Startup Object", but it's working for me with or without that.

Upvotes: 1

Mohsin Akhtar
Mohsin Akhtar

Reputation: 21

I had the same problem and the real solution was embarrassingly easy:

If, in your project, Visual Studio has never successfully compiled the program (before finding the first bug), you will get this error. What I did was remove all offending code (in my case, leaving just a simple button1_Click with no code). Run/Compile the code one time; exit the running program, and this message goes away.

The Compiler builds various directories and files on a first successful compile and these are used by the debugger. I am now recommending with all new projects, define the form, compile, close, and then begin coding.

Upvotes: 2

Sezgin
Sezgin

Reputation: 1

If the above explanation does not help you, then you could have error in the program. I have the same issue and I solved it as I cut the functions used in the same class and one of the functions were the cause of it.

Upvotes: 0

Christian Regli
Christian Regli

Reputation: 2256

I have solved this problem by changing the Platform Target to "any CPU".

Upvotes: 0

Nirbhay Singh
Nirbhay Singh

Reputation: 61

I have solve this type of problem follow this step

1.VS2010 right click on the solution explorer and select the Build.

  1. Again press Ctrl+F5 or F5

Upvotes: 6

Moriarty Snarly
Moriarty Snarly

Reputation: 676

This was a really annoying error!

I kept trying to start a debug instance but it just wouldn't make an exe! Though there were errors in my ConnectionString (while trying to make an SQL connection). There were two backslashes that were supposed to be a part of a path and the tutorial I was following told me to ignore it.

Well, turns out that was the error. A backslash marks the beginning of some escaping that you want to do, and the way to have a backslash displayed is \\ instead of \.

Got rid of that, and it worked for me.

EDIT: It would seem that you have to get rid of the tiny errors that you have made while writing your code to let it compile properly.

Upvotes: 0

svpoorna
svpoorna

Reputation: 11

Please follow the below steps to overcome this problem:

  1. If you are working with VS2010, change platform target to x64
  2. Select .net framework as 3.5
  3. If you are using any custom code for Sharepoint and like to debug or deploy the use the above....and my bad sake i dont abt the .net applications

Upvotes: 1

user857646
user857646

Reputation: 1

Here is the solution for this problem, no need to change anything for this problem. You all know C# is case sensitive language and we have to write all methods and statements in correct case. We all are just missing this thing and we just have to change method 'main() --> Main()' This thing solved my problem please let me know if you still find any :-)

Upvotes: -3

Yehuda Shapira
Yehuda Shapira

Reputation: 8630

I've had the same problem;

Here are solutions that didn't work for me:

  • Building/rebuilding entire solution
  • Making sure the output path was correct (MyProject > Properties > Build > Output > Output path)

Here's the solution that did work for me:

  • Rebuilding just the project

Upvotes: 22

Fredrik Norlin
Fredrik Norlin

Reputation: 303

I just stumbled across this problem, but I'm using Visual Web Developer Express 2010 and couldn't find any wrong path either within IDE or in the project file. Rebuilding or deleting build folders didn't help.

But after examining the projects .user file, which I've never done before, I discovered that the bad path was in there. Very simple if one knows where to look.

Upvotes: 4

Phileas Fogg
Phileas Fogg

Reputation: 161

I've found that this can happen if all the files are deleted from the bin folder. ReBuild the app to force a full build: right click on the project in solution explorer and select ReBuild.

Upvotes: 2

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