VS2010 ASP.MVC breakpoints not being hit in multiple site solution

Question

I am writing a Federated web solution it has multiple projects. Debugging has been working fine until yesterday when suddenly (I don't recall messing with anything critical) I got the 'breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document' message on my 3 ASP.MVC projects in the solution.

I trawled around the web and this site for advice and these are the things I have done.

• checked build > configuration manager for correct build setting
• checked project > properties to ensure ASP.Net ticked for debuggers
• checked Web.config to ensure 'compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0"'
• iisreset
• deleted bin & obj directories in each project
• clean and rebuild the solution
• deleted the contents of 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files'
• exited and restarted VS2010
• cried like a baby

After doing these things 2 of the 3 ASP.MVC projects are debugging properly, but the 3rd and critically the one I actually want to step through is not.

other info for you

• using locally install IIS (not IIS express)
• Windows 7
• VS2010 with all service packs
• ReSharper is installed
• Chrome is the Browser I'm using

Any help appreciated.

Answer 1

I have worked out what the problem is.

While I had the initial problem of all projects not debugging the federation project turned out to be a special case. I have been away on leave and had forgotten that I had this in my web config

   <federatedAuthentication>    
   <!--
   <wsFederation passiveRedirectEnabled="false" issuer="https://localhost/FederationProvider/"
                  realm="https://localhost/Application/Home/FederationResult" requireHttps="true" />
   -->
   <wsFederation passiveRedirectEnabled="false" issuer="https://localhost/Issuer/"
                  realm="https://localhost/Application/Home/FederationResult" requireHttps="true" />
   <cookieHandler requireSsl="true" path="/Application/" />
   </federatedAuthentication>

When I changed it so I am using the federator rather than the issuer directly the debugger works.

   <federatedAuthentication>    

   <wsFederation passiveRedirectEnabled="false" issuer="https://localhost/FederationProvider/"
                  realm="https://localhost/Application/Home/FederationResult" requireHttps="true" />
   <!--
   <wsFederation passiveRedirectEnabled="false" issuer="https://localhost/Issuer/"
                  realm="https://localhost/Application/Home/FederationResult" requireHttps="true" />
   -->
   <cookieHandler requireSsl="true" path="/Application/" />
   </federatedAuthentication>

I feel pretty stupid for not realising this earlier. VS2010 was just being too smart.

Answer 2

This may be obvious, but it wasn't in your list of things you've done and in a state of panic can get forgotten, but have you checked the the Directory in IIS is the same as the one the code VS has loaded?

VS should recreate the site (depending on project settings), so try closing VS, deleting the site, reopening the project and letting VS recreate the IIS site for you.