Viewing the Activity Log for VS 2010

2009 November 1
tags:
by r.claypool

Are you repeatedly getting a less than helpful error dialog in Visual Studio 2010?

Go to the command line and run devenv.exe with logging, reproduce the error in the IDE and then open ActivityLog.xml:

devenv

C:\>cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE"
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE>devenv /Log
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE>cd %APPDATA%
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data>cd "Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0"
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0>dir ActivityLog.xml /B ActivityLog.xml
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0>notepad ActivityLog.xml

Look for entries with type=Error, e.g.

<entry>
<record>263</record>
<time>2009/10/24 22:50:09.218</time>
<type>Error</type>
<source>Editor or Editor Extension</source>
<description>System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Editor.Implementation.VsFontsAndColorsInformation.GetEditorFontForItem(IVsColorTable colorTable, Int32 itemIndex, FONTCOLORPREFERENCES2 fontColorPreferences)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Editor.Implementation.VsFontsAndColorsInformation.TryGetItemValue(String itemKey, ResourceDictionary& itemValue)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.EditorFormatMap.CreateResourceDictionaryFromProvision(String key)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.EditorFormatMap.GetProperties(String key)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.ClassificationFormatMap.GetDefaultProperties()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.ClassificationFormatMap..ctor(ICollection`1 formats, IClassificationTypeRegistryService classificationTypeRegistry, IEditorFormatMap formatMap)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.ClassificationFormatMapService.GetClassificationFormatMap(String category)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.ViewSpecificFormatMap.AttachToFormatMaps()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.ViewSpecificFormatMap..ctor(IClassificationFormatMapService classificationFormatMapService, IEditorFormatMapService editorFormatMapService, ITextView textView)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.EditorFormatMapService.<>c__DisplayClass1.<GetEditorFormatMap>b__0()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities.PropertyCollection.GetOrCreateSingletonProperty[T](Object key, Func`1 creator)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Classification.Implementation.EditorFormatMapService.GetEditorFormatMap(ITextView textView)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor.Implementation.OutliningAdornmentManagerFactory.CreateTagger[T](ITextView textView, ITextBuffer buffer)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Tagging.Implementation.TagAggregator`1.GatherTaggers(ITextBuffer textBuffer)</description>
</entry>
2 Responses leave one →
  1. 2011 February 17

    how to fix this error?

  2. 2011 February 23

    I don’t remember now. I think I had to uninstall a corrupt plug in.

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This work by Robert Claypool is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States.