Visual Studio freezes or hangs on startup

Visual StudioFreezeStartup

Visual Studio Problem Overview

I have been using Visual Studio for a while and found that when I open visual studio and open the project all the files that were open last time remain open.

This causes my Visual Studio to freeze or crash on startup.

I am using a lot of plugins in my installation and wonder if there is a way to prevent this from happening.

Visual Studio Solutions

Solution 1 - Visual Studio

Have you tried resetting user settings? It did help me:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe /ResetUserData

Solution 2 - Visual Studio

Run: Devenv /ResetSkipPkgs

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241276%28VS.80%29.aspx

or

You are probably looking for the /SafeMode command line switch:

devenv.exe /SafeMode

This will start Visual Studio with all add-ins disabled.

Solution 3 - Visual Studio

You can change your Visual Studio 2010 start up settings.

Tools --> Options --> Startup --> At startup --> Show empty environment --> Save

Visual Studio has a plugins limit. Use only plugins that best for you. There is a list for best Visual Studio 2010 plugins for developers.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2757357/visual-studio-2010-recommended-extensions

Solution 4 - Visual Studio

devenv.exe /ResetSettings

or

devenv.exe /ResetSetting

Worked fine for me

Solution 5 - Visual Studio

I had the same issue with Community 2015 version. I solved it with Vidas Vasiliauskas suggestion, which was to erase user settings.

The thing is that I previously had [tag:Enterprise] 2015 version, in which I was logged in with my Microsoft account. When trying to open [tag:Community] version, it tried to do so with that same account, which I believe was the cause of the issue.

Therefore, I would suggest to those with the same problem to run the following command at Command Line Prompt:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe /ResetUserData

Solution 6 - Visual Studio

In my case, VS 2013 Professional was hanging on startup because the license was no longer valid.

Last item in the log file:

<entry>
    <record>367</record>
    <time>2015/07/13 20:11:05.051</time>
    <type>Information</type>
    <source>UserConnection</source>
    <description>[email protected] signed in for IDE user</description>
</entry>

And on the msdn.microsoft.com subscription page: "Your subscription is no longer active, contact your administrator."

I had to get an updated subscription from my employer.

Solution 7 - Visual Studio

When it hangs on the splash screen:

It could be that an anti-virus solution is blocking Visual Studio.

Kaspersky Internet Security 16.0.1.445 makes Visual Studio 2015 hang on the splash screen. The older version 16.0.0.614 works fine.

Solution 8 - Visual Studio

Clear the tag's elements in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

Also do the same with C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

The tag should just be <runtime/>

Solution 9 - Visual Studio

If your Visual Studio 2019 is stuck due to a faulty extensions, here is a way to get it back to normal.

First, start Visual Studio in safe mode (devenv.exe /SafeMode) and uninstall the troublemaker.

Hereafter, if Visual Studio 2019 is still unresponsive, you need to do the following:

  • Browse to %LOCALAPPDATA% and go to Microsoft -> VisualStudio -> 16.0_bb6da863 (or whatever version you have installed)
  • Delete the following folders (all cache related):
    • ComponentModelCache
    • ImageLibrary
    • MFECacheBackup
    • Extensions\*.cache

For reference:

enter image description here

Hope it helps you and safe a VS repair/reinstall.

Happy coding :-)

Solution 10 - Visual Studio

I was having this issue when using the Git source-control plugin.

I ran devenv.exe /SafeMode

And then in Options -> Source Control -> Plug-in Selection made sure "None" or "Visual Studio Team Foundation Server" was selected. After that, VS started normally.

Solution 11 - Visual Studio

Check Task Manager. I had a Setup.exe running (not sure what it was installing), but once I killed it, VS unfroze.

Solution 12 - Visual Studio

I have got recently VS2017 stucked on start up . so I did this and worked for me : 1 - start cmd as admin : run the following:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE" devenv.exe /SafeMode

2- once VS is started , go to Tools => Extentions and Updates : then uninstall all plug-ins that installed recently ( notice the installed date ) and unnecessary ones)

Solution 13 - Visual Studio

This helped me: I deleted all SDK, JDK & JRE folders that had been rooted in VS settings before. After that I used devenv.exe /ResetUserData and devenv.exe /ResetSettings.

Worked for me on Visual Studio 2015.

Solution 14 - Visual Studio

This is becuase of rendering IDE UI try this hope it will resolve

1- Open "Visual Studio"

2- Select "Options" from the top menu

3- Navigate to "Environment => General"

4- Unchecked "Optimize rendering for screens with different pixel densities"

5- Restart visual studio

Categories
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Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
Questionuser605334View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Visual StudioVidasVView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Visual StudioGurpreet SinghView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Visual StudioSoner GönülView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Visual StudioGyuriView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Visual StudiondarriulatView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Visual StudioKerry RandolphView Answer on Stackoverflow
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