Has anybody else experienced a problem with VS where some of the HTML in the page definition just disappears? On several occasions, I and now another developer, have been working on web forms, hit the compile button, and suddenly discovered much of our web page was deleted. And upon returning to the designer, we find that large portions of HTML have disappeared. It's as though VS has determined that the end of the page was higher in the form code than the </html> tag and indiscriminately deletes the remaining code without even mentioning the fact. And with the auto save turned on (and who could live without that?), the missing code cannot be recovered. Undo doesn't work because the interface doesn't seem to realize that it's made unexpected changes (shades of Frontpage) and the previously saved copy has been overwritten. I've wasted several days rebuilding pages that were unexpectedly truncated like this.

Any idea what's causing this, how to avoid it, or suggestions on simple ways to recover code when VS discards it like this?

Sounds like you might need a good source control system. Take a look at SourceGear Vault. It's a very good system, similar to VSS and a better alternative. It fully integrates with Visual Studio uses MSSQL Server for it's repository and you can use it as a single user for free.

Honestly Ron, you seem to have the strangest problems with visual studio. (I thought they only occurred to me.) Maybe it's time for a fresh windows install. ;)

-Peter

Would have been nice if I'd included a link wouldn't it...

http://www.sourcegear.com/vault

Another thing: Vault is built in .NET and uses web services so you can access your source repository over any accessible HTTP connection so it's just darn cool too!

-Peter

It seems like it has been my fate over my 25 years as a developer, that I have been the lucky one to find all the weird bugs nobody else ever sees. Talk about being on the bleeding edge! I always loved the old mainframe IBM error messages I constantly received that read essentially: PROBLEM UNKNOWN. Now I get to deal with Microsoft's obscure error messages instead. SSDD.

At this moment, VS seems to be ignoring OPTION EXPLICIT ON. It's right there at the very top of my class and yet referenced variables that were not defined aren't being highlighted. The compiler catches them, of course, but it would be nice if the IDE would do it, too. Earlier, intellisense suddenly stopped working. An inconveniently timed reboot (are reboots ever convenient?) fixed intellisense, but not this bizarre OPTION EXPLICIT problem I'm having now.

Wish I had the time to rebuild my development box, but I am under the gun to finish a project I've been working on for a while now. Maybe once it's done they'll give me the time. OTOH, the other guy who has also had his HTML eaten by VS has been trying for several weeks to set up his new computer to no avail. VS required several installations before it would load. We'd love to get the next version of .NET but the Iraqi non-War is likely to cut our budget so much we'll be stuck using 1.0 for the foreseeable future.

We are using Visual Source Safe, btw, but that doesn't help with the disppearing HTML problem (which as I mentioned, another developer here has also experienced so it's not just ME) when I've been editing a form for an hour and the changes don't disappear until I hit SAVE. I am doubtful any other product would help either, unless it does incremental updates to the source library without having to invoke a SAVE to my hard drive (and which seems related to this problem). In any case, the aforementioned budget crisis makes it unlikely we'll be buying any new source management tools, either.

Guess we'll just have to muddle through with 1.0 in the meantime, unless somebody can explain why these problems happen and how to avoid/fix them. Sigh.

I have that problem too, when suddenly my html page disappeared and undo doesn't work either, I wasted couple of hours of work. :( Is there a way to enable undo somehow???

ARRRGG!!!!

It's just done it to me again, nearly 3 hours of work all gone!!! :(. planoie source control systems are all very well if you check in every 5 mins, I'm using VSS (crap i know but co. policy! ) but only check in when my part is complete and tested so i don't contaminate the source control code.

Does anyone know if vs saves the html files in a temp folder at all like the dlls?

Just about to look for them now....

Expert Newbie!
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