Visual Studio hangs constantly during build

Question

Probably between 25 and 50% of the times I build my solution, I see this:

\"The operation you requested is taking longer than expected to complete. This dialog will clos

Answer 1

For me it was something to do with npm package install that ran automatically. I went to Tools > Options > Project and Solutions > External Web Tools and unchecked all external tools and restarted VS. After that, I was able to build it again. I know I need them to be checked but I need to figure out what's triggering them and what's wrong with this solution file.