Debug Symbols not loading

Question

I am trying to configure visual studio to enable me to step into the .net framework source code when I am debugging.

I have tried with both Visual Web-Developer-Express

Answer 1

I had this problem - no symbols loading - and spent a week trying to solve it. My problem was that I had for the first time started using Master pages in my website project. And I was incorrectly creating the content pages; the error was that i was not indicating the codebehind file in the page directive of the content page so my codebehind file was in essence unconnected to the build of the project. A dumb mistake and simple fix after a week of frustration. Hope this helps some lost programming soul stuck with the same problem.

Answer 2

Source stepping is only available for RTM or SP releases.

See http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/refsourceserver/thread/1b74f60c-e961-425c-a38e-362406dd4cfe.

Since 4.5 assemblies keep the same version number as 4.0 (stupid idea), then there is no way to get compatible symbols + source right now, so this is impossible with VS11 installed. You must start over with a clean machine and don't install .NET 4.5.

This is really stupid … the whole point of versioning just thrown out the window.

Answer 3

Have you set up the environment to load the symbols (note: by default, the symbols are not set to load - have not checked VS 11, btw (will do so later)).

You can also check out this article for info on symbols. I will have to check if there is a manual download for symbols for .NET.

You can also set up source server manually to http://referencesource.microsoft.com/symbols. You cannot browse the reference source.