a matching symbol file was not found in this folder

Question

I want to use debug symbols, but I am receiving the following error:

a matching symbol file was not found in this folder

What

Answer 1

I found this was because the Properties => Debug => Start Action was set to Start external program instead of the Project. So the newly generated pdb file didn't match, because the actual exe was the wrong one.

Answer 2

One of the things I've ran into with was because debug was off on the project referenced where the code lives. In my case, I made a new configuration called "Developer" and by default debug was turned off.

1. Right click the project in question
2. Properties
3. Build
4. Advanced (right bottom corner)
5. Set Debug Info to full
6. Recompile

Answer 3

I had the same problem as @DmainEvent. Apparently the dll that I was using was not the same version as the pdb that I had just compiled, so I got the error message.

If you have this problem, try using the dll and pdb from the same compilation run.

Answer 4

The error I got was "a matching symbol file was not found in this folder" in the Debug => Modules window even after both the DLL and PDB were available and built together, so I was unable to debug into the target DLL referenced by my main project.

Posting this here in case it helps someone browsing with "Mixed Platform" build for target DLL. I did two things to get past this:

1. In the solution using the target DLL, Uncheck "Just My Code" in Tools => Options => Debugging => General => Enable Just My Code (JMC).

2. Check "Enable native code debugging" in target DLL solution in relevant Project Properties => Debug.

Answer 5

Well, the solution depends on your specific problem. I tried everything that could be possibly found on Stackoverflow and other sites. One of the thread that I followed is this. That did not help too. The problem was at once resolved when I noticed that my executable project did not contain a reference to the library that I wanted to debug. So I just added the reference to that project.

**PS: ** This problem might also arise because the assembly referenced by the executable assembly might not match that in the references. So in that case, you just remove the already existing reference and add the new one.

Hope this helps!

Answer 6

I tried all the possible solutions, finally it worked when I disabled the option Enable native code debugging under the Debugger engines of Properties > Debug.