Unable to start debugging - Visual Studio 2012

Question

\"Unable to start debugging \'C:\\Windows\\System32\\WWAHost.exe\'. The Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor (MSVSMON.EXE) does not appear to be running on the r

Answer 1

This happened to me just now when I had a website set up in IIS for mydomain.com, and set my project's start up url (Local IIS) to mydomain.com, and then launched the project before remembering to add a record in the host files for the domain:

127.0.0.1 mydomain.com

This got me for a good hour before I remembered I never set the record. Adding the record fixed it right away.

Answer 2

Windows 7 x64, VS 2012, VB.NET

I fixed it like this:-

1. Create a shortcut on your desktop to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64\msvsmon.exe".

2. Right-click shortcut and select "Properties" from the dropdown menu. Select the "Compatibity" tab, tick "Run this program as administrator" and click OK

3. Create a shortcut on your desktop to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe".

4. Right-click shortcut and select "Properties" from the dropdown menu. Select the "Compatibity" tab, tick "Run this program as administrator" and click OK.

To start VS2012:-

1. Double-click the msvsmon shortcut icon (that you created above, to launch msvsmon). Wait for the "Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor (Administrator)" window to display before continuing ...

2. Double-click the "Visual Studio 2012 Professional" shortcut icon (that you created above, to launch VS2012)

3. In VS2012, ensure standard toolbar is visible.

4. In VS2012, ensure "Solution Platforms" dropdown (on standard toolbar) is visible and set to "x86".

and debug now works (for me anyway) ...

However after 15 minutes or so, debug may stop working and you may get the msvsmon error again. If that happens, simply close VS2012 and msvsmon and then start again (from "To start VS2012:-" above) ...

Answer 3

Windows 7 x64, VS 2012

In my case, the Remote Debugging Monitor component was installed and the app was clearly configured to debug locally in settings. This was a WinForms app upgraded from VS 2008, .NET 3.5.

Turns out it was the Windows Firewall. By directly running:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64\msvsmon.exe

A firewall dialog appeared where I could allow msvsmon.exe to run. After a VS 2012 re-start, debugging (locally) was fine!

Answer 4

I also got this error, I usually run sites under a named user (which is also a database user) and forgot to set the Application Pool. (parliament's answer also helped me)

Answer 5

Myself and several other developers have been trying to look for a solution for this problem for about 3/4 hours as Visual Studio crashed then this error would occur (twice in 2 days). I then suddenly (after a lot of debugging and trying other suggestions and headbanging) I somehow realised that the file which was highlighted had changed and when I was trying to debug was not the MVC app project, once I changed it to my project's one it then worked.

Hope this helps and saves people from hours of pain!