Visualstudio-docs: How to troubleshoot "------ Skipped Build: Project: MyProject ------"

[jzabroski]

@gewarren
Please see our conversation here: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs/commit/572312c5de220dc2e1615fc3edb7e0cb5b003cf6#commitcomment-32880142

"Can you please add documentation around how to debug "------ Skipped Build: Project: ------" messages in Visual Studio? MSBuild.exe has -fl (or -fileLogger) flag to log such messages, but I do not see a similar configuration in Visual Studio."

I believe most of the time this problem arises when the sln file is corrupted.

Related StackOverflow Q&A:

1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54038485/diagnosing-why-visual-studio-skips-building-a-project
2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1319772/how-to-determine-why-visual-studio-might-be-skipping-projects-when-building-a-so

[gewarren]

Topic question was originally asked on is here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/how-to-specify-build-events-visual-basic?view=vs-2019

[jzabroski]

@gewarren Actually, I think it was the C# version of the same document, which seems out-of-sync with the Visual Basic one. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/how-to-specify-build-events-csharp?view=vs-2019

In particular, this warning/note was helpful but "not helpful enough":

Pre-build events do not run if the project is up to date and no build is triggered.

In other words, I came to this web page for help because the first suggestion a coworker made when I was trying to figure out "Why is my project not building?" was to suggest adding a pre-build event. However, the web page then told me, No, you can't use that for this.

It seems to me that a proper Call To Action is to say, you can't do that here, but we realize that's what most people expect, so here is how you do it.

[jzabroski]

By the way, my boss spent 2 days upgrading a solution and then rolled it back and gave up, and it turns out the root cause was a corrupt sln file where he accidentally removed a single F# project from a sln containing mostly C# projects. I guess he did this with the intent of adding it back, but forgot to do so.

This is the second place I've worked where there's been a random F# project that gets called from a c# project and the whole experience is hard on most C# only developers who get stuck with it - I joined after it was built and am the only person who can read/write F#.

[ghogen]

Checking with the engineering team to see if it's possible to add diagnostic information on skipped projects.

[ghogen]

I added a section to the topic https://docs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/ide/how-to-exclude-projects-from-a-build. This covers skipped projects due to timestamp (up-to-date already), and skips due to build configuration.

[jzabroski]

It can also be skipped if the solution file dependencies Guids get jacked up

On Wed, Nov 6, 2019, 4:34 PM Gordon Hogenson [e-mail]
wrote:

Closed #2923
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs/issues/2923.

—
You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs/issues/2923?email_source=notifications&email_token=AADNH7KOBE2PT3EE6IFATUTQSMZ6XA5CNFSM4HARTVS2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFWZEXG43VMVCXMZLOORHG65DJMZUWGYLUNFXW5KTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOUWCRVFA#event-2776963732,
or unsubscribe
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADNH7PZZBMWKU5XU3I7CY3QSMZ6XANCNFSM4HARTVSQ
.

[rolandh]

Any way to resolve this? It keeps happening to people on my team, has collectively burnt a few days of dev time due to random projects being skipped for no reason with no warning.