Why does the script debugger in Microsoft Visual Studio not work for me

Question

I am using Visual Studio 2008, when I start up an Asp.net project that starts IE6, I do not see any jscript file in the “Script Document” folder in the Solution.

alt text http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8338/example1t.png

However if I start up IE by hand and point it at my website, then attach the Visual Studio 2008 debugger to IE, it does show the jscript files in the “Script Document”. However the list of files in “Script Document" is not updated when I move to another page.

alt text http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6198/example2f.png

So I know that debugger must be turned on in IE etc. What is going on?

I have just created a new Asp.net project with a single page that just contains one control and I have got the same result.

All the files are hosted on the same machine as Visual Studio and IE.

See my answer for what solved this for me, other people may find this usefull.

Answer 1

If the control is hosted on a different machine you need to use that method to debug. See this blog post .

Answer 2

• I uninstalled VS 2008
• I then did a clean install of VS 2008 and it did not work
• I then decided to install VS 2008 SP1 so that I could get on with some other work
• The install of SP1 needed a reboot (the uninstall / install of VS 2008 did not need a reboot)
• The script debugger started to work.

I still don't know what caused the problem and lost over a day's work with it. How long before the script debugger stops working again..