Visual Studio 2017 can't find folder that exists in the solution

Question

I have Visual Studio 2017 project in which I need to open a folder named Devdog.General, which is also included in my Solution. However, it won't recognize it as an existing folder and gives me a missing directory / namespace error when I try to import it. See screenshot for more info.

Answer 1

Try this button:

I had a similar problem the other day and it had to do with files that Visual Studio didn't know were part of the project because they'd been created externally (and that included folders). Visual Studio could see them but it was hiding them from me.

After clicking that button, you will be able to right click on the folder and select "include in project" which will include the files for compilation and navigation.

Answer 2

First, try selecting any of your "*.cs" files inside this "General" folder and check in the "Properties" view if the Build Action is configured to Compile . Visual Studio will only compile your file if it has the correct build action.

Secondly, open that "*.cs" file and verify if the namespace defined inside it is correct. For C#, folder structures don't matter much: what really matters is the namespace you have defined your classes in. You can define your classes in namespaces completely different than the folder they are included in your project. That is completely arbitrary, and up to your organizational needs.

An image illustrating what you need to check (and where) follows.

Answer 3

Things to Check
1.) Check the namespaces inside .CS files - they collectively create usable namespaces you are referencing - not folder names. If you create a few files, then move them to a folder, and create newer files inside that folder they will have different namespaces. The newer files will have the default Namespace value followed by .FolderName. So be sure to check that out.

2.) CSPROJs can get hosed and lose reference to folders that display in the UI. Remove the folder from the project (through the VS2017 UI, right click and choose that option). DO NOT DELETE. Then recreate the folder in the UI (it shouldn't let you, navigate to the folder directory manually and rename the folder.OLD temporarily). Once the folder is rename, try recreating the folder. Upon success move all your CS files into the new folder from folder.OLD. After files and folders are back to where they were essentially, then in Visual Studio, "Add existing items" on your .cs files. This recreates the CSPROJ references one by one.

3.) Unload CSPROJ, right click and Edit CSPROJ to manually check all the .CS references in ItemGroups. Make sure its myfolder\\myotherfolder\\mycsfile.cs .

4.) Remove reference to other projects that contain namespace, and re-add them. Verifying, one by one, the namespaces begin reappearing in Intellisense as recognized.

5.) If you try the above step, close Solution, close Visual Studio, navigate to SLN folder container, and delete hidden folder .vs and then reopen everything.

What happens is sometime a folder rename or file transfer doesn't propagate to the .CSPROJ folder, a namespace then doesn't get intellisense cached, and errors galore show up.

Answer 4

Please check your folder name and namespace name. probably folder name and namespace did not match

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