VS 2010, NUNit, and “The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document”

Question

Using Windows 7 32 bit, VS 2010, .NET 4 DLL, NUnit (2.5.5) to unit test the application. I'm currently getting the following error; seen plenty of posts and tried the following:

1. restart machine
2. restart VS
3. delete bin/obj and reload
4. clean/rebuild

But I cannot get NUnit to hit my breakpoints when running;

I set the NUNit test project to point to the nunit.exe, and to load the testing .NET 4 DLL, but when I run it doesn't find the breakpoint, "no symbols have been loaded". I tried debug >windows > modules, it doesn't even show my unit testing project when I run it.

I found this, to use the nunit agent: http://groups.google.com/group/nunit-discuss/browse_thread/thread/5680d7def5b6982f

But I get an error when I use the nunit agent too. I was using nunit-agent-x86.exe, but I get a system.formatexception and it crashes...

Can anybody help?

Thanks.

Answer 1

There's another similar question here on Stack Overflow , where I posted my answer with what worked for me. I can set breakpoints and start NUnit directly from Visual Studio 2010 with Debug -> Start New Instance (which I think is your goal).

I set nunit.exe as the external program in project -> Properties -> Debugging and added:

<startup>
    <requiredRuntime version="4.0.30319" />
</startup>

to the nunit.exe.config file found next to the nunit executable in the NUnit install directory.

Answer 2

The resolution was: start NUnit stand alone, then in VS 2010, do debug > attach to process, and attach to the nunit-agent.exe process, not the nunit process. Nunit process still didn't do it for me.

Answer 3

如果上述所有操作都没有帮助，请在Visual Studio中打开NUnit项目的属性，打开“Build”选项卡，单击“Advanced”按钮并确保“Debug Info”设置为“full”

Answer 4

I was getting "break point will not be hit ... no symbols loaded ..." for a website project. Found that there were build errors in my website (one of the referenced dll's went missing for some reason). Rebuilds didn't show the problem until I selected View=>Error list in VS2010, prior to the rebuild. Replacing the missing dll in the bin dir & updating the reference solved my problem.

Answer 5

Adding the following section in the nunit-x86.exe.config worked for me:

  <startup>
      <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0,Profile=Client"/>
  </startup>

The 'sku' section is only needed when running with .NET 4's Client Profile. Note that a previous answer showed using 'requiredRuntime' which is obsolete.

Answer 6

Attach nunit-agent.exe process instead of nunit.exe because when dotnet version is different form what is used by nunit it self, nunit execute the task by nunit agent. See the link below.

http://www.nunit.org/index.php?p=nunit-agent&r=2.5.10

Answer 7

Are you running NUnit and then loading the DLL? Try instead opening the project properties, Debug tab, switch the start action to 'Start external program', point to the NUnit exe, put your dll name in 'command line arguments'. Then start the library project right-clicking it and choosing Debug -> start new instance.

Answer 8

This problem occurred to me under Visual Studio 2012 Community Edition, when working with .NET Framework 4.5. nunit.exe.config should like this (solution from the most appreciated answer):

<configuration>
    <!--
   The GUI only runs under .NET 2.0 or higher. The
   useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy setting only
   applies under .NET 4.0 and permits use of mixed 
   mode assemblies, which would otherwise not load 
   correctly.
  -->
    <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
        <!-- Comment out the next line to force use of .NET 4.0 -->
         <requiredRuntime version="4.0.30319" />
    </startup>

Answer 9

I needed to open the NUnit GUI

Tools->Settings->IDE Support [click Visual Studio]

Then in the nunit-x86.exe.config (NOT nunit-exe.config, NOT nunit.agent.exe.config, NOT nunit-console.exe.config) ,

I needed

   <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
    <supportedRuntime version="v4.0.30319" />
  </startup>

under <configuration>