How do I debug Windows Forms Designer crashing?

Question

I have a windows forms project. It has a main form derived from System::Windows::Forms::Form which I can open in designer without any problems. If I try and close designer though, it kills Visual Studio (v2008 with SP1).

The form includes a tab control which has pages with various System::Windows::Forms::UserControl derived forms. So I'm guessing the fault lies somewhere in the main form or one of those sub-components. The problem is I don't know how I can narrow it down at all?

I've tried debugging from another copy of the developer environment, but I can't get the break points to work.

Any suggestions on how to attack this problem would be very gratefully received!

[EDIT] By trial and error I've narrowed it down to a single System::Windows::Forms::UserControl derived control, and the crash only occurs when that control is nested within a System::Windows::Forms::TabControl . Is there something the tab control does when it closes which could cause the crash perhaps?

Answer 1

Try open another instance of VS, go to Debug -> attach to process, choose another VS from the list (the one you have your project in), then put the breakpoint somewhere in your application (somewhere it is likely to cause this error), and run you project and you should be able to debug it and find what make VS crash.

Good luck