Search does not work any more.

SteveA

The results vary by project. After running for hours (or days) it still says it is indexing, but it is finding results (although I think they are suspect). I've resorted to using grep in a cmd box.
FYI, I reported this problem to this Microsoft.

SteveA

Microsoft requested that I repair my installation of Visual Studio to see if the problem remains. Here is my reply to them:

I ran a repair on 17.5.1 as requested. The problem was unchanged. Clicking on the Background Task icon displayed “Discovering files in <project name>” and “Indexing files in <project name>” indefinitely (I let it run for 30 minutes). I did this with a project that has 143 php files, although the problem exists with all of my php projects.

I opened the same php project on a different computer with Visual Studio 17.4.3. It completed the “Discovering files” task in 12 seconds and the “Indexing files” task in 18 seconds.

This is a problem in 17.5.1 that didn’t exist in 17.4.3.

Note that both projects use the PHP Tools for Visual Studio 2022 (version 1.71.17177) DEVSENSE extension which allows for php projects in Visual Studio.

Other users have reported this problem on the DEVSENSE support forum.

BarryHarrington

Ctrl-F search works in "Current document" and "All open Documents" but not in "Current Project" and "Entire Solution" for me. My solution is a combination of C# applications along with PHP and JavaScript.

JakubMisek

BarryHarrington Thank you for the screenshots.

I see you have a very old PHP project type (this might be the problem).
Also, there are some tasks "pending" in the Visual Studio Background tasks panel (the lower left corner) (I guess Visual Studio is "Indexing ...") (while it's there, Visual Studio "Search" won't work)

The old PHP project type is extremely slow; I would suggest upgrading to the new one - File / New / Project from existing code .... That should help.

JustJoe

Any news on this? The entire search across my project/solution for PHP projects is broken since the VS update. Even the latest VS update does not bring any help. Have you been able to reproduce the problem?

SteveA

No news from Microsoft for me. I don't know which side of the fence (Devsense or Microsoft) the problem exists, but it has been very challenging for me. I've resorted to using grep in a command prompt for my searches.

SteveA

JakubMisek How can we tell the age of a php project?
Have you looked at https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Visual-studio-never-completes-the-indexi/10304012?

MiloslavBeno

Hi guys,

I think I can reproduce it as well now - in the new PHP project type. I will try to find out more. So far, it seems just stuck at:

SteveA The fast way to know if it's a legacy project is to take a look in the Solution Explorer. If you see References under the project name, it's a legacy project. If you see Dependencies, it's the new one.

SteveA

MiloslavBeno and @JakubMisek Updating to the newer format seems to have fixed the problem for me. Indexing the new project took less than 30 seconds and search seems to be working. I've only tried this on one project, but my fingers are crossed.

BarryHarrington

Thanks guys! I updated the PHP project and all is back to normal. I am able to search across the project now.

JustJoe

Thanks a lot! I can confirm that this now works. The solution is to migrate the PHP project to the new project format. When using the old format, the indexing will run for ever. Thanks again! :-)

JakubMisek

Thank you all for the confirmation;

FYI, The New Project is significantly faster, so Visual Studio is able to index files faster, and search sooner :-) It's still an issue in VS itself though.

MiloslavBeno

Great, Thank you all!

I've also updated to 17.5.2 and I'm no longer able to reproduce it either on the new project or the legacy one. So it seems we can close this one.

UPDATE: The legacy project only works if the same folder was opened as the new project first. Otherwise, the issue persists. It basically means, the legacy project shouldn't be used since VS 17.5.

« Previous Page