Issue: Just started today, all references to any assembly outside of the solution fail to resolve, with The referenced component 'SomeComponent' could not be found. when trying to build. This happens for both 3rd party components (all 15 or so of them) as well as all .NET Framework assemblies – basically anything that isn’t another project in the same solution.
Trying to load some other solutions produced the same issue. Creating a new WinForms project worked without a problem, however. (Scratch that, it worked before reinstalling VS, now that doesn’t work either. I created a new WinForms app as well as a WPF app, and the designer can’t load the assemblies either. I tried targetting 3.5 and 2.0 and no luck.)
Things I’ve tried:
- Repair Visual Studio installation
- Rebooting computer
- Started VS with /resetsettings flag
- System Restore to 2 days ago when it was known to be working
- Uninstalling VS and reinstalling
- Fresh checkout from SVN
Does anyone have any experience with this and know of a way to get this working again? My strongest Google-fu has failed me, so I’m asking here. Can mark community wiki if requested.
Update: I tried ‘upgrading’ Windows (to the same version) since I didn’t see a repair option for Vista and it’s still a no-go. I reinstalled everything that seemed relevant. So far, it’s looking like I’m just gonna have to back up and reformat I guess unless a solution comes up sometime before tomorrow.
Update2: I just backed up data and reformatted, so I’m no longer able to verify any ideas that I haven’t tried yet, so I’ll just leave the bounty to expire on its own to the top voted answer and as a reference to anyone else who may have this problem later.
Suggested next debug step: review Project Designer: References -> Reference Paths to verify that the paths to your system and third-party components appear correctly. (Watch out for things that can slip past the old Mark I Eyeball like drive letters.)