Working Around IDE Freezes in VS Code When Switching Between Build Configurations

After updating to the latest Visual Studio version (16.3., followed by 16.3.1), two of our solutions at work with custom Build configurations all of sudden began to hang when switching between them.

After a lot of project unloading, deleting our custom configurations back and forth, and project file modifications, we finally found a workaround to continue our work by browsing other/similar issues to ours in the VS feedback forums. The freeze of the solution is caused by a feature that is meant to fasten up solution loading: parallel project initialization.

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It seems to be an issue that some others already had with 16.2.x versions, so it may be a regression (as it is flagged as fixed).

Workaround

The workaround is pretty easy, just follow these simple steps:

• Open Tools/Options in Visual Studio 2019 and find the Projects and Solutions node
• Unselect ‘Allow parallel project initialization’
• Click ‘OK’ and close the solution

After that, we need to delete the .vs folder of Visual Studio 2019 within the local solution folder. This folder contains an SQLite DB that corresponds with some behind the scenes stuff for the parallel project initialization (and more).

Now, open the solution – switching between Build configurations should now work again.

As always, I hope this post is helpful for some of you.

Until the next time, happy coding!

Further Reading

Top 5 Must-Have Visual Code Extensions

How to Set Up VS Code for Python Testing and Development

Visual Studio Code for Java: The Ultimate Guide