VS2008: cannot start debugging, remote debug monitor was closed

Question

I get a cryptic error from time to time that I just don't get. I can “fix” it by restarting Visual Studio 2008, but this is not really a solution ...

It states the following:

Error trying to start a project: cannot start debugging.

Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debug Monitor is closed on the remote computer.

I do nothing remotely as far as I know ... Just ran the usual F5 debugging style. What does it mean? How can i fix this?

Error Dialog http://i47.tinypic.com/2j3k5c6.jpg

Answer 1

If you are on a 64-bit OS , then you silently delete the remote debugging. Devenv works in WoW64 (which means a 32-bit process) ... when you press F5 it starts msvsmon.exe as a 64-bit process and sets up the communication channel between "silent remote debugging" of devenv and msvsmon to enable debugging of your 64-bit process

Check the task manager when you are successfully debugging and you will see how msvsmon.exe works.

If the above assumption (64-bit OS) is correct, the error you see is based on the fact that Visual Studio is in a bad state. If this error occurs when starting the msvsmon.exe instance ... kill that instance. If msvsmon.exe does not start, restarting devenv is probably your only option.

Another possible workaround is to install your project on an "x86 platform" so you can debug directly. Compiled x86 managed assemblies or native binaries will run on Wow64 and prevent any need for silent remote debugging. (Obviously this does not help if it is a 64-bit problem ... but in practice it is rare.)

I hope this helps or will help you in finding the best answer.

Answer 2

I had the same issue with asp.net development on VS2010. This was the problem of my IIS. I did not go on the command line to have iisreset. Otherwise, just reset iis in the iis control window. This fixed the problem for me.