Visual Studio error: The "GenerateResource" task failed unexpectedly ... The file exists

Question

Visual Studio error: The "GenerateResource" task failed unexpectedly ... The file exists

I am trying to build a solution with many projects, and I'm getting this error for a Windows Service project:

The "GenerateResource" task failed unexpectedly.
System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80070050): The file exists. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070050)
   at Microsoft.Build.Shared.NativeMethodsShared.InprocTracking.WriteContextTLogs(String intermediateDirectory, String tlogRootName)
   at Microsoft.Build.Utilities.FileTracker.WriteContextTLogs(String intermediateDirectory, String taskName)
   at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.GenerateResource.Execute()
   at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute()
   at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.ExecuteInstantiatedTask(ITaskExecutionHost taskExecutionHost, TaskLoggingContext taskLoggingContext, TaskHost taskHost, ItemBucket bucket, TaskExecutionMode howToExecuteTask, Boolean& taskResult)   ImportProcessorWindowsService

As suggested in another similar question, I tried deleting my .suo file, but that did not help.

I have been able to build this solution in the recent past. How do I fix this?

visual-studio

asked on Stack Overflow Oct 17, 2011 by

Seibar • edited May 23, 2017 by

Community

6 Answers

I figured this out. It seems to have been caused by some files being marked Read Only in the obj/x86 folder.

Lovely how TFS likes to mark files as Read Only.

I deleted the contents of obj/x86 and the error went away.

answered on Stack Overflow Oct 17, 2011 by

Seibar

I checked out (VSS) the obj folder in Solution Explorer and I got a dialog stating that a couple of files and or folders were missing and did I want to create them. I clicked OK and then rebuilt the project without errors.

answered on Stack Overflow Jun 22, 2012 by

Dave

In the more recent versions of Visual Studio it's quick and simple to use the clean and rebuild solution options available on the build toolbox

answered on Stack Overflow Jan 4, 2016 by

Arazio • edited Jan 4, 2016 by

Arazio

I had a .resx file that became corrupted. I undid the change & pulled it from source control again to get the original copy restored. That worked for me.

answered on Stack Overflow Nov 7, 2019 by

James Burnett

Run Visual Studio with as administrator.

answered on Stack Overflow Oct 28, 2014 by

nimatra

in my case I re-opened the same project with VS2013 instead of VS2010, so I successfully rebuild it (it creates a new file (*.v12.suo). Then I back with VS2010 and finally all was ok. Hope this helps

answered on Stack Overflow Apr 29, 2015 by

ciabbi

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