Fix: Cannot debug an old Sitefinity project in Visual Studio 2015
by Vesselin Vassilev
Last Updated On Jun 1, 2017
I had a case where my Visual Studio 2015 was being able to debug perfectly any project, but not this particular Sitefinity 7.1 project. The build mode was set to Debug, the compilation mode in web.config was set to Debug, all the required ingredients were there, but still the build did not produce a SitefinityWebApp.pdb file at all.
As a result, putting a debug breakpoint anywhere in the solution would result in the infamous:
"The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document."
Solution: it turns out the issue is caused by the Telerik OpenAccess (version 2014.x.x in this case) - there is a bug with OpenAccess and Visual Studio 2015 as confirmed by Telerik here. The issue is fixed in OpenAccess 2015 Q2 which is used by Sitefinity in version 8+.
So, easiest thing you can do to workaround the issue, is to use Visual Studio 2013 - it can produce the pdb file successfully.
Upgrading Sitefinity to a later version is the other alternative of course.
As a result, putting a debug breakpoint anywhere in the solution would result in the infamous:
"The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document."
Solution: it turns out the issue is caused by the Telerik OpenAccess (version 2014.x.x in this case) - there is a bug with OpenAccess and Visual Studio 2015 as confirmed by Telerik here. The issue is fixed in OpenAccess 2015 Q2 which is used by Sitefinity in version 8+.
So, easiest thing you can do to workaround the issue, is to use Visual Studio 2013 - it can produce the pdb file successfully.
Upgrading Sitefinity to a later version is the other alternative of course.