Develop Reference

VS2013: Run an executable after debug has started

I am trying to run a specific Web Project in a way to receive requests from an external application.
So when pressing F5 it starts the current Web project in visual studio with debugging but waits from the other site for web calls.
The problem is that for the other web site to work i have to launch several other sites, with services, resources, auth server etc. Some are not part of the solution - which means I cannot use "Always launch when debugging".
For that I have the executable that you can see grayed out in the "Start external program" section. The "IISExpressRunner". This program will also open the site that will access this one after everything is setup.
My problem is that I currently need to run that manually every time I start debugging because both options cannot be selected at the same time - which of course does not make sense since it can debug only one thing.
I can debug the WebSite via the IISExpressRunner application alone, however that has the implication that I need to run VS in Administrator mode, since the app requests UAC to be able to disable IIS to run IISExpress on port 80 - specific for domain alias and authentication server redirects for Google and Facebook logins - to be able to run it locally in the dev environment.
So is there a way to have Visual Studio debug the current project and automatically after debug has started to also execute this external application without debugging it?

A workaround I could think of is that you could call the bat file before you debugging the app using code "Debugger.IsAttached()".
Run batch script before Debugging

There is a manual process you can use. During running a debugging session, right-click the project you want to also start debugging, go to the Debug submenu, and click Start New Instance.

How to debug calls to ASP.NET web api in Visual Studio [duplicate]

I built a Web API service that's hosted locally on my machine in IIS. I have an iOS app that I'm running via XCode that makes the call to the web service. The connectivity is there, and works. The iOS app successfully makes the connection to my published web service.
The problem is my web service is returning a non descriptive error to the client (iOS), so what I need to be able to do is step through the web service code while running my iOS app.
So, in summary:
I run an iOS app via my MacBook, and it connects to my .NET Web API service.
My Web API service is published to my local IIS, and is returning an error back to the client.
Breakpoints aren't being hit in Visual Studio - do I need to attach my Visual Studio debugger to a specific process? I've tried running my web service in debug mode while running my iOS app, to no avail.
How can I step through my web service code when running the client app (iOS) that accesses the web service?

Attach to process - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/3s68z0b3.aspx
Make sure "Show processes from all users" is checked, and pick w3wp.exe
You may need to hit the service once first to make sure its started.

To debug an app that's hosted by IIS, you want to attach to process (in Visual Studio it's Tools->Attach to Process or Ctrl+Alt+P) and pick w3wp.exe from the list (you might have to check a few boxes for the process to show up).

Another option is to use our free VS Extension called Conveyor
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vs-publisher-1448185.ConveyorbyKeyoti
With it you open up IIS Express to remote connections on your network (or even the web through tunnelling).
Once you've done that you can debug the project directly from VS and connect to the Conveyor port number (or domain name via tunnelling) and debug as you would locally.

you can use Postman client.
First : run the API FROM visual studio
Second : go to postman put the url and add the parameter in body
More information : http://www.tutorialsteacher.com/webapi/test-web-api

this often works for me i generally list all of the processes in IIS with appcmd command
appcmd list wp
and pretty much you know which process to attach by seeing the names of the web services
if appcmd is not available please visit
Here for configuring this

Visual Studio 2010 Build issues

I am using visual studio 2010 on .net4.0 for my projects and I've found that each time I do a change in my project, I build and run but I cannot see my changes. I've found this happening once or twice mostly with my web service projects. I'm no pro with web services and am encountering this problem for the first time so would be grateful to anybody who can tell me what has gone wrong with my project and how to fix it.
Edit
My asmx file is where I have added an additional method but am not able to see it when I run F5

When you change the compiled code in a web service or site, you need to make sure you restart the web server hosting that service or site.
You are probably using the ASP.Net Development Server. Although Visual Studio starts this server for you, it does not restart it automatically when you rebuild. As a result, the server will still be referencing the previous version of the assembly that you changed.
In the Windows system tray you should see one or more icons depicting a web page with a purple gear overlapping it at the bottom-left.
There are three of them in this example:
You can stop the server by right-clicking its icon and selecting "Stop". (If you have more than one, you will learn to identify the one you need to stop by recognizing the port number shown in the tooltip when you hover the mouse over the icon.) Visual Studio will restart it when needed.
When you're making changes to a service or site, use this workflow:
Make code changes
Stop the ASP.Net Development Server
Rebuild the project containing the changes
Run
Client-side code vs. Server-side code
If you're changing client-side code (HTML or JavaScript), then you may need to force your web browser to refresh its cache. In Windows this is normally done by pressing CTRL+F5 in the browser (see refreshyourcache.com/en/cache for more info). If you're changing compiled code (C#), and restarting the server doesn't help, try restarting Visual Studio, then do Build -> Clean Solution, then Rebuild.

If you are facing issues in ASP.Net Development Server, I think you are better off creating a virtual directory in IIS and host your web service there. That way you should be able to make your changes, just build it (don't run it) and that should be available on your virtual directory and you just browse to webservice. Then you don't have to hit F5 again and again and don't have to worry about instances of ASP.NET dev server.
Following article contains good step-by-step instructions on how you do it on IIS 7.0. This article is about hosting a website - however, hosting a webservice is not different.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/28693/Deploying-ASP-NET-Websites-on-IIS-7-0

Visual Studio 2008 Development Server not starting

I have a C# web service that I am trying to debug in Visual Studio 2008, and when I try to run it, Internet Explorer pops-up as expected, but it just displays 'waiting for response from localhost...' in the status bar. I have left it running for a few minutes and it never responds.
I have other web services that I am able to debug fine, is VS2005 and 2008. The problem web service is impersonating a different identity in the web.config file, but I have no problems with this same user on a different web service (in VS2005).
Does anybody have any ideas on what might be preventing it from starting up? Interestingly, a colleague has the same problem with a web service that IS working on my machine, even though we are working with identical code. Something must be configured differently...
By the way, I've noticed that the 'Temporary ASP.NET Files' folder is missing from both
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework and C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64... I certainly haven't deleted them, and other web services debug okay, so is this just a red herring?
We are also on a domain which has its own firewall (outside of the developers' control) - could this be blocking it?
EDIT: I have just removed the user impersonation for a quick test, and it worked. So there must be something about Visual Studio 2008 that does not want to run when impersonating THIS particular user. Any ideas what configuration I would need to change to correct this?

I have had the same issues with impersonation; I don't know if Cassini (the built-in VS web server) supports this properly. About the best advice I can give is to either use Local IIS with an app pool running as your impersonated user or to attach your debugger using remote debugging to a remote IIS server.
I believe using Local IIS will attach correctly & automatically if configured as much in the Web tab of Project Properties. You'll have to run VS as an admin to get the virtual directories setup automatically by VS in IIS.

Visual Studio 2010 is not allowing me to debug my code

So, this interesting issue has been plaguing me for the past couple of hours. Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate no longer attaches the debugger and lets me debug my code.
If I use the built in development server, then everything works fine. If I switch to Use Local IIS Web Server (http://localhost/), then all it does it attach to w3wp.exe, but no DLLs or PDBs are loaded for anything. I can go to Debug > Windows > Modules, and literally nothing is loaded in this window. Conversely, when using the built in development server, the Modules window displays all the DLLs and shows that the symbols for my DLLs have been loaded. Something is obviously amiss. The VS installation is completely bone stock.
In IIS, my website is configured with ASP.NET 2.0 (because no 3.5 exists to select from the drop down), along with read / log visits / index this resource options checked on the "Home Directory" tab.
Some of my failed ideas:
1) If I attach to process on the iexplore.exe instance where the website is displayed, it loads Internet Explorer's DLLs, but not mine.
2) I've restarted the computer multiple times
3) I've invoked devenv.exe /resetuserdata once
4) I've confirmed that every project is indeed set to debug and not release.
5) Deleted all \bin contents and rebuilt the solution.
6) Deleted entire solution and repulled from Source Control.
Can someone tell me what is wrong with this thing? I'm going to have an aneurism from the headache this is causing me.

You need to attach it to the IIS worker process, which OS are you using? Make sure you attach with the Managed + Native flags, in the Attach to Process. What happens if you just run (F5) your web application inside Visual Studio (that automatically attaches a debugger)? Do you get any errors?

Well there are quite a few good answers here, but I have found that the root cause of the issue for me was application pool authentication configuration. Let me lay out the scenario that I experienced and the solution and perhaps it will help someone save time....and hair.
Scenario:
I want to debug an ASP.NET web application in Visual Studio 2010 but cannot use the built-in Visual Studio web server. The reason that I could not use the built-in web server is that my application referenced assemblies built specifically for a 64-bit architecture and the VS web server would not support these. So, I had to use the option "Use Custom Web Server" in the website properties to point the debugger at a published instance of my site on a remote IIS web server.
Issue:
Even with the web.config debug options set correctly to publish debug symbols in the assembly output (i.e. compilation debug="true"), the debugger would not attach to the remote IIS process and I did not hit any breakpoints
Environment:
The Visual Studio 2010 debugger was already installed on the remote IIS web server and was running as a Windows service under the LocalSystem account.
Solution:
Enable "Anonymous Authentication" in addition to "Windows Authentication" on the web site hosted on the IIS web server.
As soon as I enabled anonymous authentication, the correct symbols were loaded by the VS remote debugger and I was able to hit the breakpoints.
Hope this helps you guys out.

Have you tried deleting the browser cache? Sometimes the browser hangs on to old code which is incompatible with the current build and thereby prevents debugging.

Does it run the app - without the debugger attached? It smells like you are attaching the debugger to a wrong process

I've had an issue before where under the build configuration screen some projects are unticked for a particular solution configuration, causing them to not build and therefore not be debuggable. Can you confirm whether or not code changes you make are actually being built and executed?
Also, what version of Windows and IIS are you running? Is it possible that your process is running under an AppPool with an account that's different to the account you're logged in with and perhaps it's a permissions problem? If it's Vista/Win7, is UAC turned on and are you running VS as administrator? I'll also second the suggestion to try a fresh project and see what that does. Are you in the debugger users local group on the machine?