invalid service definition or service configuration

Question

I have a standard Azure build -- one web role, one worker role. After the latest merge, it has decided that the roles are invalid. When I double click on the web role or worker role, or when I right click and choose "Properties", I get a grey screen saying "Invalid service definition or service configuration. Please see the Error List for more details". However, there is nothing at all in the Error List.

I have cross-compared the Settings elements and tried commenting out sections of the csdef and cscfg files, but nothing seems to bring the roles back to life. I have wasted half a day on this already. My question is not so much "What is wrong" -- more like, how on Earth are you supposed to find out what the error is when no information is given and successive blanking out of code draws a comprehensive blank?

Answer 1

I've run across this a couple of times (VS 2015 Enterprise). Simply closing and re-opening the solution resolved the issue.

Answer 2

In this case, nothing was wrong with the csdef and cscfg files. It was the way the wadcfgx files were linked to the roles.

I'm on a branch that is using Azure 2.5; the other branch is on a previous version of Azure, that uses the older version of diagnostics. By deleting the existing wadcfgx files and re-generating them, I was able to make the roles visible and editable again. Having different versions on different branches does, of course, open a very large can of worms, but we're stuck with that difficult situation for the time being.