Missing Visual Studio Web Application publish targets

Question

I am missing the usual publish targets when publishing my c# web application. The usual "Import" and "Custom" options are missing when I go to publish, as well as the "Manage Profiles" drop down that has the option to create a new profile.

Here is the screen I am presented with.

The buttons on the left hand side are "greyed out"

Here is another screen from a colleague that has the missing options

I have tried a full reinstall of Visual Studio 2015 update 1 with no success. I have also tried creating a fresh ASP.NET Web application project in a new solution resulting with the same problem.

Answer 1

In the end this ended up being a corrupt publish profile file in the Properties/PublishProfiles/xxxx.pubxml within the project.

Answer 2

There are multipy options for this behavior:

• Issue with the Web Deploy Tool

  Try to reinstall the current Web Deploy 3.5 Tool

• Depending on the exact Version of your Visual Studio and your Operating System

  There are known issues about specific OS/Visual Studio combinations.

• Missing Web Developer Tools at Installation

  Select the Web Developer Tools Option at installation