Null reference pointer was passed to the stub when not debugging with IE

Question

In VS2012, my web project debugs fine like always. I use IIS Express. Today, I installed VS 2013 and when I press F5 to debug, I get

I can't find a solution to this anywhere. I tried clearing out temp files, change the port number from 7227 to something else, deleting iis express config files, etc. I even uninstalled and re installed VS 2013.

I can run without debugging, then attach to IISExpress and that works, but I can't start with an F5. Any clues?

EDIT: Happens on another machine as well with fresh install of windows 8.1 and VS 2013

EDIT: SOLUTION: I had Silverlight checked as a Debugger. I unchecked Silverlight and I was able to debug using Chrome or Firefox using F5. Obviously something isn't right here, but I don't need Silverlight debugging anyway.

Answer 1

I had this problem and it was caused by IE not being the default browser. You can correct this by following this answer

Visual Studio opens the default browser instead of Internet Explorer

Answer 2

The answer was given by @ScottG in his edit, but here's a clearer explanation:

Open your Web Project Properties settings, click the Web tab, and under 'Debuggers,' unclick 'Silverlight.' Obviously, if you're needing to debug silverlight another solution will have to be found, until the VStudio team fixes this bug.

Answer 3

Undesirable workaround for a seemingly related problem (not an answer):

I created a new Silverlight project in VS2013 (express edition, C#) and got nearly the same error upon trying to run the application in debug mode (by pressing F5). The error message also ended with 'A null reference pointer was passed to the stub.'

I set my default browser to IE10 and now the debug mode for Silverlight applications in C# in VS 2013 (express edition) works fine.