pdb file, check for insufficient disk space, invalid path, or insufficient privilege

Question

I am getting this error all of a sudden and I don't know why. I have to restart VS2010 everytime I make change to the code because apparently it locks the pdb files.

1>LINK : fatal error LNK1201: error writing to program database 'C:\code\MyProject\Debug\MyProject.pdb'; check for insufficient disk space, invalid path, or insufficient privilege

Even if I clean the project it doens't delete this file. I have tried the solution proposed here by Toni but it didn't work for me either. When add path to pre-build like he has suggested I get the following error:

1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppCommon.targets(103,5): error MSB3073: The command "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\freepdb MyProject 1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppCommon.targets(103,5): error MSB3073: :VCEnd" exited with code 9009.

Answer 1

The culprit was deleaker that I had installed to detect memory leak and it looks like it was holding up the debugger/pdb files. After uninstalling my problem is fixed.

Answer 2

It worked for me when I closed ProcessExplorer (sysinternal tool procexp64.exe) which I was using to check number of thread memory usage. Search that file and then close it.

[Update]: You can also use Windows "Task Manager" as efficiently as "Process Explorer of Sysinternal" to locate any zombie handles. Task Manager | Performance | Open Resource Monitor | CPU |Associated Handles | search ->

Answer 3

I have faced similar problem when I worked with single pdb file in two Visual Studio versions. Closing one visual studio version solved the problem.