The documentation cache is still being constructed... message won't go away in VS 2010

Question

I recently found out that trying to see the documentation on any method or property in Visual Studio just stopped working and it always comes with the message: The documentation cache is still being constructed. Please try again in a few seconds. Before, it was just a second and then it worked, now it just won't show the documentation anymore.

How dows this documentation cache works but more important, what can cause it to stop working?.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks

Answer 1

The documentation cache is built as a part of idle processing. There are commonly 2 reasons why this operation may never complete

1. Some other plugin / component is hogging the processor or IDLE queue preventing the documentation cache service from completing.
2. The documentation is corrupt / deleted from the machine. This is less likely as it's parsing files out of the framework directory.

Most likely case is #1. Have you opened up devenv.exe under task manager and seen if it's actively doing any work?