Visual Studio 2012 Launches Wrong Project For Debugging

Question

I've got an ASP.NET web application project in a Visual Studio 2012 solution. I'll refer to this as A.

I copied A's directory to a new directory to make a clone of it. I'll refer to this as B.

I made extensive changes to both A and B to the point that they are not even remotely similar. Stylesheets, scripts, HTML, and back end is all different.

I launched A for debugging, and it appeared in my browser as expected. I debugged the application for awhile, and then terminated debugging via the "stop debugging" icon on the toolbar within Visual Studio 2012.

I then launched B for debugging. Instead, I got A.

I tried clearing browser cache, though, this couldn't be the problem because the server side of the application was wrong too.

I tried Rebuilding the project, after running Clean. I still see A while trying to debug B.

I tried killing all processes related to the debugging session including all iisexpress.exe, MSBuild.exe, WebDev.WebServer40.EXE, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Host.exe instances.

I tried closing Visual Studio 2012 completely, reopening it, and retrying debugging.

EDIT

After closing and reopening VS2012 for a third time, it started now allowing me to see B. Nothing else has changed.

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Best I can come up with is there must be some type of project setting that needs to be changed to reflect that the project lives in a different space than it did before being copied, but I have yet to track down such a setting.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

I have just come across this issue today, having done exactly as you (copied a project, and then edited). And hence i would like to share my solution.

If you go to Project B's Properties (found in solution Explorer), you will find a Web tab:

In your Servers section, alter the Project Url to:

http://localhost: + (number +1) + /

and then hit Create Virtual Directory

You should then be able to re-run your project and since they're running off different Url's, you shouldn't see this clash again.

Answer 2

I was in the exact same situation. The problem was that both projects (Project_A & Project_B) we’re setup to run on the same port in IIS Express.

IISExpress determines the port/application by looking at a configuration file located in <Documents>\IISExpress\config\application.config.

Open that file and look for a section <sites>. You should find a list of your VS projects. Locate your projects (A and B) and make sure that both projects are not running on the same port

<site name="Project_A" id="17">
<application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
<virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Projects\Somefolder\ Project_A " />
</application>
<bindings>
<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:64212:localhost" />
</bindings>
</site>
<site name="Project_B" id="18">
<application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
<virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Projects\Somefolder\ Project_B " />
</application>
<bindings>
<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:64212:localhost" />
</bindings>
</site>

If that is the case, remove one entry (i.e. Project_B), and then go in Visual Studio to recreate the entry.

In VS, go in the Properties of Project_B. Click on Web tab and look for the “Servers” section.

Enter a new port (i.e. `http://localhost:64213`) and click on the “Create Virtual Directory” button. This will add an entry in the “application.config” file, with the new association (i.e. Project_B / port 64213)

This should fix the problem. Hope this helps