Visual Studio 2012 Line-Number/Outlining Gutter Missing

Question

The gutter that runs down the left hand side of the code display has disappeared from my install of visual studio 2012. Bellow is a picture of my current install which is missing the gutter and inset in the green border is a correctly working install from a VM. I've uninstalled and reinstalled today; I've deleted the contents of both AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0 & AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0; I've deleted the entire reg trees of HKCU/software/Microsoft/VisualStudio/11.0 & HKLM/software/Microsoft/VisualStudio/11.0 and also tried running devenv with the /rootsuffix switch set to test1, test2 etc to get it to run from a different registry/appdata location. I've checked the "Enter outlining mode when files open" option in Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> Advanced.

The gutter is also missing if I create a C++ application.

I've completely run dry, any ideas how i might get it back?

Screenshot:

Answer 1

I had the same problem and it appears that VsVim extension removes line numbers and adds them only if you write "set number" in your .vimrc file.

Answer 2

I just ran into this same issue, and clearing my temporary files resolved it.

I noticed the issue was accompanied by an error that would pop up immediately after Visual Studio started:

An exception has been encountered. This may be caused by an extension.

You can get more information by examining the file 'C:\Users\chris\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ActivityLog.xml'.

At the bottom of that log file was an error:

<entry>
  <record>711</record>
  <time>2015/02/26 19:53:19.159</time>
  <type>Error</type>
  <source>ProfilesRoamingClient</source>
  <description>Path.GetTempFileName threw IOException: The file exists.&#x000D;&#x000A;.</description>
</entry>

According to the documentation, Path.GetTempFileName() throws IOException when all of the possible names have been exhausted:

The GetTempFileName method will raise an IOException if it is used to create more than 65535 files without deleting previous temporary files.

The GetTempFileName method will raise an IOException if no unique temporary file name is available. To resolve this error, delete all unneeded temporary files.

Path.GetTempFileName() uses the native Windows API function GetTempFileName() to create temporary files. I took a peek in my temp folder, and it was indeed full to the brim with tmpXXXX.tmp files.

I can only assume that some part of setting up those gutters involves creating a temp file, and since that was unsuccessful, it couldn't continue.