I thought I’d fixed my Silverlight 2 Beta 2 installation; but I had not.
I ran into the issues described here, specifically:
- Error “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” when adding a WCF service
- Silverlight app cannot see WCF services in same solution
- Error “Unable to find ‘DynamicTypeService’” when clicking the Advanced button in the Add Service Reference dialog.
- Visual Studio crashing on exit
Here’s what fixed it for me. First, I attempted to debug Visual Studio while adding a WCF service and spotted an exception related to version control. I discovered that Visual Studio was set to use Team Foundation Server as the Source Control plug-in, even though my Team Foundation Server is offline. I don’t know if the Silverlight install somehow reset this, as I thought I’d set it to None in Tools – Options – Source Control – Plug-in Selector; but I changed it back to None and that fixed the Object Reference error.
Unfortunately it did not fix the second problem. Following a tip in the thread mentioned above, I moved the file:
\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.VisualStudio.ServicesProxy.dll
Then I uninstalled Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008. Then I reinstalled it (no reboot). Everything works.
The Microsoft.VisualStudio.ServicesProxy.dll is replaced with a new version.
An indicator of this problem is the size of your Silverlight Tools install in Control Panel – Programs and Features. If it is 1.14MB you may have the problem. If it is 1.17 or 1.18MB you probably do not have the problem. The size of my install increased from 1.14MB to 1.17MB on reinstall. A theory is that if the Silverlight Tools installer sees the ServicesProxy.dll, it doesn’t install some other stuff that in fact it should install.
Genius!
You saved my day. Removing the Microsoft.VisualStudio.ServicesProxy.dll file and then reinstalling Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 fixed the problem 🙂 thx
Nicely done. I can confirm that the solution described here also worked on Win 2K8.
Thank you for sharing and persisting this thread.
Just adding to the Kudos on the list. I banged my head against the wall trying to figure out why I couldn’t see the web services (I thought it was AntiVirus, setup, etc.).
Finally I discovered that I could see the web service in the same project, but not within the solution.
That is when I hit upon my search on Google and came across your blog.
Greatly appreciate you taking the time to post what you discovered as it saved me yet another day of frustration.
I am having these same exact symptoms while installing Silverlight 2 RC. Unfortunately, the solution isn’t working for that release. Has anyone else encountered this problem with RC?
That did the trick, and I’m using the RTW version of Silverlight 2.0. Many thanks!
No luck here… I’ve tried twice uninstalling the Silverlight 2 Tools, Repairing Visual Studio and then installing the tools. No luck, it always reads 1.14 mb as the install size and gives me the “object reference” error. This is so frustrating… I’ve never even had the beta tools installed… argh.
I don’t find: “Tools – Options – Source Control – Plug-in Selector” in Visual Web Development. No solution with Visual Web Development?
U’re a star. Nice one
There are a number of computers here that all get the “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” when adding a WCF Service. The uninstall/install of the Silverlight tools has not been successful. Each time the size of the tools is 1.14 MB in the add remove.