microsoft, silverlight, software development

More Silverlight, Visual Studio setup hassles

35 Comments

I thought I’d fixed my Silverlight 2 Beta 2 installation; but I had not.

I ran into the issues described here, specifically:

  1. Error “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” when adding a WCF service
  2. Silverlight app cannot see WCF services in same solution
  3. Error “Unable to find ‘DynamicTypeService’” when clicking the Advanced button in the Add Service Reference dialog.
  4. 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.

35 thoughts on “More Silverlight, Visual Studio setup hassles”

  3. I think you’ve saved my day as well!

    This reminds me a LOT of issues I had going to 2008 RTM and a single .targets file not getting updated properly.

  4. For me, the servicesProxy.dll suggestion fixed the object reference error as well (I use TFS as my Source Control Plugin, so I can’t make it none 🙂 )

  7. Works for me! THANK YOU!!!!!!!

    Spent entire day reinstalling software only to have Silverlight solutions crash VS.

  8. Thank you!! Saved my day (and project)!
    servicesProxy.dll fixed both my problems: reference and crash on exit.

  13. Tim,
    Thanks a lot for usefull information. Using your article i solved my problem in a minutes.
    Great!!!!

  16. I spent two days trying to resolve it; finally I found your blog.
    Thank you for your time and sharing….

  19. I have a big problem with the “VS 2008 x x Silverlight Windows Vista 64bit” installed the silverlight 2 beta 2 and can not add a “refernce services” in the project. Ja read several forums and speak to all the removel dll ServicesProxy and install the Silverlight again if the size of the installation is 1.14mb that is my case, but the problem is that there is no such dll. Do you know what I have to do to run Silverlight 2 beta 2 in Windows 64bit view?

  20. This process works for windows vista 64bit? I am not finding the dll Program Files Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0 Common7 IDE Microsoft.VisualStudio.ServicesProxy.dll in order 64bit worked in 32bit normal … Does anyone know how to solve this problem for 64bit platform?

  23. Perfect solution! I can’t believe an error this easy to fix hasn’t been addressed in Microsoft’s downloads. In any event, this solved the SL WCF Service Reference problem for me.

  24. Well done!!! I have been trying to get this to work for about a day now. This show be a link on the “Get Started” page on the Silverlight website.

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