Diagnosing 'The debugger is not properly installed'

  • Article

One of the error codes that we included in the VS.NET 2002 and 2003 debuggers is:

The debugger is not properly installed.  Run setup to install or repair the debugger.

Diagnosing this is much harder then it should be (more on this later). For now lets talk about trying to figure out what’s going wrong.

First step, you should follow the instructions. Most of the time this is going to work:

  • Go to Start->Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs->Microsoft Visual Studio.NET <whatever>
  • Click Change/Remove
  • Repair your installation

If that doesn’t work, try reinstalling the .NET Framework debugging services:

  • Start command prompt
  • cd /d %windir%\ Microsoft.NET\Framework\<version>
  • regsvr32.exe mscordbi.dll

Another known reason for this error is that oleaut32.dll isn’t registered:

  • Start command prompt
  • cd /d %windir%\system32
  • regsvr32.exe oleaut32.dll

Also try manually reregistering mdm.exe [updated 4/28/2004]:

  • Start command prompt
  • %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VS7Debug\mdm.exe" /regserver

If all this doesn’t succeed, try using DebuggerDiagnostics.exe. You can install it from https://download.microsoft.com/download/a/6/f/a6f1de85-7284-4c97-9ddd-6f18000f5848/DebuggerDiagnostics.msi. Here is how to interpret the output:

[Updated on 8/17/2004] If you are getting failures from the 'UseOleAut32' part of DebuggerDiagnostics.exe (see bellow), then you have a broken installation of oleaut32.dll. If you haven't already done so, try 'regsvr32 oleaut32.dll'. If the problem persists, then download and run OleAutClean.exe. After that has finished, you will need to run 'regsrv32 oleaut32.dll'. Example Failure:

Begin 'UseOleAut32(spMachine)'
    QueryInterface failed.
    MarshalConnectionPointContainer() = '8007007e'
Result of 'UseOleAut32(spMachine)' is '8007007e'

For anything else, check the comments of this post. They might already have the solution, if they don't add your comments here. I guess you can't leave comments on really old posts.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 16, 2004
    Here's a bug that stumped me for a bit yesterday on VS.NET 2003. Probably a known issue:

    I was using TCP/IP remote debugging, and after tweaking some settings I got the error: "Unable to start debugging. . . The remote machine name is not specified."

    Naturally I checked the machine name and debugging parameters, which all appeared to be fine.

    The problem was that each of the symbol paths in the semicolon-delimited list was wrapped in quotes. (The symbol path editor, brought up by clicking on the "..." button in the project properties dialog, had put them there.)

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2004
    The error is 'ERROR_SERVICE_DOES_NOT_EXIST'. It looks like mdm.exe isn't registered correctly. Run this from a command prompt:
    "%CommonProgramFiles%Microsoft SharedVS7Debugmdm.exe" /regserver

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2004
    Thanks a lot Gregg ! That was a quick reply too. But I gotta new problem now. When I try to start the debuger, it says "Unable to start debugging on the webserver" .

    Thanks
    Hari

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2004
    What is the complete text of the error? Is the web server on the same machine as Visual Studio?

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2004
    I am not trying to do any remote debugging.All I want to do is to debug the C++ application that is on the local machine.

    The error message is "Unable to start debugging on the webserver"

    Thanks
    Harihar

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2004
    Your debugging a C++ application, and you are getting an error about not being able to debug on a web server? I think something is seriously wrong with your installation. Did you run repair?

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2004
    I am not trying to debug remotely. All I Want to do is to debug my local C++ application.THe error message is "unable to start debugging on the remote server"

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2004
    Yes I have tried completely uninstalling and then reinstalling as well as running repair.:-(

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2004
    Does this repro with a new 'hello world' C++ console application? I read through the code. We can't put up that error message unless we are trying to debug an ATL Server or ASP.NET application. So either your project debugging settings are messed up, so we are going through the ATL Server code path for a client application, or dlls in your VS installation are corupt.

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2004
    What product do you have installed? What kind of debugging are you trying to do? Do you get the 'the debugger is not properly installed' when you start debugging? If so, what happens when you open the attach to processes dialog?

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 24, 2004
    It looks like the problem is that the mdm.exe process is hanging on startup (8007042D = ERROR_SERVICE_START_HANG). This is probably going to be difficult to resolve over blog. Do you mind calling PSS?

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2004
    Thanks for the very quick response. I'm currently overseas and might not be able to call PSS. Thanks anyway for clearing up the issue of what is the cause of the error... I might have to format my drive and reinstall everything to get it done easier.

    Thanks again.

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2004
    Gregg to answer your questions...
    /
    Gregg Miskelly
    Posted @ 4/22/2004 10:50 AM
    What product do you have installed? What kind of debugging are you trying to do? Do you get the 'the debugger is not properly installed' when you start debugging? If so, what happens when you open the attach to processes dialog?
    /

    I have visual Studio .net 7 installed. I am trying to debug projects that are on our webserver and not on the local development workstation. I'm opening the project via File-open-open project from web. I do get the 'debugger is not properly installed' error when I start debugging. As for your question on what happens when I open the attach to process dialog, I'm not quite sure I follow you. Thanks for working with me on this problem I'm looking forward to hearing back from you.
    David

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2004
    Chris,

    You might also want to try deleting the files in "%CommonProgramFiles%Microsoft SharedVS7Debug" and repairing your installation. You might get lucky...

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2004
    Two suggestions:
    1) Try re-registering mscordbi.dll (regsvr32 %windir%Microsoft.NETFrameworkv1.1.4322mscordbi.dll)

    2) Try running debugger diagnostics.exe on your web server.

  • Anonymous
    May 12, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2004
    Interesting. I guess you found a new reason why the debugger might be returning this error. Can you try opening the processes dialog and see if you get the error then also?

  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2004
    Thanks, the first round of reg stuff fixed my debbuger problem. rock on.

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2004
    Your mdm.exe is corrupt. We have definitely never had a version '11.0.5525.0'. Delete it (del "%CommonProgramFiles%Microsoft SharedVS7Debugmdm.exe"), and then repair your install.

  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2004
    Renato: Are you getting 'The debugger is not properly installed', or some other error?
    If you manually attach to the ASP.NET worker process(aspnet_wp.exe or w3wp.exe) in the Processes dialog, what error do you get?

  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2004
    The mdm.exe: version 11.0.5525.0 appears to be from Office 2003 from looking at the properties. The original filename in the property is OSE.EXE and the Produce name is "Office Source Engine".

    Hope this helps for future reference.

  • Anonymous
    June 14, 2004
    Sounds like a very strange bug in Office setup. I will keep this in mind in the future.

  • Anonymous
    June 15, 2004
    Thanks. It worked for me.

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2004
    The problem is that you are getting CO_E_ERRORINDLL (800401F9) when you try and CoCreate the MDM. I have never seen this error before, but it is something that is coming from DCOM. Acording to the documentation, in MSDN, this indicates that GetProcAddress failed. If you haven't already done so, try removing the %CommonProgramFiles%Microsoft SharedVS7Debug directory, and running VS setup to repair. You could also try using filemon from www.sysinternals.com, and checking for failed reads.

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2004
    Thank you for the prompt reply. I deleted the Debug Directory and repaired the install. That did not help. Filemon did not help either. I ran regmon and listdlls from sysinternals and have the outputs. Would it be possible to send them to you as I am not sure how to analyse them. My email is vinayak.thakur@gmail.com. Also, Could any policies on the machine cause this behaviour?

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2004
    Your mdm.exe is bad. Microsoft has never released a version 11.0.5525.0. Try deleting it and repairing your installation.

  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2004
    You have a 6.0 MDM registered. Probably in system32. This should have been solved by the instructions in my post.

  • Anonymous
    August 29, 2004
    MayaBay &raquo; Visual Studio.NET &#8220;Unable to start Debugging&#8221;

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2005
    This sounds familiar? That is normal! I have just done everything I can do to solve this problem and...

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2006
    PingBack from http://www.shazron.com/2004/08/29/visual-studionet-%e2%80%9cunable-to-start-debugging%e2%80%9d/

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2006
    Way back in 2004 I posted an article talking about the 'The debugger is not properly installed' in Visual

  • Anonymous
    August 07, 2007
    Introduction This FAQ can be used to narrow down the problems associated with debugging any type of solution

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I tried to start a unit test today with debugging enabled. The test runner started the tests but failed

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    January 20, 2009
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