Visual Studio: Can I make the Error List always appear when build/run fails?

Question

Visual Studio: Can I make the Error List always appear when build/run fails?

MicrosoftAdmin 1

The Error List is docked at the bottom of the window, and I often hide the Error List whilst coding, because the vertical space is limited (damn wide monitors).

If I remember it correctly, I think the Error List used to appear automatically whenever build/run fails with an error. But with the recent versions of VS, it seems that it only automatically appears for the first build/run failure after successful build/run (or no previous build/run at all). That is in the following scenario, it does not automatically appear.

I press Build, and it succeeds.
I edit the code and make 3 errors.
I press Build, and the Error List automatically shows up.
I hide the Error List.
I fix 2 of the 3 errors.
I press Build.

In the scenario above, of course, the code does not run because it has 1 remaining error, and the Error List does not show up. I have to click the Error List manually. Is this an intended behaviour or a bug?

Viorel 122.6K Reputation points

2021-05-22T08:03:19.33+00:00

How did you hide the Error List?

Make sure that “Always show Error List if build finishes with errors” option is selected in menu, Tools, Options, Project and Solutions, General.
MicrosoftAdmin 1 Reputation point

2021-05-22T16:36:30.657+00:00

I had clicked the "Auto Hide" button. That option was already checked.

Is this problem not reproducible on your computer? Here is the screen recording: https://imgur.com/a/cysFjM0 (This website stupidly does not allow attaching an "MP4", so I had to upload it to imgur, which destroys the video quality.) As you see, when I clicked Run after creating 3 intentional errors, the Error List automatically showed up. But when I clicked Run again after fixing 2 of the 3 errors, the Error List did not show up, and I had to click the "Error List" manually.
David Lowndes 4,726 Reputation points

2021-05-23T09:26:33.5+00:00

It appears to me to be a quirk of auto-hide (which I don't use).
For me (using the latest VS preview), with auto-hide on, the output and error panes pop up momentarily (too quickly to be useful).
Can you submit a bug report on this using VS's Report a Problem facility and post a link back here to your report so that we can find it.
Be sure to provide a screen recording with your report (the tool has that ability).
Andrew Mercer 526 Reputation points

2021-09-15T06:40:48.737+00:00

I've seen similar as identified by the OP. I am taken by surprise sometimes with build errors and the error list not moving to the front. I don't see a pattern that makes the issue easily reproduced or explained.

With my settings, VS usually behaves according to my preference. I prefer Output to the front at build start. Then if no errors, stay on Output, otherwise Errors to the front. With F5 run causing a build and the build producing errors, VS asks you about running a prior version. If you say yes, off you go. If you say no, then Errors to the front is my preference. I get these behaviors most of the time but occasionally not, so my sympathies are with the OP.

There has been comment about docking contributing to the issue. Maybe they are related, but they shouldn't be. My 'to the front' preferences hold whether docked or floating. I think most would agree that VS changing z-order should be independent of docked vs floating.

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Viorel 122.6K Reputation points

2021-05-22T08:03:19.33+00:00

How did you hide the Error List?

Make sure that “Always show Error List if build finishes with errors” option is selected in menu, Tools, Options, Project and Solutions, General.
MicrosoftAdmin 1 Reputation point

2021-05-22T16:36:30.657+00:00

I had clicked the "Auto Hide" button. That option was already checked.

Is this problem not reproducible on your computer? Here is the screen recording: https://imgur.com/a/cysFjM0 (This website stupidly does not allow attaching an "MP4", so I had to upload it to imgur, which destroys the video quality.) As you see, when I clicked Run after creating 3 intentional errors, the Error List automatically showed up. But when I clicked Run again after fixing 2 of the 3 errors, the Error List did not show up, and I had to click the "Error List" manually.
David Lowndes 4,726 Reputation points

2021-05-23T09:26:33.5+00:00

It appears to me to be a quirk of auto-hide (which I don't use).
For me (using the latest VS preview), with auto-hide on, the output and error panes pop up momentarily (too quickly to be useful).
Can you submit a bug report on this using VS's Report a Problem facility and post a link back here to your report so that we can find it.
Be sure to provide a screen recording with your report (the tool has that ability).
Andrew Mercer 526 Reputation points

2021-09-15T06:40:48.737+00:00

I've seen similar as identified by the OP. I am taken by surprise sometimes with build errors and the error list not moving to the front. I don't see a pattern that makes the issue easily reproduced or explained.

With my settings, VS usually behaves according to my preference. I prefer Output to the front at build start. Then if no errors, stay on Output, otherwise Errors to the front. With F5 run causing a build and the build producing errors, VS asks you about running a prior version. If you say yes, off you go. If you say no, then Errors to the front is my preference. I get these behaviors most of the time but occasionally not, so my sympathies are with the OP.

There has been comment about docking contributing to the issue. Maybe they are related, but they shouldn't be. My 'to the front' preferences hold whether docked or floating. I think most would agree that VS changing z-order should be independent of docked vs floating.

Answer 1

Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Microsoft External Staff

Hi @MicrosoftAdmin ,

Thank you for sharing the screen recording with us.

I tested by using latest version of VS 2019(v16.9.6), but I also failed reproduce your issue, the Output window and Error List window showed up normally.

Please try following steps and if they don’t work, please directly report this issue to Visual Studio Product Team on Developer Community which @David Lowndes has suggested above.

1). I suppose you have tried with a new project, if you haven’t tried, please try to create a new simple project and test again.

2). Please try to repair VS from VS Installer.

3). If you didn’t set many configurations for VS, you can try to reset VS settings(choose General on step 4).

4). Please try to close all VS instances and delete the .vs, bin and obj folders, then restart VS and test again.

Best Regards,
Tianyu

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MicrosoftAdmin 1 Reputation point

2021-05-24T13:14:02.3+00:00
I tested it with a new installation on a new system, and I could reproduce it. It seems that I need to manually dock the Error List to the bottom and click the auto-hide button to make this happen.

Here is an unedited, not-cut screen recording (about 4 minutes) from VS settings reset to this problem: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjTFzBrOPjBCatPWulwOV9Rv97U?e=M71au7 (Imgur did not accept a video longer than 1 minute, so I had to upload it to One Drive.)

In the video, I reset VS settings, and did the following things:

Hide Status Bar (at first, I thought this was necessary to reproduce the issue, but it was not, so you can ignore this)

Uncheck "Show output window when build starts" (at first, I thought this was necessary, but it was not. However, the output window takes up the place where the Error List should be, so unchecking this makes this problem more prominent)

Dock and auto-hide the Error List after it was shown.

You can see this issue happening at 03:34, 04:05.
Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2021-05-26T09:38:11.333+00:00

Hello @MicrosoftAdmin , thanks for sharing the not-cut screen recording, I can reproduce your issue this time. This issue should be related to the dock, I have reported this issue to Visual Studio Product Team, here is the thread link, please kindly follow up that thread and vote, add comments there. Thanks for helping us make Visual Studio better.

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Visual Studio: Can I make the Error List always appear when build/run fails?

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