Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 has stopped working (clr.dll - 0xc0000005)

Question

After a corporate desktop 'optimisation', on starting VS2012 Professional I immediately get the popup "Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 has stopped working".

I have tried:

1. holding shift before start to start in safe mode. No difference
2. starting with /log . This records an ActivityLog.xsl file but no helpful content.

3. Event log shows:

   Application: devenv.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an internal error in the .NET Runtime at IP 5D924B0D (5D910000) with exit code 80131506.

   Faulting application name: devenv.exe, version: 11.0.50727.1, time stamp: 0x5011ecaa Faulting module name: clr.dll, version: 4.0.30319.17929, time stamp: 0x4ffa5753 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x00014b0d Faulting process id: 0x11e4 Faulting application start time: 0x01cf62bc1bfb4fc9 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\clr.dll Report Id: 5cca0a09-ceaf-11e3-85d7-00224d5603e3

4. Google based research results in little helpful assistance.

As the issue comes from the clr, considering updating VS to update 2 before trying to rebuild the machine...

any ideas where to start or how to resolve\get more crash info?

Answer 1

Repaired the installation of VS2012 and it fixed the issue.

Answer 2

Is this occurring when you are opening up a project which uses .Net Framework 4.0? If that's the case, you will have to update Visual Studio to the latest version (i.e. Update 4).

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39305

I had a similar problem where my .Net framework version was upgraded to 4.5 but Visual Studio was still on Update 2. I could open the older .Net framework version projects, but not the ones with 4.0. Updating Visual Studio to Update 4 resolved the situation.