Toolbox controls not Drag&Drop-able

[Adam]

So I'm starting my fist Silverlight 4 project (Using VS 2010 SP1 and Rad controls for silverlight Q1 2011). I make a new RadControls Silverlight project with default settings. When I try to drag and drop a rad control item from the VS toolbox onto my design view it shows a "not allowed" icon. When I try to drag and drop it into my XAML it accepts it, but nothing happens after I drop it (it doesn't generate the XAML). Any idea what the problem could be here?

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Adam,

I suspect that the Visual Studio Toolbox population might have not been successful during the RadControls setup.

Can you try resetting the Visual Studio toolbox (right-click the Toolbox and choose Reset)?
Can you also close all the Visual Studio instances and then load your project to a new one?

Does this help fixing the problem?

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Adam]

Hi Erjan,
Following your advice didn't fix the problem, but it did make an error message come up indicating I should enable logging in VS to find out the problem. I then followed THAt advice and enabled logging. The results from the "ActivityLog.xml" file had 2 errors:
One when I open VS:

Extension will not be loaded because an extension with the same ID
'94c35263-71d0-4f81-886e-c1e23ea9c837' is already loaded at C:\Program Files
(x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Telerik\Telerik
UserSettings VSExtensions\2011.1.412.0\...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Telerik\Telerik
UserSettings VSExtensions\2011.1.419.0\

And another when I try to drag and drop:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at MS.Internal.Providers.VSAssemblyReferenceProvider.AddReference(AssemblyName newReference) at MS.Internal.XamlLanguageService.VsXamlLanguageService.AddSingleReference(AssemblyReferenceProvider provider, AssemblyName name) at MS.Internal.XamlLanguageService.VsXamlLanguageService.Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop.IVsLanguageClipboardOps.DataObjectRendered(IVsTextLines pTextLines, UInt32 dwHint, TextSpan[] ptsInsertedText) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Editor.Implementation.DragDrop.LanguageServiceTextDropHandler.PerformPostEditActions(DragDropInfo dragDropInfo, Boolean successfulEdit) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor.DragDrop.DropHandlerBase.HandleDataDropped(DragDropInfo dragDropInfo) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor.DragDrop.Implementation.DragDropStateManager.HandleFromDraggingToDropped(DragDropInfo dragDropInfo) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor.DragDrop.Implementation.DragDropMouseProcessor.HandleDrop(DragDropInfo dragDropInfo, DragDropEffects& resultingDragEffects) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor.DragDrop.Implementation.DragDropMouseProcessor.PreprocessDrop(DragEventArgs e) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Utilities.WpfMouseProcessor.<>c__DisplayClass5f.<UIElement_Drop>b__5a() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Utilities.GuardedOperations.CallExtensionPoint(Object errorSource, Action call)

Any ideas?

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Adam,

Well, the new error message you started receiving is related to having multiple installations of the Telerik VSExtensions (one, installed per-machine and another, installed per-user).

I suggest the following steps to get your system fixed with regards to that:

1. Close all Visual Studio instances;
2. Start a Windows Explorer and navigate to the [VS2010InstallDir]\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Telerik folder
3. Delete all the Telerik VSExtensions folders (if any exist)
4. Navigate to the %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Extensions\Telerik folder
5. Delete the Telerik VSExtensions folders (if any exists)
6. Download the latest version of the Telerik VSExtensions from the Online Gallery to a folder of your choice
7. Start a Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt
8. Navigate to the folder you downloaded the Telerik VSExtensions
9. Run the following command for each vsix package you downloaded:
   vsixinstaller /a [VSIXPackageName], e.g.
   vsixinstaller /a Telerik.WinControls.VSPackage.vsix
10. Start Visual Studio and check if everything is fine now.

As per the second error, (I'm sorry I cannot help with a direct solution for we haven't come across it before), can you check your registry under the

HKLM\SOFTWARE\(Wow6432Node)\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\AssemblyFoldersEx key?
Is there a Telerik subkey there?
Can you check its value? Does it point to the folder, where you have RadControls for Silverlight installed?

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Adam]

Thanks Erjan,
The first error seems fixed now. But the second one still occurs when I try to drag and drop. 
I checked the registry path you mentioned, there is a subkey for telerik (although the subkey name is not explicitly "Telerik", it's "RadControls for Silverlight Q1 2011 SP1"). I've attached a screen shot for clarity.
Edit: and the path listed is valid.
Eagerly awaiting any advice,
Thanks! 

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the screenshot! The path and the registry key are perfectly right.

I'm afraid I cannot suggest a direct solution for the Toolbox drag-and-drop problem for we haven't this locally and we don't have the knowledge for this exact error. I can suggest some steps that could possibly help fixing the error though. Please note, these involve modifying the registry and you should perform them with extreme caution. Here they are:

1. Close all Visual Studio instances
2. Run Regedit
3. Navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\(Wow6432Node\)Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstaller. Please note, the path should not contain the Wow6432Node on a 32-bit machine.
4. Delete all the Telerik.Windows.Controls subkeys (if any exist)
5. Navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstallerCache
6. Delete all the Telerik.Windows.Controls subkeys (if any exist)
7. Navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstaller
8. Delete all the Telerik.Windows.Controls subkeys (if any exist)
9. Navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Packages\{2c298b35-07da-45f1-96a3-be55d91c8d7a}\Toolbox
10. Update the value of the Default Items value (increase it by 1, make sure it is greater than 0)
11. Start a Windows Explorer instance.
12. Navigate to the following folder:
    %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0
13. Delete all the *.tbd files (note, you would need to have the System and Hidden files visible to see the TBD files)
14. Start the RadControls for Silverlight installer and choose Repair
15. Wait for the installation to finish and start Visual Studio
16. Create a new dummy Silverlight project and drag and drop a RadControls item from the toolbox.
17. Close Visual Studio, load your project and try dragging and dropping a RadControls item to a page.

Let me know if this helped.

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Dessie Lunsford]

Many thanks Erjan, 
Following those steps did fix the issue for any new projects I created!

For future reference to whomever:
-This doesn't fix any existing projects that had the error before doing the manual fix.
-In my case, the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\(Wow6432Node\)Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstaller node did not have any subkeys, the others did though.

Thanks again.

edit: whoops logged on the wrong account, It's me though (Adam) :)

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the update indeed!
I hope the existence of the problem on already created projects can be fixed by following the steps below. Can you try them?

1. Use the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio to remove the references of your project to the Telerik.WinControls assemblies
2. Use the Telerik -> RadControls for Silverlight -> Convert to Telerik Application menu to add the needed references back
3. Save your project
4. Close all Visual Studio instances
5. Start a Windows Explorer instance and navigate to the following folder:
   %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ProjectAssemblies
6. Wipe out any files or subfolders that might exist there
7. Reload your project and try dragging and dropping a RadControl from the Toolbox.

Let me know if that helps.

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Adam]

Hi Erjan,
I tried the steps you mentioned on one of the old projects but it didn't seem to work.
In the process however I did discover a possible repro scenario:

1. You have a empty folder on a remote web server that you can access via UNC path (\\SomeServer\WebRoot\SomeEmptyFolder\).
2. You start VS2010 and go to File->Open->Web Site. On the "File System" tab, browse to the folder in step 1.
3. Once it has opened a new solution, right click the project node in Solution Explorer and click "Add new item", from the "Add new Item" dialog, select "Silverlight Application" and click "Add".
4. The default "Location" should be "\\SomeServer\WebRoot\SilverlightApplication", change it to "\\SomeServer\WebRoot\SomeEmptyFolder\SLStuff". Click "add".
5. Try dragging a Rad Control onto the Design pane on MainPage.xaml.

Using the steps above did repro the error for me, even after the manual fix...

Thanks for the help so far-
Adam

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Adam,

Thanks indeed for your discovery!

While I'm not sure on this specific matter, the older versions of Visual Studio had various glitches when projects run on folder shares, hence we don't recommend that.

The problem might happen when Visual Studio attempts to add references to the RadControls assemblies to your project. Can you try manually adding the references to the RadControls assemblies (please note all the dependent assemblies), restart Visual Studio and try the drag and drop operation again.

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Adam]

Hum, putting VS projects on folder shares hasn't been an issue for us since VS2005, and in this case the project files need to be at a shared location for collaboration with other devs. and designers using blend. What's the recommended way to do that if they can't be on a shared folder?

As for the errors, Manually adding in the assemblies did fix the problem (even without resetting visual studio)!
Thanks for all your help Erjan.

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Adam,

You could keep the referenced assemblies in a Solution Folder and have it included to Source Control.
This way, once the assemblies get changed (as well as the project references to them), everyone, performing a Get-Latest-Version from the source control system will get the most up-to-date projects/assemblies/references.

Would this work for you?

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Ed]

I am having a slightly different problem with the toolkit, although I believe it has nothing to do with the Telerik products, I thought that you might have a clue to the solution:

When I click on "All Silverlight Controls" or "RadControls for Silverlight Q1 2011", the tab header disappears and the items that would be displayed are there but not visible. When I click where the header should be, it appears. Furthermore, I can move the mouse pointer within the list that I know is there and the short descriptions will appear. I can even drag a control onto the XAML file. While this does work, it is a pain and the scroll bar is not visible so I can't scroll down to "see" more controls.

[Ed]

Never mind

[Peter]

Hello Guys,
Let me join your discussion as I was experiencing the same problem as originally posted. I might have submitted a similar ticket, which you could close, as it is a duplicate of this one.
I tried to fix the drag-and-drop problem using all recommendations in this discussion, but none of them worked.
However, i liked the idea of using regedit to cleanup the certain Telerik fields, and, as the last resource I did the following:
- Uninstall RadControls completely
- Used regeidt to search and remove any references to Telerik
- Used regedit to removed 2c298b35-07da-45f1-96a3-be55d91c8d7a entry
- Removed all .tbd files as suggested
- Installed RadControls again

After that, everything worked nicely with the new projects as well as with the existing ones.
-------------------------------
How did that happen? I was installing/uninstalling miscellaneous RadControls versions as soon as they released. With the latest one, my project did not work (another problem to report), so I uninstalled it and reinstalled the previous one. After that, I had a complete mess in my registry that was the root cause of this issue. 

Here is the suggestion:
Telerik should update their uninstaller to properly cleanup after itself.

Thanks a lot for all your help.
Peter

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Peter,

Thanks indeed for sharing your experience!

Just want to note on a step: The 2c298b35-07da-45f1-96a3-be55d91c8d7a entry should not be deleted from the registry, as this is the indication to Visual Studio to load the ToolboxControlsInstaller package (the internal Microsoft package, handling the installation of the Toolbox items). While the RadControls installers will re-add the entry if missing, the removal of the entry could still result in Visual Studio not fully functional. I would instead recommend changing the number in the Default Items RegistryValue - increasing it with 1 would trigger the ToolboxControlsInstaller package reinitialization.

As per the cleanup - you're right our installers should clean all the registry entries they've entered. And they actually do. Still, the installers rely on some internal Visual Studio mechanisms for some tasks (Toolbox item population, VSIX deployment and removal, etc), which are still not under our control.

We are constantly working on improving the experience with these when we identify incorrect behavior.

Thanks again!

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Nathan]

Just a quick note -- I had a variant of this problem (no "can't drop" mouse icon but still couldn't drop onto Visual Studio web designer surface, failed silently) and the instructions to reset the toolbox worked perfectly to sort this problem out.

This is possibly a clash between an old install of the demo tools? Had them on the machine anyway.

Thanks!

[Andrey]

Hi Nathan,

I am glad to hear you were able to resolve the issue.

To my regret, we have not yet identified the exact circumstances around the issue. While we have met the issue, we have not been able to reproduce it reliably.

Regards,
Andrey
the Telerik team

[Christina]

I too am experiencing this project.  So is one of my teammates.  I want to add that I buy expensive tools to increase my productivity.  When I have to spend days working on a problem like this it impacts my schedule tremendously.  I have enough trouble fighting my clients, I shouldn't have to fight my tools too.  While I understand (as do we all) errors that are difficult to reproduce, you should not assume that it is a small audience.  I hope that you will come up with a solution soon.  This is frustrating.

[Erjan Gavalji]

Hi Christina (and all),

Thanks for sharing your experience and sorry for it being a bad one.

I want to assure you that we're not hiding behind the "cannot reproduce" cap. The issue is a really serious one for us and we are trying to find decent approaches to handle the unexpected Toolbox behavior. Unfortunately (as I said before), the problem is not entirely under our control: we rely on the IDE functionality for toolbox control management, where the details are not as clear as we would want them to be.

As Microsoft partners we are working close with the IDE team to have this solved. To my regret the lack of repro is causing both the parties a serious trouble.

As a last resort (though an inconvenient one), I would suggest that you reinstall Visual Studio. As per the reports we've had, this approach helps.

Kind regards,
Erjan Gavalji
the Telerik team

[Eric]

Hi!

We are testing the WinForms Controls here, and I'm having the same issue on drag and drop. I Already tried every proposed solution here, since delete files/folders, deleting the registers informed, and fully uninstalled and re-installed the Rad Controls.
I'm getting the drag and drop nullpointer exception on any old or new projects.
Is there any other thing I can do, or is there a solution developed for this problem already, after the last messages?
I know that these exceptions are difficult to reproduce and to resolve, and I'm not willing to push you guys. Just wondering and asking.
Keep up the good work on the controls!

Regards,
Eric

[Eric]

Ow, just a bit more information: The problem is mainly occurring when I try to drag and drop components in RadRibbon for WinForms. I want to reorder then. Even copy and paste fails.
Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Eric

[Petar]

Hello Eric,

I am sorry for the late reply.

Since you have tried all suggestions in the thread I can only suggest you to try repairing your Visual Studio installation. This will ensure that your IDE is in consistent state and that it behaves as expected.

I hope this will help you to resolve the issue.

Regards,
Petar
the Telerik team

[Eric]

Hi!

Just giving a little feedback:
I tried repair Visual Studio installation too, and it didn't fix. Also, I tried in another machine a clean install and the error occurred there too.
The error is happening only in components inside RadRibbon, so we cannot for example, copy or drag buttons or groups inside it. All the other Rad components that I tested outside the RadRibbon worked ok, like RadPanel, DatePickers, EditBoxes, and so on...
Could it be a RadRibbon specific problem? Could we help providing more information to help on this issue?
Meanwhile, I'm just editing the designer code to move the buttons or groups inside it.

Regards,
Eric

[Petar]

Hi Eric,

I am sorry to hear that the suggestion didn't help to resolve the problem on your side.

Since the problem is related to the design time of the RadRibbon control from the WinForms controls suite I suggest you to open a formal support ticket for the WinForms RadRibbon control. This way we will be able to provide you with better solution to your problem.

Kind regards,
Petar
the Telerik team

[Eric]

I opened there now. Thanks!

[Frank]

We are having the same problem.  Its impossible to edit forms once they been created.  I'll try to talk the client out of the new feature.

[Petar]

Hello Frank,

Can you also open a formal support ticket for the specific product?

Thank you!

Greetings,
Petar
the Telerik team

[Waz]

I am using Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise.  I had previous version 2015 Q2 installed and working fine.  ​Went to Telerik Control Manager and selected yes to update my components to 2015 Q3.  Now a new project or any existing projects will let me drag and drop from the toolbox.  That is drag it on, but no code generated.  This is a quite a serious bug that needs to be addressed. 

[Yana]

Hi Warren,

Thank you for contacting us.

Having reviewed the provided details, I suppose that the described behavior is due to the fact that after the upgrade has been performed the UI for Silverlight's distribution was successfully updated but the version of the Telerik controls which is registered into the Visual Studio Toolbox is still the older one. What I advice is to use our Toolbox Configurator, which will help you to update it. Please take a look at the following steps, which could be of help in achieving this:

1. Launch Visual Studio and open your project
2. Open Toolbox explorer and right-click on it
3. Select Reset Toolbox option, as it is shown at the attached reset-toolbox.png image
4. Having reset the Visual Studio Toolbox, select Launch Toolbox Configurator item under the Telerik -> UI for Silverlight menu
5. Select the desired version and press Finish button
6. Restart Visual Studio

Could you please perform the steps above and let us know in case the issue still persists?

Should you have additional questions or need further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,
Yana
Telerik