Visual Studio 2013 - Fixing An Unhandled Exception has occured

Question

For a unknown reason my Visual Studio designer stopped working for existing and new projects. I've removed my plugins, did a Visual Studio restore, rebooted...

Not sure how to go on from here.

System.Exception
Install failed. Please contact your software vendor. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CF9)
at Microsoft.Expression.HostUtility.Platform.AppContainerProcessDomainFactory.CreateDesignerProcess(String applicationPath, String clientPort, Uri hostUri, IDictionary environmentVariables, Int32& processId, Object& processData)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.ProcessDomainFactory.ProcessIsolationDomain..ctor(ProcessDomainFactory factory, IIsolationBoundary boundary, AppDomainSetup appDomainInfo, FrameworkName targetFramework, String identifier, String baseDirectory)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.ProcessDomainFactory.CreateIsolationDomain(IIsolationBoundary boundary)
at Microsoft.Expression.HostUtility.Platform.AppContainerProcessDomainFactory.CreateIsolationDomain(IIsolationBoundary boundary)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.IsolationBoundary.Initialize()
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.Primitives.IsolationBoundary.CreateInstance[T](Type type)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolatedObjectFactory.Initialize()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExpressionHost.Services.VSIsolationService.CreateObjectFactory(IIsolationTarget isolationTarget, IObjectCatalog catalog)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolationService.CreateLease(IIsolationTarget isolationTarget)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.CreateLease(IIsolationTarget isolationTarget, CancellationToken cancelToken, DesignerServiceEntry& entry)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.IsolatedDesignerService.IsolatedDesignerView.CreateDesignerViewInfo(CancellationToken cancelToken)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolatedTaskScheduler.InvokeWithCulture[T](CultureInfo culture, Func`2 func, CancellationToken cancelToken)
at Microsoft.Expression.DesignHost.Isolation.IsolatedTaskScheduler.<>c__DisplayClassa`1.<StartTask>b__6()
at System.Threading.Tasks.Task`1.InnerInvoke()
at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()

I've also tried to debug visual studio itself, resulting in: (https://i.stack.imgur.com/zrXem.png)

Answer 1

From this interesting article, you can know what a first chance exception is:

When an application is being debugged, the debugger gets notified whenever an exception is encountered At this point, the application is suspended and the debugger decides how to handle the exception. The first pass through this mechanism is called a "first chance" exception. Depending on the debugger's configuration, it will either resume the application and pass the exception on or it will leave the application suspended and enter debug mode.

About your exception, it's not an exception about your code, the IDE didn't find a debug file. Make sure, at least, this is not a common issue of Visual Studio. Have a look at that with Google!

Usually, to solve this kind of issues, you have to review the configuration of the debugger, raising only the exceptions about your code.

You can do this, from the menu "Debug" and choosing "Exceptions". In the new window, make sure you have these exceptions enabled:

This is usually a common debug configuration.

Answer 2

Got the same problem today. The problem was in Windows Store component. Launch Modern UI App troubleshooter to fix this problem.