WinForms 32-bit 'Designer Could Not Be Shown' Issue
How to resolve the WinForms designer failure for a 32-bit project
When I was working on a company WinForms project in Visual Studio, I encountered the following error:
The designer could not be shown for this file because none of the classes within it can be designed. The designer inspected the following classes in the file: frmDataEditor — The base class ‘Client.Forms’ could not be loaded. Ensure the assembly has been referenced and that all projects have been built.
Here’s the complete Stack Trace:
at Microsoft.DotNet.DesignTools.Client.CodeDom.CodeDomManager.d__13.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at Microsoft.DotNet.DesignTools.Client.CodeDom.CodeDomManager.<>c__DisplayClass12_0.<b__0>d.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading.ReentrantSemaphore.NotAllowedSemaphore.<>c__DisplayClass2_0.<b__0>d.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading.ReentrantSemaphore.NotAllowedSemaphore.d__2.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at Microsoft.DotNet.DesignTools.Client.CodeDom.CodeDomManager.d__12.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at Microsoft.DotNet.DesignTools.Client.Loader.VsDesignerLoader.d__61.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at Microsoft.DotNet.DesignTools.Client.Loader.VsDesignerLoader.<>c__DisplayClass59_0.<b__1>d.MoveNext() I was using Visual Studio 2022 to open the project, and it seemed like some DLL components were built for a 32-bit architecture.
It turns out that the issue only persists when opening the project with Visual Studio 2022, which is built as a 64-bit application.
Solution
To resolve this issue, all I needed was x86 Visual Studio, which is Visual Studio 2019. You can download and install it from here.
Hope this simple tutorial helps!
Thanks for reading, and see you next time.
