Core - The last state of Model Editor is lost after closing and re-opening Visual Studio

Have you taken into account, to fix this in 20.2.3 too, where it currently doesn't work ?

Yes, Michael - we fixed it in v20.2.4:

Ok, Dennis, who can read has a clear advantage !

:-P

Hello,

we had to go back to 20.1.8 and installed the HotFix 20.1.20309 above.
We are not very happy with it, because the error, that the Model Editor forgets its view, when we close an reopen VS, still exists and now, additionally, the Model Editor forgets its view if we close and open the Model Editor without closing VS.

Looking at it again - please bear with us, Michael.

Why did not you stay on v20.2.4 (hot fix)?

Because we have to roll out our software at a customer on 4th January next year and had a lot of errors after the update. So we decided to go back and to perform the update to 20.2. in January, when we are not under pressure.

Hello,

I checked the DevExpressNETComponentsSetup-20.1.8.20309 installation on a separate machine with a newly created XAF project. With this version Model Editor restores the selected node correctly after closing/opening VS and closing/opening Model Editor. Please refer to the attached screencast:

It seems that the behavior you faced is related to your project specifics. To check this, please download the project that I used for tests and see how Model Editor works in this solution on your side. If it works correctly, please send us your project where the issue can be reproduced. This way we will be able to research it on our side.
If my Model Editor in my project doesn't work either, please try removing our installation and install it (the 20.1.8.20309 version) again from scratch.
We look forward to your response.

Thanks,
Andrey

Because we have to roll out our software at a customer on 4th January next year and had a lot of errors after the update. So we decided to go back and to perform the update to 20.2. in January, when we are not under pressure.

Michael, thank you for your clarification. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience. Without knowing the details, I want to share help links that may speed up your project migration in January 2021:

• XAF Breaking Changes in v20.2.3 (FrameworkSettings is the most important).
• Known issues in WinForms XtraEditors and Document Manager that were fixed in v20.2.4: Performance degradation can be observed when using specific skins in the latest hotfix of v20.1.8 and DocumentManger - Width of Tabs is incorrect in the latest hotfix of v20.1.8

We will be happy to assist you with v20.2 migration if you share more details in separate tickets.

We also found the that the regression with settings happened because we introduced a .NET Core version of the Model Editor extension (added it to the main .NET Framework installer). These two extensions rewrote settings of each other and we did not detect this earlier, because we tested them separately. We will improve our functional tests to avoid such situations in the future.

Hello, Andrey,

your project behaves like ours, with one difference: If I open the "layout"-node in Model Editor, close it and re-open it, the view is kept.
If I close and re-open Visual Studio, the view is lost in all cases.
Are you aware of the fact, that we first installed 20.1.8, then 20.1.20304 and then 20.1.309 ?

I made a video, please see it at https://www.ctl.de/Media/Default/DevExpress/DevExpress.mp4

Thank you !

Hello, Dennis,

thank you for your help, but at the moment we really have no time for further research !
The installation in January is the reason, why I came back from my retirement.

Michael

Any news ?

Helo Michael,
I've installed v20.1.8, then I applied both hotfixes and checked that Model Editor successfully saved its state. However I found an issue that Model Editor will not save its state if it is opened when you close Visual Studio. We will investigate this issue. Does the same issue occur on your side? If you have different behavior and Model Editor does not save its state in any way, the fastest way to fix it would be to reinstall XAF. Also in this case, could you kindly provide us with your "DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage.dll" file located in the Visual Studio extensions folder. It will help us to see whether the hotfix was installed correctly.

Hello Andrey,

first I uninstalled all DevExpress-Products. Then I installed DevExpress Universal 20.1.20309 (because I hoped, that 20309 already contains 20304 and found, that this is true) and CodeRush 20.1.8.
Now I have the state, that the Model Editor forgets all view-settings and opens with a virgin view if I close and reopen Visual Studio. If I close and reopen the Model Editor without closing Visual Studio, the view is not virgin but shows a node, that I long time didn't use.

Hi Michael,

Would you please attach your DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage.dll file for analysis?

Most extensions are per-user and are installed in the %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\<Visual Studio version>\Extensions\ folder. A few extensions are administrative extensions and are installed in the <Visual Studio installation folder>\Common7\IDE\Extensions\ folder. For instance, on my machine this file is located at "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\Extensions\DevExpress\DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage\DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage.dll" (I have the latest version of Visual Studio 2019 Professional). My colleague has it at C:\Users\Alex\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\16.0_deead8feExp\Extensions\Developer Express Inc\DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage\1.0.0.0. The easiest way to find this file is to navigate to one of root VisualStudio folders and then search the folder contents in a file explorer.

If I close and reopen the Model Editor without closing Visual Studio, the view is not virgin but shows a node, that I long time didn't use

To help us move forward and ensure that we are talking about the same settings, we would need to get the exact screenshots of Model Editor nodes, developer steps and unsaved settings. If possible, please also test it using our MainDemo project (c:\Users\Public\Documents\DevExpress Demos 20.2\Components\eXpressApp Framework\MainDemo\CS). I am not sure if this is project-specific, so this demo test will help us verify this.

Michael, we want to help you and your team and look forward to hearing from you.

Hi Dennis,

here it is.
But we don't want you to spent this much time for this problem for an old version and because we cannot update at the moment.
We decided to live with the circumstances until we find time for the update and hope, in 20.2.x it will be solved.

Hello,

Thank you for sharing the file. We confirm that it is an updated library. We applied to v20.2 the same changes that we applied to v20.1. The fact that the fix in v20.1 doesn't work for you can mean that the v20.2 update will not work for you either. That is why it is important to reproduce the issue. To let us go further we need to check whether your VS uses the updated library. To do it please check from what exact place your Visual Studio loads the 'DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage.dll' file. Please perform the following steps to get this info:

• launch the first Visual Studio instance.
• open Model Editor here.
• launch another Visual Studio instance.
• attach the second instance to the first one as described at A948 - How to obtain a design-time exception call stack (1 - 2 steps).
• open the 'Modules' window, find the 'DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.NetCorePackage.dll' row and copy here its 'Path' column value:
  

Please also describe the exact steps to reproduce the issue as Dennis asked you above.

If it is possible to install v20.1 hotfix on a clear machine and check how Model Editor works here, it would be of great help.

Thanks,
Andrey

Hello Andrey,

first, the path, you asked for:
DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.CorePackage.dll DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.CorePackage.dll c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio\2019\professional\common7\ide\extensions\devexpress\devexpress.expressapp.design.corepackage\DevExpress.ExpressApp.Design.CorePackage.dll Ja Nein Das Laden von Symbolen wurde übersprungen. 100 20.01.8.20309 <Unbekannt> 17550000-17576000 [6516] devenv.exe [1] DefaultDomain

second the behavior:
It is hard to believe, but all works, as it should. Yesterday the behavior was as described earlier, but now there are no more problems.
I don't know, why. As far, as I remember, I changed nothing.

See the video, please: https://www.ctl.de/Media/Default/DevExpress/ModelEditor.mp4

The node and the item, that are shown by the Model Editor are the ones, that I last edited.
A Microsoft Service Pack was not installed in the last two weeks, because installing of updates is set to "Manually" on my machine.

I'm sorry !
Michael

Attaching to the devenv-process from another instance of Visual Studio cannot be the reason, I hope ?
The video I made after debugging from the second instance and after I closed the second instance.

In spite of my "Manual" settings, an update was performed today, KB4586781 has been installed today.