VB.Net losing event handlers when making changes in designer

Question

Whenever I made changes to a form in the designer, it seems that VS is removing all of the handle statements from events. I've had to code them all manually using AddHandler in the form's constructor to keep them there. Any insights?

Example:

Private Sub cboEntity_SelectionChangeCommitted(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) '<NOW MISSING>  Handles cboEntity.SelectionChangeCommitted

    If cboEntity.SelectedItem IsNot Nothing Then
        RaiseEvent ID_Changed(Me, cboEntity.SelectedItem)
    End If

End Sub

Current Version:

Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022 Version 17.5.2 VisualStudio.17.Release/17.5.2+33502.453 Microsoft .NET Framework Version 4.8.09032

Installed Version: Community

Azure App Service Tools v3.0.0 17.5.317.37931 Azure App Service Tools v3.0.0

C# Tools 4.5.0-6.23128.14+651d32d8017cfcc60fcbd67383601fa9a3deb145 C# components used in the IDE. Depending on your project type and settings, a different version of the compiler may be used.

Microsoft JVM Debugger 1.0 Provides support for connecting the Visual Studio debugger to JDWP compatible Java Virtual Machines

NuGet Package Manager 6.5.0 NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio. For more information about NuGet, visit https://docs.nuget.org/

Visual Basic Tools 4.5.0-6.23128.14+651d32d8017cfcc60fcbd67383601fa9a3deb145 Visual Basic components used in the IDE. Depending on your project type and settings, a different version of the compiler may be used.

Visual F# Tools 17.5.0-beta.23053.5+794b7c259d9646a7eb685dad865aa27da7940a21 Microsoft Visual F# Tools

Visual Studio IntelliCode 2.2 AI-assisted development for Visual Studio.

I have had to code all of my handlers manually in the form's constructor...

AddHandler cboEntity.SelectionChangeCommitted, AddressOf Me.cboEntity_SelectionChangeCommitted

This has been going on for at least several weeks. Anyone else notice the problem? Is it specific to vb.net as opposed to c#?

Any help appreciated

Answer 1

This was a known issue in VS. You say that you are using VS v17.5.2. It's my understanding that this issue was fixed in v17.5.3, while the most current version is 17.5.4. If you update VS, this issue should not arise again.

As for fixing your code, there's nothing that will do it automatically, other than rolling back your changes. If you don't have a backup anywhere, you're out of luck. This is an example of why everyone, no matter their level, should be using source control. Then you could simply roll back your changes. I suggest that you look into source control options. Free options include Azure DevOps and GitHub, but there are others too.

To fix your code, you can either add the Handles clause back to each event handler manually, or you can use the Properties window to select an existing method for each relevant event.

Answer 2

I'm using VS Community 17.7.3 and I spent an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with my code before I noticed those handles clauses were gone.

Funny thing is that this USED TO happen with ALL of my handles clauses. So I didn't notice that only a few of my controls were having this issue this time around. Just a set of combo boxes this time.

The only thing about these comboboxes is that when the selected value changes in combobox A, I make combobox B reload a subset of data. And when Combobox B has its selected Index changed, I make combobox C load a subset of data.

So maybe it has something to do with these controls interacting in a way because the handles clauses remained for everything else.

wish they'd get this fixed.