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I've got a strange one here that I can't seem to figure out. It just started last week. When I debug a console app in VS 2019 it does not launch the console window. I can set a breakpoint inside Main() and it will break. But no console.

I even created a brand new Hello World project and that does not work.

  • VS 2019 Build 16.5.4 (updated today from 16.5.1 but that did not help)
  • Windows 10 x64 Build 18363
  • .NET Framework 4.7.2 (for the test app below but I have seen it in all versions I've tried).

Even this does not work:

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; namespace ConsoleApp1 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine ("Hello World"); Console.ReadLine(); } } }
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  • One more thing I just tried ... a .NET Core Console App. This works. But not Framework ones. Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 3:31
  • I have tested it, it works for me. I need to mention that the console will appear after the Main method is ended. Therefore. I suggest that you can set the break point after the console.readline() to check if it works for you. Commented Apr 23, 2020 at 1:42
  • Yeah this is definitely environmental. This worked forever ... for some reason it stopped. If I run the above with no breakpoints same result. The project is running ... can see activity in diagnostics, but no console. Commented Apr 23, 2020 at 3:29
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    Based on my search, I find some ways may solve it. First way, you can change Platform Target to x64. Second way, The following is a temporary solution. 1. Kill the remaining {project} .exe process. 2. Exit visual studio 2017. 3. Kill all cmd.exe and conhost.exe processes. 4. Run visual studio 2017 again. Commented Apr 24, 2020 at 2:12
  • Just throwing this out there... had the same problem myself... the solution was to debug the app once with VS 2017 and then when I switched back to VS2019 it was just working. Commented Nov 17, 2020 at 17:19

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As Jack J Jun mentioned, setting target to x64 in VS 2019 helped me. Solution was designed in VS 2017 and then studio was upgraded and yes, console application stopped showing its console.

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Hi Mike, thank you for contributing to stack overflow! I wonder if some exception is being swallowed by VS and handled silently - when you change your exception settings to stop on all exceptions, does it break, or does it still just continue silently? I wonder if the Event viewer on Windows will report some errors :?
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I had the same thing happen right after I upgraded to VS 2019. Culprit was this line in my csproj file: <UseWindowsForms>true</UseWindowsForms>. Not sure how this line got in there...I didn't consciously add it. Either the upgrade added it or it was added when I unknowingly clicked on something and the previous version of VS just ignored it. Anyway, I deleted the line from the csproj file and the console window came back.

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Sorry, the line is "UseWindowsForm" (enclosed in <>) set to true. The comment editor is removing it I think because it thinks it's a tag.

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