Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress.

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This is definitely in the category "I-would-believe-it-if-I-would-see-it-with-my-own-eyes".

Coworker tried to "search in files" in Visual Studio 2005 and he got zero results. Even when he searched for simple "a" character, he still got nothing. Then we noticed the message in results pane:

No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress.

He googled it and fairly quickly found a solution on Franny's Adobe blog.

Pressing Ctrl + Scroll Lock actually helped! It's important to mention the above solution and error was spotted in Visual Studio 2003 but coworker had same thing in 2005.

It looks like somehow "Break" command which is Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Pause got stuck. But that has nothing to do with "Scroll Lock". Go figure. Weird, weird, weird... How the hell would anyone solve this without internet?!? Thank you, Tim, thank you!

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:21 PM | Filed under: Developement |

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# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/9/2007 8:04 PM Grateful

Sure enough! Argh.. it was driving me nuts.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/27/2007 1:47 PM vasanth

Press Ctrl + c and ctrl + pause .. this may solve your problem.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/9/2007 3:00 PM TestPilot

What the hell was that??

What does Ctl + C and Ctl + Pause do??

It did work.. but is there an explanation for this?

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/9/2007 3:34 PM David

I have not freakin' idea. :) I just know it works.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/12/2007 1:36 PM Alexandr Blokha

Yep, I have this bug on VS 2005.

Your post helped me to solve it.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/20/2007 12:55 PM PF

You MUST be in with the prompter in a SOURCE (CPP or h) for this to work. But it works :)

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/18/2007 9:03 AM pradeepta pradhan

I tried pressing Ctrl+Scroll Lock as well as Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Pause but still it is not working...can anyone suggest me an alternative idea...I have even tried formatting my computer and reinstalling VS 2005 but I still get the same error.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/21/2008 8:27 AM Hardik

Heeeyyyy..........it worked but, can anybody tell me how the first person came to know about the solution.....???? Please.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/28/2008 12:31 PM zatapatique

cheers for this info, probably saved MS from a terrible curse.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/7/2008 2:34 AM SUparJErk

Worked! I'm baffled as to what the heck this does exactly, or what caused the problem in the first place, but I am glad to have it fixed!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/27/2008 8:06 PM kilisoria

Thanks!!!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 4/21/2008 3:03 AM anonymous

Sweet! Worked for me. Crazy stuff.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/20/2008 3:32 PM Petko

Thanks. Really crazy.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 6/8/2008 10:35 AM Lital

Not working.. Does anybody familiar with a different bizzare combination that might solve this problem? (on MSVisual2003)

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 6/16/2008 10:55 AM Oren

I got it in VS 2008...

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 6/17/2008 2:46 PM KjellR

Yepp! Weirdest problem I've seen. And even weirder: Ctrl ScrollLock solved it!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 6/28/2008 2:22 AM Vlad

I've got my new laptop today from the operations with VS 2005 and VS 2008 installed. I've got this issue in both VSs. Who the hell can freacking believe that? Thank you, guys, for the solution.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/31/2008 4:26 PM Soteris

In VS2008 try Alt+Break

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/6/2008 11:00 PM Mike Smith

Wahoo! Thanks guys! I had to use the CNTRL-Break one to get it to work. I think that's the one that did it since I kept trying the others to no avail and then mashed on all of them (with the addition of CTRL-Break) to get it to work.

Thanks!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/29/2008 5:58 AM Grrrrrrr!

In VS2005 Alt+Break was required (this time) after 5 minutes of trying Ctrl+(Everything). Last time is was Ctrl+Break, Grrrrr drives me nuts!
Very disappointed to hear it still exists in VS2008. Surely this is some kind of sick joke.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 9/10/2008 10:48 AM Timo

Thank you.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 10/7/2008 10:58 PM uma

oh my gawd... Strange.. strange.. strange
I was pulling my hair out with this..
Thank you! Ctrl + Scroll Lock worked for me in VS2005.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 10/13/2008 3:52 PM dh

Alt+Break was the only one that worked for me in VS2005

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 10/23/2008 11:12 AM Atul

Hi, Thanks for the solution...
Alt+Break worked here...!!!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/19/2008 1:53 PM Doug

This works with VS2008 also. I have no idea why. I even shut down VS2008 and upon startup it gave same error. When I pressed Ctrl-C and then Ctrl-Pause/Break it fixed it!

I found this site on a google search of "No files were found to look in."

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/24/2008 10:03 AM Pill Store

Very good job. Add your blog to bookmarks.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/25/2008 12:42 PM rüya tabiri

Thank you...

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/28/2008 11:31 AM viagra

good info! thanks

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/10/2008 7:36 AM John

WALLA! tnx!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/23/2008 10:32 PM cialas

Thank you for this post! It’s very important problem. It helped me solve my problem!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/25/2008 9:55 PM games secret

thank you::)

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/6/2009 7:13 AM sss

Happened same to me, ctrl+scroll lock fixed it.... thanks very much.... could it be becuase the machine was on for many days to gether? Not that has to do anything with VS2005, but if we use VS2005, end of the day, dont shutdown but just lock, and repeat the same for few days, could that be it?

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/19/2009 7:09 PM Frank Steve Udall

alt-break worked for min VS2005!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/24/2009 12:44 PM SureshG

Ctrl+ScrollLock worked fine with my VS 2005.

Thank you.. :)

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 3/5/2009 9:57 PM Dianne

Thanks!!! Ctrl+Scroll Lock worked for me in VS2003

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 3/16/2009 8:38 PM Marvin

CTRL+ Scroll Lock worked for VS 2008.

Thanks. This was driving me crazy

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 3/19/2009 2:42 AM Prashant Yesodharan

The following would do the trick:

1) Close all instances of the Visual Studio IDE

2) Start -> Run -> RegEdit -> Delete the registry entry MyComputer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Find

Open Visual Studio and try find again.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 3/23/2009 3:17 PM sirrocco

Yeap, Solved it for me too ... thanks :)

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 4/8/2009 9:05 PM AK

Yeap, it occurs in VS2005.
This was driving me nuts. I thought I was too sleepy or something. Dont know if which one of Ctrl + C or Ctrl+break really worked.

Can I bang my keyboard on someones head in VS dev team's for having wasted half a day.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/6/2009 7:40 AM Kishaloy

Hi, My problem got solved as I pressed "Ctrl+ Scroll Lock" in VS 2005. Thanks to the blog owner and Hats Off to the solution provider.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/8/2009 9:23 PM Dino

Thank you!! Alt+Break while the focus was in the Find Results section worked (vs2008).

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/13/2009 9:33 PM sohbet

hallo i wish you verry succes operator

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/15/2009 8:56 PM mike

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2008/02/11/7596539.aspx

seems ctrl-scroll lock and ctrl-break are the same and they both cancel dialog boxes which seems weird the solution is to close a dialog box

btw ctrl-scroll lock worked for me too, VS 2005

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/20/2009 11:17 AM rb

fantastic!! ctrl+scroll Lock worked for me too..VS 2005 thanks

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/22/2009 3:55 AM Mike D

THANK YOU for the solution (pressing Ctrl + Scroll Lock), it works in Visual Studio 2008 as well!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 5/23/2009 3:09 AM Edencity Chat

hallo i wish you verry succes operator

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 6/16/2009 8:02 AM Raghu

Thanks a lot your solution worked for me!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/2/2009 8:26 AM bm

Thanks for the solution! Really helpful

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/7/2009 3:21 PM Dom

Thanks Ctrl+Scroll Lock worked for me in VS2008. Strange!

# What a brilliantly ridiculous bug and solution! 7/19/2009 1:53 PM Josh

Thank you!!! That was driving me nuts. I hardly even believed that pressing Ctrl+Scroll Lock would actually work! I felt stupid even trying it.

There was no "ding!", or message box or anything indicating it had changed or fixed it in any way - this non-believer was proved somewhat wrong.

Ridiculous, almost funny, but bloody brilliant I found this blog. Thank you!!!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/20/2009 9:55 PM Curly Joe

Worked for me too thanks!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/24/2009 1:14 PM Strawdog Si

I love this webpage.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/27/2009 10:09 PM Nick Waanders

I'm getting this non stop. It seems important to have a source file open and the focus on that source file, and then pressing Ctrl-ScrLk.
I've also had times where this didn't work, and I had to restart the machine. I can't believe this problem hasn't been found/hilighted/fixed yet by MS. It's been in there since 2003!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 7/28/2009 10:14 PM Josue Gomes

I got this from time to time. Usually Ctrl+ScrollLock does the job. But today it doesn't. I tried Alt+ScrollLock and it worked fine.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/2/2009 7:34 PM Balog Pal

Just encountered the same thing in VS2008SP1. Persistent feature. :-( Fortunately fiddling with scrollock still cures it and google finds the solutions by just entering the message text.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/20/2009 3:56 PM gigi

=))) Ctrl+Scroll is a shortcut for winamp .... thanks :P

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/20/2009 4:15 PM Val

Nothin was working for me (VS2005), even registry trick, except for Alt+Break while the focus was in the Find Results section worked (vs2008). Thank you!!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 8/27/2009 4:55 PM Leo

VS2008: Alt+Break rules!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 9/8/2009 1:55 AM silky

oh man, thank you so much. i was ready to cry like a baby if i didn't get my control-shift-f back.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 9/11/2009 7:00 PM Trent

Still broken in VS 2010. The Scr Lock solution does not seem to work nor does the Pause/break. Search in files does work for Projects and Solutions but not for any searches on disk.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 9/23/2009 3:14 PM andek

Thanks guys! Alt+Break worked in VS2008. Feels like the Twilight Zone...

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 10/2/2009 8:47 PM vs2008

Ctrl+Scroll works. thans a lot

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 10/9/2009 11:17 AM mersin sohbet

Tnx, bojan. And welcome to Ad. ;)

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/4/2009 7:56 PM brewer

VS2005: I found the problem is caused by pressing ctrl+break during a build (to cancel it). ctrl+scroll lock cleared the problem.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/19/2009 2:33 PM Ajit

Hi,
I had got nuts and was thinking to install VS2005 again. My problem got solved as I pressed "Ctrl+ Scroll Lock". Thanks to the blog owner and Hats Off to the solution provider.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/30/2009 10:26 AM Alexander

Vs 2008 ctrl + break helped!
Thanks a lot!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 11/30/2009 5:23 PM yozgat sohbet

Thank you to run this page, I wish you good work.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/8/2009 12:05 AM maggie

thx~~ so helpful~~^^~

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/8/2009 3:41 PM Ben Glancy

Alt-Break fixed it for me in Visual Studio 2005, Windows XP Professional.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/9/2009 9:47 AM Arun

Geeezzzzzzzzzzz

this thing had me for a while..

Thanks
Ctrl+c and ctrl+pause/break helped.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 12/9/2009 11:31 PM türküler

I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/1/2010 4:54 PM SevdaLi

Thank you for adding

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/8/2010 5:27 PM Gary Whitehead

Just moved my PC upstairs when it started happening. Reading this page pointed me to the Pause/Break key which I noticed was stuck down - cheap keyboard! Apart from vc2008 find in files breaking, everything else has worked as normal so far.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/10/2010 9:50 AM yazili sorulari

Waww.this thing had me for a while :D

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/10/2010 12:43 PM dj ateş şarkıları

cool post thank you for share man. Regards..

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/12/2010 10:33 PM muzik dinle

Alt-Break fixed it for me in Visual Studio 2005, Windows XP Professional.

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 1/19/2010 9:03 PM Sharp Developer

ctrl-c ctrl-break solved this problem.. WIIERD!

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/5/2010 3:54 AM yozgat sohbet

u have a nice site i was searching about the popular site of your countr i found here. good working

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/5/2010 3:55 AM kayseri sohbet

u have a nice site i was searching about the popular site of your countr i found here. good workingz

# re: Strangest error: No files were found to look in. Find was stopped in progress. 2/7/2010 8:42 PM Engelli Sohbet

thanks admin :)

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