Eyvind,

Typically this happens when something is wrong with one of your controls. When you display the form in the IDE, the InitializeComponent() method is called. If you have a control (typically a UserControl) that has a problem instantiating (and there could be many reasons why), then the InitializeComponent() will not run correctly and it will appear that all of your controls have disappeared, but they are, in fact, still there ... if you bring up the code rather than the graphic version of the form, you'll still see the code for all your controls there ... unless you saved the form after it came up showing no controls ... then you *may* have wiped them out by saving (sometimes it'll do this, sometimes not).

But, anyway, the bottom line is that one or more of your controls is screwed up and causing the whole form to not display. Try looking at the code view of it instead of the graphic view. Also, try figuring out which one of the controls that you've dropped on the form is causing the problem. I'd try debugging and stepping through the InitializeComponent() method to see which control causes the problem.

~~Bonnie




>This is like the tenth time _today_ that all the controls have been wiped from my form by the VS.NET 2003 IDE for no reason, and I thought this tool would be a joy to work with. Damn it, don't the guys at the VS team ever test their tools? I see at google groups a zillion threads about the same problem, but no good solution.
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>Any ideas or workarounds?
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>Thanks,
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>Eyvind.