105 Responses to “How To Solve: "No Files Were Found To Look In. Find Was Stopped In Progress"”

1. Shankar Maru Said on Sep 4, 2008 :

   thanks man, I was having this problem for a while…..thanks a lot

2. PHenry Said on Sep 4, 2008 :

   I too have ran SMACK head first into this problem too! And the CTRL+ScrollLock works (sometimes takes one or two smack backs to get it to convince VS to work properly but it does work). Why? I have NO idea neither but would be very interested to read WTF?

3. tom Said on Sep 18, 2008 :

   My visual studio seems to crash when i do crtl+f no reason why

4. Random Said on Nov 4, 2008 :

   Thanks! That did the trick. Oh Microsoft, thanks for this POS.

5. Fer Fig Said on Nov 6, 2008 :

   Thanks! solved the “problem” for me too…
   This is weird one!!!

6. J Said on Nov 10, 2008 :

   Funny, I’ve been using VS2005 for years now and never had this problem… until just a few minutes ago! Luckily a quick question to Dr. Google pointed me to the answer here (and to a couple of dozen other sites!) Curious that the “problem” has been around since at least 2005 and yet nobody has yet been able to say *why* it happens…

7. Dashut Said on Nov 24, 2008 :

   Pressing: Pause/break button (near the Scroll Lock button) solved it for me…

8. Jagadhees Said on Nov 25, 2008 :

   Thanks a lot.

9. sri Said on Dec 4, 2008 :

   Thank you a lot. It just works. The search is too important.

10. Chad Said on Dec 18, 2008 :

    Control + Scroll Lock didn’t work for me this time. I think it did on prior occasions. This time, Hitting Pause 10xs in fast succession why I cursed Bill Gates loudly fixed the problem. Yes, I hold the ex CEO personally responsible for this longtime bug

11. Ashesh Deep Said on Feb 4, 2009 :

    Thanks dude. It really solved my problem. I saved my time.

12. Miguel Said on Feb 6, 2009 :

    Amazing tip. Worked for me. Thanks a lot!

13. paul woods Said on Feb 6, 2009 :

    Amazing - the Pause/Break button worked for me.
    Thanks for the help

14. Reva Said on Feb 26, 2009 :

    Thanks a lot. Ctrl + ScrLk worked for me.

15. Homsa Said on Mar 15, 2009 :

    Thanks a lot ! Pause/Breake worked fine for me too!
    /Homsa

16. Jonathan Said on Mar 17, 2009 :

    Dashut’s suggestion of pause/break worked for me, the ctrl-scroll lock / scroll didn’t. Maybe this tip should be added to the article? Thanks!

17. Paul Said on Mar 30, 2009 :

    I just encountered this for the first time this morning. Bizarre problem and an equally bizarre solution. Thanks!

18. Soshan Said on Apr 5, 2009 :

    Ctrl + Pause Break worked for me.
    Ctrl + Scroll Lock didnt!

19. Neo Said on Apr 9, 2009 :

    Hey ctrl + Scroll aslo work for me cheers!!

    Neo

20. Neo Said on Apr 9, 2009 :

    oh I forgotut to add the ver don’t surprise itz VS 2008 That’s not good

21. Fitzroy Said on May 20, 2009 :

    This problem annoyed me a lot in the past and I could never remember what I did to fix it. Your tip is the answer - thanks a lot

22. Sheetal Said on May 21, 2009 :

    Thanks ….for the post !!!!

23. dashesy Said on Jun 2, 2009 :

    thnx man it worked!!! I hate the fact that I have to use crappy Microsoft products, Eclipse is far superior with Alt+Ctrl+G.
    I think the bug appeared first when I stopped a build (using ctrl+break).

24. EMiller Said on Jun 22, 2009 :

    Very weird, but nice to have a solution!!

25. Jason Hodges Said on Jun 24, 2009 :

    Um, HOW THE HECK did you figure that out?!!! Thanks a ton!!!

26. FedUpWithMS Said on Jun 24, 2009 :

    VS2008 - Pause/Break multiple times worked for me, Ctrl ScrLk and the other options didn’t (this time, though they have in the past)

27. Goofs Said on Jun 30, 2009 :

    Jeezaloo!! I got the same problem, And your site came up in Google search.
    Thanks a bunch.

28. Ben Said on Jul 2, 2009 :

    Thanks, man! I was having that bug at work on several computers for years now… I didn’t bother to post a bug report on Microsoft website because other reports I posted were closed as “can’t reproduce” (like one for which they said it was surely caused by my keyboard…)

29. PlaneDownstairs Said on Jul 7, 2009 :

    VS 2008
    Ctrl + Pause/Break worked for me.
    Ctrl + ScrollLock didn’t.
    Pause/Break didn’t.

30. Russ Said on Aug 9, 2009 :

    That is some troubling voodoo magic.

    But thanks, it works.

31. Mani D Said on Aug 21, 2009 :

    This is grt, Shagar!!

32. Revan Said on Sep 9, 2009 :

    I didnt understand what is relation with the scrolllock but it do worked for me. thanks al lot

33. eli Said on Oct 29, 2009 :

    Thanks a lot!!!!

34. Fezzik Said on Nov 19, 2009 :

    That worked for me in Visual Studio 2008. I wish I knew why this trick works.

35. Pete Said on Nov 26, 2009 :

    None of the above worked for me, however… I eventually realised I’d had several instances of visual studio with different solutions open the day before, and in one of those instances I’d changed the file types setting to perform a search of specific file types within a folder.

    I’d then spent the rest of that day using the other open instances of visual studio, happily searching as normal. But when I closed all the solutions at the end of the day, clearly the changed file types setting was saved for *all* solutions, and so the next morning when I opened up one of the other solutions I suddenly found every search produced the ‘No files were found to look in.’ message.

    Obviously this is my fault and not a bug! But in case other people do like me and search for the error message then sit fruitlessly trying every combination of ctrl, scroll-lock and pause/break: check the file types first

36. crazy joe Said on Dec 2, 2009 :

    Had to hit Pause/Break 17 times.

37. Jiti Said on Dec 2, 2009 :

    Thank goodness for your post and google to lead me to it!

38. laol Said on Dec 4, 2009 :

    Pause/Break worked for me on VC++ 2008 Express
    thanks a lot

39. Ani Said on Dec 24, 2009 :

    Cool tip - gets you back in the game!!

40. Arjun Dsouza Said on Jan 6, 2010 :

    Surprisingly for me, I have been working on VS since 2005 and got this problem only now. Thanks for posting the solution. A very rare issue, indeed!

41. Darshan Kapadia Said on Jan 14, 2010 :

    Thanks a lot it works

42. prognostic Said on Jan 26, 2010 :

    Thanks!! It probably occurs by accidentally hitting either the Scroll Lock or Pause-Break. Building my project takes a while, and I wanted to stop it with a Ctrl-Pause. Either my finger slipped off the Ctrl button and I simply hit Pause, or I hit the Scroll Lock. Either way, I just hit Pause twice and Find In Files is working again!

43. Phani Kiran Said on Mar 10, 2010 :

    I think ctrl+scroll lock is a shortcut to some feature on vs05

44. Garf Said on Mar 19, 2010 :

    Very helpful. Thanks a lot.

45. ken Said on Apr 8, 2010 :

    Thanks a lot! Ensured my frustration was present for only a very short while.

46. Jonathan Lam Said on Apr 9, 2010 :

    Wow what the crap, that worked for me, in VS2008! Thanks!

47. Vianney L Said on Apr 15, 2010 :

    I feel there is magic behind this but thx a lot.

48. dev123 Said on May 6, 2010 :

    Thank you!!

    Still hit this problem in VS 2010 (believe it or not they still haven’t fixed this!), and Ctrl+Scroll Lock fixed it.

    I believe Ctrl+Break will fix that also, but haven’t confirmed. The reasoning for that comes from when I looked up which command Ctrl+ScrollLock was mapped to (under Tools->Customize->Keyboard), and it was interpreted by VS as Ctrl+Break for some reason (which was mapped, by default, to Cancel Build.

    Go figure. (I’m talking to you Microsoft… GO AND FIGURE!!! :-))

49. Ned Nedson Said on May 21, 2010 :

    Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

    I just got a new keyboard and I wonder if that caused the problem that this “Control Scroll Lock” trick fixes.

50. ShraddhaG Said on May 25, 2010 :

    Thanks, this worked for me.

51. praz Said on Jun 21, 2010 :

    Thanks mate..

52. Rajesh Said on Jun 24, 2010 :

    Excellent worked for me … Thanks a lot

53. Anon Said on Jun 28, 2010 :

    The scroll lock dint work, but as Chad said, hitting Pause 10 times in quick succession worked. Din’t curse the CEO though, so I think that part’s optional.

54. bigyes Said on Jul 1, 2010 :

    Excellent worked for me … Thanks a lot

55. Nellie Said on Jul 9, 2010 :

    Thanks a million!

56. Alex Blokha Said on Jul 16, 2010 :

    Didn’t help me. VS 2010. Ctrl + Scroll - no reaction, Ctrl + pause - no reaction. 10x Pause - no success…

57. Alex Blokha Said on Jul 16, 2010 :

    And restart of Studio does not help…

58. Sapna Said on Jul 23, 2010 :

    Worked for me too.. Thanks a ton

59. mm Said on Jul 27, 2010 :

    Thanx a lot..!! i just ran into the problem..and the solution..:D

60. Bhawesh Said on Aug 3, 2010 :

    Superb!! Thanks a lot!!

61. philselmer Said on Aug 5, 2010 :

    Thanks! I can’t believe this bug has been around for 2 years!

62. serge Said on Aug 12, 2010 :

    This has been dogging me for years. Glad I found this tip. The problem seems to happen if you press and hold the break or scroll lock keys (perhaps then when you press the ctrl key). Mine get stuck under a lip of my keyboard tray so I have this problem several times a week.

    I have now physically removed those keys from the keyboard so I don’t accidentally press them in Visual Studio any more.

63. Amer Said on Aug 23, 2010 :

    thanks you very much,
    ctrl + scroll lock worked for me

64. Antknei Said on Aug 27, 2010 :

    Worked first try. Thanks.

65. SwDude Said on Aug 30, 2010 :

    Ctrl+Scroll Lock worked for me - thanks so much for finding and publishing this fix for this strange bug.

66. Islamegy Said on Sep 6, 2010 :

    Very wired behavior, I just wonder how did you discovered the solution??

67. Jt Said on Sep 17, 2010 :

    VS 2008. That’s the weirdet fix ever. Used ctrl-shift F to search and while searching hit paus/break a bunch of times. Not sure if CTRL was in there. Tried a couple of times. All good now.

68. Dee Said on Oct 2, 2010 :

    Ctrl-ScrLk didn’t work, even after multiple tries, but Pause/Break did the trick. THANK you (and Google for allowing me to find you)!

69. Pierre Said on Oct 5, 2010 :

    Neither Ctrl-Break nor Ctrl-Scroll lock worked for me (on VS 2010). But after some googling I tried Ctrl-C + Ctrl-Break and it worked. Thanks for sharing anyway !

70. El Terrible Said on Oct 13, 2010 :

    I was sure you guys were kidding but I banged away on ^Break and ^Pause for a few seconds and now it works…..
    What the hell is this???

71. Tony Said on Nov 9, 2010 :

    Thanks a lot, it worked at the first attempt !!

    However… how did you find this solution ?

72. Anuj Man Bajracharya Said on Nov 15, 2010 :

    And that “Ctrl + Scroll Lock” answer was amazing, it worked for me as well… Thanks man..

73. Pradnya Said on Nov 15, 2010 :

    Thanks !!

74. Alex Said on Dec 30, 2010 :

    Wow It works but it is definitely voodoo magic!

75. Gee Said on Jan 28, 2011 :

    Fix for this freaky problem for me was the Pause/Break.
    After it cleared it, I reproduced it by pressing Ctrl-Scroll Lock, and then toggled it back off again with Ctrl-Scroll Lock.

    This page justifiably belongs on the first hit for Google “visual studios no files were found to look in” - whew thanks

76. Gaurav Said on Feb 24, 2011 :

    This solved the problem. Could anybody ascertain why we get into this issue?

77. Dom Said on Feb 28, 2011 :

    Got that issue in VS2010 and it works, thanks

78. Frank Said on Mar 3, 2011 :

    Thanks!! That was exactly the problem.

79. Ram Megharaj Said on Mar 8, 2011 :

    It worked for me. Thanks alot

80. Prathima Reddy Said on Mar 11, 2011 :

    WOoooWW …. It worked for me too .. Thanks a lot!!!

81. subbu Said on Mar 17, 2011 :

    Thanks for the post.. encountered it and solved it with your suggestion.. kudos…

82. Will Said on Mar 25, 2011 :

    It did not work initally, but I hit the Pause/Break button a few times in frustration and then did the search and then it worked. I think we all had food or something stuck in the keyboard causing the break key to be pressed. Also people hitting the Scroll Lock key may loosen what was stuck on the Pause/Break key. I think it just so happen the keys are next to each other which Break stops a search process.

83. Ketaki Said on Apr 28, 2011 :

    I tried to pause the code while it was executing by pressing Ctrl + Pause/Break. I pressed it several times just to stop the code from compiling. I think that was the reason I started having this “Find was stopped in progress” problem. Or might be I pressed Ctrl Scroll Lock by mistake while trying to do that.
    But eventually Ctrl + Scroll Lock worked wonders..
    Thanks a lot.

84. Deepak Said on May 6, 2011 :

    Awesome….how did u find this out….?

85. Mahesh Said on May 10, 2011 :

    Cheers too..

86. Vince P. Said on Jun 7, 2011 :

    Just wanted to let you know that I’ve used your article twice in the last 6 months when VS 2010 started behaving this way. This is such a stupid defect; I can’t believe this is still there.

    Has anyone figured out WHY this happens? There’s got to be a semi-interesting story behind this one.

87. cary abramoff Said on Jun 14, 2011 :

    Dude, this f@#$(& page R-O-C-K-S.
    I had froze in VS 2010 and had a build going but I wanted to just close VS. Got msg, “Build in progress blah blah,” and I kept pounding on CTRL+Break, Esc cuz it is frozen tardware.

    Anyway after the mushroom cloud cleared Find in Files was getting quirky as bug F#$(. It said, “find stopped in progress blah blah blah me!”

    Then I found this which is good for a serious chuckle,

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vseditor/thread/c7e91314-9751-4e04-ae94-4f24b04fccf2/

    Poor guy was told to reinstall and go registry spehlunkin’ just to fix the find?? WTF’nF?

    I understand bugs come up but to fix find you let some supportard send you through your registry and reinstall and lose all your settings? c’mwawn now dave herman play me some rock n roll!

    Cary Abramoff, MCSD.NET

88. Pak Said on Jul 13, 2011 :

    Damn!! It sure is some voodoo!!
    Thanks a lot!!

89. Pankaj Said on Jul 19, 2011 :

    Thanks, it worked for me.

90. Jeff Handley Said on Aug 26, 2011 :

    I wonder if that is somehow related to this hang when finding in files: http://jeffhandley.com/archive/2008/02/12/vs.net-find-in-files-hangs-on-vista.aspx

91. Vinay Said on Sep 1, 2011 :

    Cltr + Scroll Lock and restarting visual studio has work for me. Cltr+ Scroll Lock alone didn’t help. Now I am happy that I can search using cltr+shift+f. Thanks alot!!

    Vinay

92. T Said on Sep 2, 2011 :

    True! Thank you!

93. amir Said on Sep 13, 2011 :

    thank you that did it for me

94. nikhil Said on Sep 15, 2011 :

    great job

95. Aditya Said on Sep 27, 2011 :

    It saved me. Though its hard to relate it to scroll lock.

    On another note, I had 2-3 different projects open on multiple visual studio window, I was only facing the problem with one particular project and not with other two.

96. Jayanthi Said on Oct 6, 2011 :

    thx u saved me a lot of time…

97. Ajeesh Said on Oct 18, 2011 :

    Thanks that works
    I had used ctrl + break and file-type find yesterday.
    Not sure which of the above caused it, but ctrl+ScrollLock was the solution.

    PS: I always wondered how useless the Scroll Lock key was. Redemption time

98. Peggy Moore Said on Oct 26, 2011 :

    And I just ran into it with VS 2008 for the first time. The trick worked! Bizarre. Thanks.

99. Jai Said on Oct 26, 2011 :

    Thanks, now working well.

100. Onno Said on Oct 31, 2011 :

     Visual Studio 2010. I tried all the things in this thread no joy. Then I found another solution in another thread:

     Close Visual Studio.

     In regedit, delete the following key:

     \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[VS VERSION NUMBER]\Find

     Open VS. That worked for me.

101. jorge Said on Nov 25, 2011 :

     incledible, it works.

102. Karan Said on Dec 8, 2011 :

     Awesome It works..

103. Sanket Rane Said on Jan 13, 2012 :

     Just type CTRL+Shift+F, then under ‘Find Options’ heading, change the file type(i.e. ‘Look at these file types’) and set it to either ” or ‘*.*’

104. Niraj Patel Said on Jan 19, 2012 :

     It worked for me.. Thanks

105. Sandeep Lohani Said on Jan 23, 2012 :

     Worked for me!! thank you!!!