Can't see "Attach to Unity" button in Visual Studio

Hi,

I have downloaded the latest Unity and Visual Studio versions, and I'm trying to debug a script but I can't see the "Attach to Unity" button in Visual Studio, I have seen some videos and the button should be here:



I tried to search but I couldn't find anything related to the missing button, any ideas?

Thanks!

 

What version of visual studio do you use? The one that comes packaged with unity seems to work fine out of the box for me...

 

I have Visual Studio Community 2015 with the Unity plugin installed
I also tried to download it from here: https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/game-development/

 

Did you try the one packaged with the unity install? Or downloaded separately?

 

I tried both of them, first with the one packaged with Unity and then the other one

 

Hmm. So you say you also used the "vs tools for unity" (I think thats what the installer says) when installing right? If that all went correctly I'm not sure why thats happening, because I see the button:

 

The 'button' is a menu item under 'Debug'. There's no button on the main interface. The 'Attach...' button that MD_Reptile is showing is for attaching to standard applications (not Unity ones).

 

Opps my bad.

 

I question the correctness of the highlighted (red) portion of the above statement. The below is a screenshot shows that the Start button is replaced with Attach to Unity.

[Image lost to time, Sorry]

Currently I have it attached correctly, yet my co-worker next to me can't get it to attach. We've both selected VS 2017 in the unity preferences as that came installed by default (5.6) Both have VS2017 tools for unity installed and enabled.


EDIT: This fixed it for my co workers (YMMV):

1. Close VS
2. In Unity Select File > Build Settings
   1. Select the Development Build Checkbox
3. Save Project
4. In Edit > Preferences > External Tools
   1. Re-select your VS IDE (VS 2017)
5. Double Click a script and let Unity initialize VS

 

The highlighted text is correct. The standard "Attach..." button that is shown when you have no solution open is for attaching to non-Unity applications. It is equivalent to selecting "Debug->Attach to Process...", when what you want for Unity apps is "Debug->Attach Unity Debugger".

If you have a button on the main interface that says "Attach to Unity", then that's a different button to what I (and MD_Reptile) was talking about. If you have this button (I don't, "Attach..." becomes "Start" for me when I have a solution open) it's probably safe to use it.

 

This worked for me as well. Thanks!

 

Thanks !

This was crucial for me.
Also I didn't installed the unity extension at all so you might need to install the extension using "Visual Studio Installer".

(Source: https://forum.unity.com/threads/support-for-visual-studio-2017-rc1.444124/ )

 

I am having this same issue. I have tried all of the suggestions posted here, and it still has not fixed my issue. My debugger button just says "Start". I do seem to have Unity specific intelliSense. However, if I right click as I have seen some do there is supposed to be an option to implement some Unity specific methods, and I am not seeing that option either.

I have uninstalled Unity and Visual Studio and reinstalled them several times without any real result. Also when installing Visual Studio Community 2017, I only select the to install Game Development with Unity option, everything else is default.

I have set Visual Studio 2017 Community as my default external editor in Unity preferences. I also have "Create Visual Studio Solution" and "Development Build" selected in the build settings.

I have no idea what else to do... I am able to attach the debugger through the debug menu. However, doing this over and over becomes cumbersome and inconvenient when you have to do it so many times.

Current Unity Build Version: 2018.3.0f2

Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017
Version 15.9.5
VisualStudio.15.Release/15.9.5+28307.280
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 4.7.03190
Installed Version: Community
C# Tools 2.10.0-beta2-63501-03+b9fb1610c87cccc8ceb74a770dba261a58e39c4a
C# components used in the IDE. Depending on your project type and settings, a different version of the compiler may be used.
NuGet Package Manager 4.6.0
NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio. For more information about NuGet, visit http://docs.nuget.org/.
ProjectServicesPackage Extension 1.0
ProjectServicesPackage Visual Studio Extension Detailed Info
Visual Basic Tools 2.10.0-beta2-63501-03+b9fb1610c87cccc8ceb74a770dba261a58e39c4a
Visual Basic components used in the IDE. Depending on your project type and settings, a different version of the compiler may be used.
Visual Studio Code Debug Adapter Host Package 1.0
Interop layer for hosting Visual Studio Code debug adapters in Visual Studio
Visual Studio Tools for Unity 3.9.0.3
Visual Studio Tools for Unity

Any help will be much appreciated!

 

Same problem here. Odd thing is, when at first I am starting up VS, as it is loading I can see the Attach to Unity button. However when it finishes loading, the button is replaced by the Start button. Not sure what's going on...

 

may be some updates make this error. Same thing happens to me today. I am using vs 2019 for unity. Tools for unity is installed. But I can not see attach to unity button.

 

I have vs 2019 and vs 2017 both could this be a reason for this ?

 

I have deleted vs 2017 and problem still exists

I have tried deleting vs tools for unity for 2019 and reinstall it. Still not solved.

 

please take a look at this post

https://forum.unity.com/threads/visual-studio-2019-no-attach-to-unity-debug-option.664018/

This answer works for me at least

https://forum.unity.com/threads/vis...ch-to-unity-debug-option.664018/#post-4496605

 

Thanks for posting what solved it for you!

 

removing the (hidden) .vs folder from my unity-project-folder finally resolved this problem for me

 

This was so useful to me!!!!!!!!! Thanks a lot

 

My VS2019 Tools for Unity was disabled by performance manager. These tools caused visual studio to be unresponsive. That's why performance manager disabled it . I enabled it and this worked for me

 

My VS2019 was missing the attach to Unity as well. Here's how i fixed it.

The Attach Unity Debugger will not show up unless you have installed the "Game Development with Unity" addon by going to youre menu item Tools / Get Tools and Features. From the Visual Studio Installer under workloads you'll see the option to turn on 'Game Development with Unity'. May take a few minutes to install.


you can all so open the Visual Studio Installer separately and select modify from the installer which will bring up the above dialog.

Once installed you should see the Attach to Unity under the Debug menu.

 

In case you still have an issue, this should automatically fix potentially issue on the project :
Preference > External Tool > Regenerate project file

 

worked for me - thanks

 

This solved it for me!

 

Yep, same here. Weird that this was literally fine yesterday.

 

You're a hero.. Thanks xD

 

For others who might come this way: Intellisense was helping with Unity classes (listing methods when I typed a class name or variable of a class type), but not with private methods. So "void OnM" wasn't prompting me with a list including things like "OnMouseDown." As it happened, I did not have Visual Studio Tools for Unity installed, so I added that with the Visual Studio Installer.

That's when everything went wrong.

First up, upon next opening of Visual Studio, it complained that I was lacking some kind of reference to System.Void, and about a hundred other errors I'd never seen before. I tried "Regenerate project files" and that made things worse. My errors remained, but upon next opening of Visual Studio, it added eleven more projects to my solution, one for every package in the "Packages" folder in my Unity project, and three more (not sure where from). I fussed with this for a couple of hours, including using Visual Studio Installer's "repair" option. No help.

A complete uninstall and then reinstall of Visual Studio, with the Visual Studio Tools for Unity included, fixed all problems.

Using Visual Studio Community 2017 and Unity 2019.4.7.

 

This happens every month for me, seemlingly randomly the "attach to unity" disappears in projects and versions of unity that worked the day before. Has happened for me for 2 years now in different versions of both unity and visual studio. A more permanent solution is needed. I can change "external script editor" in preferences to something else and then back to visual studio and it will fix itself, but only until next month or so.

 

That solved it, thanks

 

It seems there are also issues in case you are using directory links. Moving the scripts out of the linked directory did solve the issue in my case.

 

The only solution for me was: Assets -> Open C# Project
And only after this action the button "Start" was changed to "Attach to Unity" and also the correct markup

 

Thanks it worked for me

 

After I deleted the following files/folder and then re-open the project the my problem was solved.

.vs folder (this folder is hidden)
.csproj files
.sln file

 

Thanks a lot this works for me

 

I'm not sure if it wasn't mentioned before but one reason for this problem to happen ("Attach to Unity" button replaced with "Start") is a mismatch between VS and Unity versions. I was using Unity 2018.2.14 with VS 2019. Changing to VS 2017 fixed the issue.

 

This attach button changes to Start as VS2019 loads happens to me quite frequently with Unity 2020.1.17f1 and VS2019 fully patched and with Unity Tools installed (of course).

Many of the above solutions did not work for me. What finally did work is deleting just the .sln file and letting Unity/VS Studio rebuild it.

Other things I tried previously that did not work:
- set Unity build settings to 'development' and reselect the external editor
- delete the hidden .vs folder
- delete the .vsconfig file

I believe that changing VS version is just doing the same thing but will take a lot longer so I hope this suggestion helps others get going again quickly when hit by this incredibly annoying problem.

I didn't try 'regenerate project file' before I found my own solution (or, in this case, deleted it ) but I wonder if that is also a better way of forcing a refresh of the .sln file.

 

This worked for me, thanks! (Quick & easy solution too.)

 

YOU ARE THE MAN!!!

 

@ndreapomposelli 's solution worked for me, thanks a bunch !

 

This worked for me (I'm on a MacBook):

Go to Run -> Attach to Process


Then I saw my Debugger had been switched to ".Net Core Debugger" so I switched it to "Unity Debugger".




Then I had the option to connect to "Unity Editor" (I think you have to have the app running in Unity first).

 

Bump, This solution works for VS2022

 

This worked for me. my issue was that i did not have VS selected in External tools

 

Thanks, it's Helpful.