Error in Visual Studio Designer: "Type ... is not marked as serializable"

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4.50/5 (2 votes)

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Hi,

I've created a project with a generic gridview control which I use in every form.

public partial class _GenericGridViewControl<T> : UserControl

public partial class tblMerk_GridViewControl : _GenericGridViewControl<tblMerk>, IGenericGridViewControl

For type<T> I only use Linq dataclasses. It all worked great, until I accedently checked-out the project file in sourcesafe on my laptop and formatted my laptop. As a fix I had to undo-checkout the project-file on my computer and that's where the weird stuff began;

When I try to resize a custom control in the designer(any custom control in any form) the following error pops-up:

<br />
Type 'DataAccess.tblMerk' in Assembly 'DataAccess, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' is not marked as serializable.<br />

Now I've searched google for this problem and I found out it has something to do with the designer wanting to serialize the control for some kind of caching, but it can't, cause my custom controls are not serializable, and will never be serializable. I also found out it might has something to do with a different error in some designer file which is masked by this error, but I don't know for sure that this is the cause here as my project compiles and workes great.

Please help me get my designer to start working for me again.

Thanks in advance, Willem

Posted 4-May-11 22:05pm

willempipi

Updated 5-May-11 2:00am

v5

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Hemant__Sharma · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-04T22:58:00

Solution 2

can you try the following workaround:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4973506/failed-to-create-component-type-is-not-marked-as-serializable[^]

thanks,
Hemant

Posted 4-May-11 22:58pm

Hemant__Sharma

Comments

willempipi 5-May-11 6:35am

Thank you, it took some time but I found out the solution was to add these attributes to all properties that were of type<T>:

[Browsable(false)]
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Hidden)]

Apperantly the designer tries to serialize these properties and end up with the error.

public partial class _GenericGridViewControl<T> : UserControl // << Designer had no problems with this
where T : class, new()
{
[Browsable(false)]
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Hidden)]
public List<T> LoadedItems = new List<T>(); // << Here was the problem
}

Olivier Levrey · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-04T22:38:00

Solution 1

I suggest not to use generic controls. Marking a member as generic is OK, but marking the whole class as generic sounds like you will have lots of problems with the designer...

If you really want to use a generic control, then forget about the designer and add it manually in your .cs file.

Posted 4-May-11 22:38pm

Olivier Levrey

Comments

willempipi 5-May-11 4:56am

Sorry, but this is a very very poor solution. My complete project consists of generic usercontrols to minimize the amount of programming. If I would listen to your solution I would have to reprogram my entire project, which already contains more then 1 year of work.

Also, this problem appeared just one day ago, with the check-out problem, before that, I never had any problems with the designer, so why should it not work now. [Edit] Though solved i'm still in the dark about this one. [/Edit]

Olivier Levrey 5-May-11 5:08am

Then I would say that your original design choices are wrong.

If somebody asked me "What do you think about creating generic controls", I would just answer "forget it" even before seeing your problem. The designer is very powerful but is limited in many situations and I would bet that dealing with generic controls is part of that limitations.

But you are free not to follow my advice. If you can fix that problem without recoding everything, it would be of course welcome.

Good luck.

willempipi 5-May-11 6:51am

I'm sorry for being so hard on you, but your "don't use generic usercontrols" answer is like saying to someone who is reparing a car-transmission: "Just don't use a transmission, cause its very hard to repair a transmission."

Olivier Levrey 5-May-11 7:33am

Don't be sorry, it's ok. It looks like you found a solution to your problem so everything is fine. I just gave my feelings about such a choice.