How Stable is VS 2022 and WPF?

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm working on my first WPF application. In general, I'm rather liking WPF. Layout is easier than in Forms, though binding seems to be neither better nor worse, just different.

However, I've also managed to crash VS 2022 several times while working in the WPF designer. Sometimes, it is just the designer that crashes. When this happens, the designer shows an error message about a fatal exception. I can still edit the XAML, but I can't see the results unless I restart VS. The visual pane of the designer appears to never recover on its own.

Today, I've managed to cause VS 2022 to crash to desktop and restart. At least it does restart. I lose a few things when that happens, though usually nothing too serious. I've also kind of narrowed it down to what causes it, and it may be due to a third party control misbehaving, so it's not like anybody can recreate that unless they have DevExpress controls.

Still, the bottom line is that I can't recall VS 2022 ever crashing during development of a WinForms application, while I've had designer crashes and now crash-to-desktop events while working with WPF. All of these are designer crashes. I have yet to have a crash when working with the code behind, only when working with XAML.

Are other people finding VS unstable when developing WPF applications?

[si_the_geek]

I have had similar issues with the XAML designer, for both WPF and Xamarin apps.

The issue can happen due to editing the XAML while it is still rendering the previous change, but that certainly isn't the only cause... I've also noticed it happen sometimes when particular standard controls are used, but not consistently (I can have the designer visible for over an hour with no issues, other times it crashes within 30 seconds).

It is far too unpredictable for me to have worked out any way of potentially fixing/avoiding the crash.