Troubleshooting

Find solutions to common troubleshooting problems here.

MGCB Tool Won't Open

Sometimes, when you add the Monogame extension, the MGCB Tool doesn't open when you double click on the MGCB tool in the Solution Explorer.  

First, try to run your program once, and then try to open the MGCB Tool again.

If this doesn't work, try the following:

To solve this, you may need to do a tool restore from the command line.  Here are the instructions:

The command "dotnet tool restore" exited with code 1

If you are trying to run a program that gives the above error, it is likely due to the fact that you made it on a network drive.

To solve this error, follow the instructions below:

Not Finding Content

When you are loading content, the name that you specify must match exactly the name of the file you loaded.  There should also be no extension.  

Make sure that you don't have files with the same name, for example:

bomb.png and bomb.wav

If you try to change the name of a file through the Solution Explorer, it will stop working.  This is because the Content.mgcb file that you edit using the MGCB tool will still be looking for the filename as it was when you first added the content.

You should exclude that file from the project using the MGCB tool.  Delete it from your project in the Solution Explorer.  Re-name the file using File Explorer and re-add it to your project.

SoundEffect Not Loading

When you add an audio file using the MGCB Tool, if it is an mp3 file or a larger sound file, it may set the default  converter to make a Song instead of a SoundEffect. 

Null Pointer Exception for Content that was Loaded

You can get this error if you are trying to use content in Initialize() that gets loaded in LoadContent().  Anything you are initializing in Initialize() that requires content, should be put after the line of code base.Initialize();

Ambiguous Reference Error

Sometimes when adding a Rectangle or a Vector2 to your program, Visual Studio will automatically add a Using statement at the top of your program for you that will import a library that defines the class you are trying to use.

There are a number of libraries that define a Rectangle and a Vector2.  We specifically need the Microsoft.Xna.Framework version.  You want to see the following using statements:

using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;

using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;

If your program adds another library that also includes its own implementation of Rectangle, Vector2 or any other class, you will get the "Ambiguous Reference"  error.  

To fix the issue, delete the following Using statements from the top of your file:

using System.Drawing;

using System.Numerics;