How to fix “Root element is missing.” when doing a Visual Studio (VS) Build?

Question

How to fix \"Root element is missing.\" when doing a Visual Studio (VS) Build?

Any idea what file I should look at in my solution?

Actually, I am getting thi

Answer 1

Deleting the .user file is exactly what fixed the problem for me. Lightning strike near the office shut my PC down and corrupted my .user file and project wouldn't load. I opened the file in Notepad++ and the "spaces" turned out to be [NULL] characters. Deleted the .user file and the file loaded!

source https://forums.asp.net/t/1491251.aspx?Can+t+load+project+because+root+element+is+missing+