Very wierd problem, I just copied my files from our file server to my local machine and opened the solution. When viewing the folder tree in the solution explorer all the folders and subfolders are showing up but none of the the files are visible. When I right click on a folder and Add Existing Item I can browse to the directory where the files are and it will import them into the folder, however when I refresh the solution explorer the files dissapear again, even tried adding the files then saving the solution, rebuilding the solution to no avail.

 Anyone shed some light on this strange behaviour and what can I do to fix this?

Thanks!

 What kind of project?

By default most project types (web site being the major exception) only show files that have been added to the project (and for C++ projects the project layout -- folders etc. -- does not necessarily follow filesystem layout).

There is a button on the solution explorer toolbar that allows you to  show all files including those that are not part of the project (button second from the left).

 of course it is a web site project. I checked the buttons at the top of the solution explorer do not see the button you are talking about. I also created a new project and created a folder and then an aspx and a .cs file previewed the page, closed the solution, closed vs2008 reopened the solution and the it seems to be working fine, files are showing up under the folder, so it has something to do with the solution I copied from the server to my computer.

digitalslavery:

 of course it is a web site project.

:-)

I had a suspicision (in future, that is extremely relevant information to incldue, different project types to behave very differently with respect to defining project content and actions on that content). 

Just doing a test here, any everything works as expected (need to refresh and items appear), so there is something local.

Can you re-create this behaviour locally (e.g. create new web site and then create items under it locally in explorer then refresh): i.e. is it just this one project or any? Do other developers see the same behaviour with this project?

What form of source control are you using? 

 Oh right, I was being sarcastic, although at this hour maybe it didn't come out that way! I just ran the set up for vs2008 and did a repair and everything is back to normal, what caused this? anyones guess at this point. Thanks for taking the time to help though it is appreciated.