Visual Studio isn't tracking changes, or checking out files from source control as I edit them

Right-click on your solution node and go down to "Go online". For various reasons visual studio can mark your solution as tracked by source control, but "offline". It is still tracking changes behind the scenes waiting for you to go online again. After doing this my pending changes window populated and all is normal. I figured it was a simple setting somewhere.

I found an interesting setting under File > Source Control > Advanced > Change Source Control.

If I bind the solution and project to my source control server (unbind first if it's already bound), then suddenly it works! Saving a file automatically checks out the file and tracks changes.

Edit: this seems like a bug in Visual Studio. If this workaround helps you, it would be awesome if you create a new issue at https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com with your Visual Studio version info, so that the dev team can fix this!

Go into source control bindings (File->Source Control->Change Source Control) - you may notice only the project is bound - not the solution. Select the solution, click Bind.

I've just found how to fix this when you are already online (there is no "Go online" option visible). Actually, there ARE pending changes listed but they are hidden below the huge "Comment" section. To view them increase hight of the "Pending Changes" tab and decrease hight of the "Comment" section: you'll see the list of pending changes that was hidden by poorly scaled VS :)

in my case i solved issue by applying steps below:

Right click your solution file on the solution explorer. click add solution to source control if you already added your files to tfs click ignore for file replacements popups

I was getting the "Read Only" error like everybody else. I got the little red check next to the files I was editing, but when I went to save, it asked me to save the file b/c it was read-only. I moved the files from a different version control system and they were still read-only. But I don't think Git cares about keeping files read-only like my old source control did. So I just removed the read-only flags in Windows Explorer and was good to go.

For me the solution was to go to Team Explorer Pending Changes window, and from there initiate the check-in. Did not see the go online option, i am on VS2013. Thanks to all for the pointers!

I found one of my projects actually wasn't added to the source control at all - somehow that had been missed and so any changes to that project would not get checked out. I right-clicked on the solution node, clicked "add to source control" it warned me that some projects were already being tracked and I elected to ignore those projects and it proceeded to add the missing project(s) to source control. Now the check-out works perfectly. Sharing in case it helps anyone else!

None of the answers/suggestions on this post helped me, but I've found a solution to the problem after hours of hair pulling.

Locate your .git folder for your repository. Delete the index.lock file inside. Restart Visual Studio.

(I am using Visual Studio 2017.)

Close the solution . open the solution file in notepad Then remove the below section.

GlobalSection(TeamFoundationVersionControl) = preSolution
        SccNumberOfProjects = 2
        SccEnterpriseProvider = {3CF58AB4-18FA-4F8D-95D4-32DDF27D189R}
        SccTeamFoundationServer = https://serverIP/Project
        SccLocalPath0 = .
        SccProjectUniqueName1 = Ecample\\Example.csproj
        SccProjectName1 = Example
        SccLocalPath1 = Example
EndGlobalSection

then open the solution once again it should prompt to bind, do the binding properly.

Install 2 things:

Team Explorer for VS2013 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40776) Install VS TFS Power tools (https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/f017b10c-02b4-4d6d-9845-58a06545627f)

That's it