Visual Studio 2015 Community Xamarin Cross-Platform templates missing

Question

I installed Visual Studio 2015 Community Update 3 with Xamarin, updated Xamarin and everything was working fine.

But suddenly, the Xamarin Cross-Platform templates went missing when I tried to create a new project.

I don't have these templates anymore:

I only have these ones:

What I tried:

• Change
• Repair
• Uninstall & reinstall Xamarin
• Tried this solution (delete cache.bin files): https://stackoverflow.com/a/40201478/1351076

Configuration:

• Visual Studio 2015 Community Update 3
• Xamarin 4.2.2.11

Question:

Anyone having this issue or a solution?

Can I download somewhere the official missing templates?

Answer 1

This was working for me:

1. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\
2. Find the correct subfolder. This can be tricky. I had a Xamarin folder, but that was not the right one. In my case it was folder wa13kl1p.m3s. However, open your folders and check it there is some Xamarin.Forms.Templates... files in it.
3. Inside that folder navigate to the T/P/CSharp folder.
4. Copy the Cross-Platform folder over to C:\Users\\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#

Same thing for the ItemTemplates:

1. But this time navigate to T/I/CSharp folder.
2. Copy the Cross-Platform folder over to C:\Users\\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Templates\ItemTemplates\Visual C#

Answer 2

In the current Beta channel, the templates all get merged into a "Wizard Template" instead.

Which will give you all of the same options as the separate templates gave:

However if you run into an issue where templates are not included, please ensure you check your Xamarin extension cache:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Xamarin\Xamarin

Which will have various versions such as 4.2.2.11 that you are currently on. You can then move those .vstemplate files from the .zips to your C:\Users\{username}\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C# location.

I would highly recommend updating to the Beta channel to ensure this template is at least there before doing this.