Compilation fails randomly: "cannot open program database"

During a long compilation with Visual Studio 2005 (version 8.0.50727.762), I sometimes get the following error in several files in some project:

fatal error C1033: cannot open program database 'v:\temp\apprtctest\win32\release\vc80.pdb'

(The file mentioned is either vc80.pdb or vc80.idb in the project's temp dir.)

The next build of the same project succeeds. There is no other Visual Studio open that might access the same files.

This is a serious problem because it makes nightly compilation impossible.

It is possible that an antivirus or a similar program is touching the pdb file on write - an antivirus is the most likely suspect in this scenario. I'm afraid that I can only give you some general pointers, based on my past experience in setting nightly builds in our shop. Some of these may sound trivial, but I'm including them for the sake of completion.

• First and foremost: make sure you start up with a clean slate. That is, force-delete the output directory of the build before you start your nightly.
• If you have an antivirus, antispyware or other such programs on your nightly machine, consider removing them. If that's not an option, add your obj folder to the exclusion list of the program.
• (optional) Consider using tools such as VCBuild or MSBuild as part of your nightly. I think it's better to use MSBuild if you're on a multicore machine. We use IncrediBuild for nightlies and MSBuild for releases, and never encountered the problem you describe.

If nothing else works, you can schedule a watchdog script a few hours after the build starts and check its status; if the build fails, the watchdog should restart it. This is an ugly hack, but it's better than nothing.