Visual Studio Could not load assembly - visual-studio

I have a C# project using MySql.Data and EntityFramework, and have used the Data Entity Model Wizard to create code based on an existing database. I created the project on a machine running MySql Server 8.0.25 (where I cannot control the installed version), so all my references for MySql packages are also version 8.0.25.
When I moved the project onto my own machine, running MySql Server version 8.0.31, the project successfully builds but has an error message, which Visual Studio says comes from a .edmx file:
Error 4: Could not load file or assembly 'MySql.Data, Version=8.0.31.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d' or one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040) ... ScheduleModel.edmx 7
The file in question only contains the text "MySql.Data" in one place, and that's an un-versioned reference to "MySql.Data.MySqlClient", on line 7.
Since the project builds and appears to run correctly, I don't know if this error affects anything. Regardless, I would like to understand it and why it happens and ideally make it go away.
Here's what I've learned form searching for an answer and trying to investigate/fix the error:
There are no references to version 8.0.31 anywhere in my project, as using Visual Studio to search the entire project for "8.0.31" found no results.
Answers to others' questions tell me the version number in the error message specifies the version of a file that Visual Studio DID find. (Whereas I would have thought the given version number is the one that it is LOOKING for.)
Several places said that the found version is probably in the GAC. Originally, the error message said MySql.Data.EntityFramework (not just MySql.Data), and I did find MySql.Data.EntityFramework in the GAC. (No idea how it got there.) After removing it, the error message changed to just MySql.Data. However, MySql.Data is not in the GAC, and no MySql.Data.* are still there either.
There's a tool called fuslogvw.exe that supposedly can help with this issue, but I could not get it to work. When I run it, there is nothing in the log. When I click on options, all options are grayed out. The one person's recommended registry edit did not work either. (I tried closing and re-opening Visual Studio after said edit, then re-building.)
Process Monitor tells me that, during the build process, no processes accessed any files that include "MySql.Data" in the name except those under packages/MySql.Data.8.0.25 and the project's output directory; all files are version 8.0.25. This appears to conflict with #1, because how can Visual Studio have found version 8.0.31 if it never accessed any such file?
I tried using bindingRedirect in App.config to redirect from 8.0.31 to 8.0.25, which had no apparent effect.
Cleaning the solution and re-building ends up putting MySql.Data version 8.0.25 back into the output directory, so Visual Studio clearly is finding the correct version.
Deleting the packages folder results in everything being replaced (with the right version, again) but the error message persists. (The rebuild was strangely fast; I'd have thought everything would have to be re-downloaded, but it was too fast to have done that.)
How would I diagnose this issue? What might be causing Visual Studio to look for or to find a version that I cannot find any reference to, or any .dll file for?
I'm using Visual Studio Community 2019, Version 16.11.2.

Related

VS2010 Build Exception caused by ReSharper; SetEnvironmentVariable task not found

I've had a problem with my Windows 7 after an update, neither Safe Mode nor Recovery Mode could resolve the problem. I was forced to reinstall Windows completely. To develop on my projects I need Visual Studio 2010.
I always had ReSharper installed and got used to its features, so I installed it aswell.
Everything setup I tried building my solution but encountered a problem ...
(The underlined file can be found here: https://up.zone/aj)
After hours of trying to resolve the problems, I figgured out that ReSharper was the problem. I can build the solution perfectly fine without ReSharper installed. Having it installed, even if all features are turned off and the services are suspended, causes these errors in the picture above to show on build.
I managed to resolve two out of three errors by following the instructions of this Reddit user on his post: https://up.zone/ag
Now I am left with one more exception I cannot figgure out how to resolve. I couldn't really find anything helpful googling, which means you guys are my last hope. I really do not want to go back to developing without ReSharper.
This is the one:
Any idea?
Thank you!
Update 1
I figgured out that the problem must be in the NuGet.targets file, located in the .nuget folder in our solution.
I managed to find a workaround following the suggestion of this post, I am now able to build the solution without any errors.
To summarize, remove this line out of your *.csproj file
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" />
Although this works, I don't think this can be the solution. This line is there for a reason I assume. Anybody with a deep understanding of NuGet who might know how to properly resolve this problem?
Update 2
I found out that as soon as you reload your solution/project, the line gets added once again. Also, if you have certain dependencies nuget should download for you - it won't, because the line which makes that call and handles this got removed.
I'm now at a point where I know where the problem is but not why it is caused.
Does ReSharper change anything in the way NuGet behaves? As far as I can tell, nothing gets added or removed to or from the NuGet.targets file due to ReSharper.
There were one more report on this topic, at https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-462271 .
The best guess so far is that this is caused by two things happening at once: (a) using MSBuild tasks in C# source code form inside MSBuild XML files rather than DLLs and (b) having some of the MSBuild opensource DLLs shipped with the latest version of ReSharper for its own project file handling needs.
The source code gets compiled into a task DLL during an MSBuild run (not a much common thing to have; Roslyn would do this rather than ship a DLL? seriously?). When building from within Visual Studio (rather than with msbuild.exe), the in-process MSBuild instance is used, and it would run in the same appdomain as ReSharper, so it uses the common assembly reference resoluiton. If it's not too accurate, then it might accidentally pick the wrong DLL version by the short name, which would break the task compilation (that's a separate error, maybe cached away) and then result in the task-not-found error later at runtime (SetEnvironmentVariable task not found in here case).
I've tested on sample solutions with source code based tasks and could not get it broken. So trivial cases are OK. Never heard back from the original issue reporter, so there was no further progress.
Now I've got a hint that this is Visual Studio 10 (any other VS versions installed on that machine?) and maaaaybe it's Roslyn tasks. We might know for sure if you run MSBuild with more detailed logs (by setting the logging options at Tools | Options | Projects and Solutions | Build and Run | MSBuild project build output verbosity to at least Detailed) and building just the faulty project.
I'll also try this out with VS10 and update this reply with new data.

Missing Method exception "System.Web.Routing.RouteValueDictionary System.Web.WebPages.TypeHelper.ObjectToDictionaryUncached(System.Object)

I've created a new project in Visual Studio 2013.2 with WebAPI and MVC enabled. Right out of the box, compiling the generated project and running gives me the exception. Looking around here, I've come across the following two questions:
Mvc 5.1 MissingMethodException System.Web.WebPages.TypeHelper.ObjectToDictionaryUncached
System.Web.WebPages.TypeHelper.ObjectToDictionaryUncached
Both these answers involve assembly redirects; however, in my case the assembly redirects are present and I'm still getting an issue. My problem is that the GAC is loading version 3.00.11001.0 which is listed under assembly version 3.0.0.0 and my application wants 3.20.20520.0 which is also listed as assembly version 3.0.0.0. (Note that in diagnosing the project I installed the 5.2 pre-release nuget package, but I had the same problem with the original versions, I just don't have those readily available)
Since the GAC is preferred over the bin directory, it seems that my development machine will always pull the wrong file.
Is it safe to remove these files from the GAC? It appears that these are required for Visual Studio to produce Razor intellisense
Removing the Assemblies from the GAC did behave exactly as expected. The Razor intellisense for the project stopped working; however, the application began functioning properly.
You have to add the reference of System.Web to get it working.

Visual Studio 2010 randomly says the command line changed, and rebuilds

Visual Studio sometimes decides to rebuild my entire huge project because of one small change. I turned build logging up to Diagnostic to see what was the problem, and here's what I'm seeing:
< Bunch of spam >
Outputs for C:\<snip>\PRECOMPILEDHEADERS.CPP:
C:\<snip>\PRECOMPILEDHEADERS.OBJ
All outputs are up-to-date.
Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line
... and then it rebuilds my precompiled headers, then everything else.
This happens when I change a single .cpp or .h file inside the project. I'm not changing anything in the project settings. It also doesn't happen all the time for the same change; it's random.
Any ideas on what's going on here? Where can I get more information? I tried enabling debugging via the description in http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsproject/archive/2009/07/21/enable-c-project-system-logging.aspx but it didn't give any more information. I can't figure out where this "Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line" is coming from. It's not in any of the factory MSBuild files.
Some other info: it's a C++/CLI dll project that links a lot of other projects, including C#, native c++, and other C++/CLI dll's. I tried removing all the C# projects from the dependencies since those tend to cause problems, but that didn't change it. I've googled that specific string, but my situation doesn't match that of any of the other people reporting it. (One was using Intel C++, another was MSBuild from the command line and changing the case. I'm hitting build solution from within Visual Studio itself).
Edit to explain common fixes I've tried:
I've tried building only the project. Does the same thing.
I'm not including any .h files that don't exist.
I've deleted the bin/object folders and rebuilt from scratch. This usually makes it go away for a couple builds, but then it comes right back.
Edit #2:
Found something suspicious earlier in the log:
3>Using "ResolveNonMSBuildProjectOutput" task from assembly "Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".
3>Task "ResolveNonMSBuildProjectOutput"
3> Resolving project reference "..\..\..\..\CommonCore\VS2010\Project1\Project1.vcxproj".
3> Project reference "..\..\..\..\CommonCore\VS2010\Project1\Project1.vcxproj" has not been resolved.
This is repeated for several of my projects... I'm gonna chase that down and see if maybe it's a problem with the project reference hint paths.
Ok, it's an old thread, but I encountered the same problem recently.
My solution was to disable the precompiled headers - now a simple change in one sourcefile won't lead into a "rebuild" any more.
I have had the same problem with Visual Studio 2012 recently. I'm on Windows 7 with Visual Studio 2012 Professional (2012.2) building C++ projects. It's worth noting that I recently migrated the solution from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2012.
One of the C++ projects (an executable with a DLL project as a reference) was rebuilding every time one of its compilation units was changed, e.g. simply saving main.cpp would cause all compilation units (including the pre-compiled header) to rebuild. I spotted the the following message in the build logs:
Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line since the last build.
I turned build log file verbosity to Diagnostic (Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > Build and Run) and compared the log files from a clean build and a build after one compilation unit has been changed (which forced a full rebuild). I noticed that:
"Path" had changed from one build to the next (";C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\VsGraphics" seems to have been tacked on the end)
there was a difference in TaskTracker.exe command lines to do with CancelEvents
there was a warning about OutputPath not being set
I pulled my hair out.
I eventually resorted to recreating the offending project from scratch rather than relying on the project that was automatically generated during the migration process from 2008 to 2012. It seems to be behaving as expected now.
I did three things, and the problem seems to have gone away. I'm trying to narrow it down a little but I figured I'd go ahead and post them:
Deleted and re-added all the references and project references
Fixed one of my projects that wasn't setting the .NET framework target to 3.5 to match the rest of my solution (I was getting away with it because the project didn't use .NET anyway)
Set "Copy Local Satellite Assemblies" to false for all references including System ones.
Beware that some or all of this stuff might be voodoo...

How to solve this error: Could not find file 'Microsoft.Windows.CommonLanguageRuntime, Version 2.0.50727.0'

This question to which I already found the answer is posted here in case of someone else encounters it. I decided to post the Q&A here so that SO has something about this error, since I don't know if it's been here before.
This occured after an update of the .NET Framework. Before the update, everything compiled just fine! After the update, I could compile nothing!
The error message is:
Error 1 - Could not find file 'Microsoft.Windows.CommonLanguageRuntime, Version=2.0.50727.0'.
This is a problem within Visual Studio 2005. This occurs after an update of the .NET Framework 2.0 and is due to project reference within a single solution.
For example, when you're writing a test library which will test your assembly within the same solution, you will most likely reference the project. Then, this error may occur.
To solve this error, simply reference the file binary of your project, either the DLL or the EXE within which resides the code you want to test. This is called a file reference.
Let's suppose we have two projects called:
Company.Project.ApplicationName;
Company.Project.ApplicationName.Tests.
When adding the reference to our Company.Project.ApplicationName project within our Company.Project.Application.Tests project, we can either use the Browse or the Project tab. When using the Project tab, you create a project reference. We don't want to use this if this error occurs. What we want to use is Browse, so that we can make a file reference.
Here's a link to the Microsoft Support Website that explains this issue.
You may receive a "Could not find file 'Microsoft.Windows.CommonLanguageRuntime" error message when you build a solution of a Visual Basic 2005 Windows Application project in Visual Studio 2005

Why do I get "An error occurred while validating. HRESULT = '80004005'" when building a setup project?

Why do I get the following error when building a setup project?
An error occurred while validating. HRESULT = '80004005'
One project in solution had ToolsVersion="4.0" (in .csproj file), changed it to ToolsVersion="3.5" and setup project builds fine.
Both of the reasons I found are already in other answers, but they are in separate answers and not fully explained. So, hopefully this will combine the possibilities and give good means of debugging each. :)
Common Reason
My problem was not a dependency error. However, that does seem to be the common reason. So, basically, you need to check your MSI file and make sure that all dependencies are still valid. Probably the best blog response on how you can easily resolve this if it is a dependency issue is An error occurred while validating. HRESULT = '80004005'.
Extract from blog:
Follow steps below to troubleshoot.
If you have multiple project outputs in your solution, identify the project that is giving the problem. You can do that by removing one project at a time from the Setup Project(S) until error goes away.
Once project is identified, identify the reference that could be giving the problem.
Check if the project(A) is referencing to a project that has been removed from solution. - Remove such references if any.
Check if the Project(A) is referencing to a project that was moved to a diffenrent physical location after it was added as a reference. - Remove and add such references.
Rebuild setup project after fixing the reference accordingly to see if error goes away.
Alternative Reason
My problem had to do with Visual Studio versioning, however. So, if your dependencies are valid and you still are getting this problem, then you resolve this if it is a problem with VS2010 .
Basically, if you run MSBuild and see this warning:
Project file contains ToolsVersion="4.0", which is not supported by
this version of MSBuild. Treating the project as if it had
ToolsVersion="3.5"
Then the problem is Visual Studio versioning. This means that one project was opened or created in Visual Studio 2010 and then saved or added to an existing 3.5 solution. I simply searched all files in my project for ToolsVersion="4.0" and found the offending .csproj file, opened it in a text editor and manually changed the 4.0 to a 3.5.
This error is related to a dependency error. I removed all references to my primary output project and added them again. It now compiles OK!
I ran up against this issue today. The solution in my case? Restart Visual Studio 2008.
In my case my solution (VS2008) had a project that was also referenced from another solution (VS2010). In the VS2010 solution I had upgraded the project to .NET 4.0. When I later realized the project was also used in another solution I downgraded it to .NET 3.5. For some reason everything seemed to be changed correctly in the csproj file except one place which is mentioned here: Error in setup project HRESULT = '80004005'
I know this is already solved somewhere else but I wanted to shed some light on this from another problem angle.
While simply removing and re-adding the project dependencies will work in many cases, it is important to note that:
The error message "An error occurred while validating. HRESULT=80004005."
usually happens when project is referenced to the other project which is
not added into the currect [sic] solution. Setup project only supports
dependency projects within same solution.1
I have spent enormous time on this one myself, though none of the above worked. But I have found another solution with a registry hack, you need to add a new DWORD (EnableOutOfProcBuild) value of (0) to HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0_Config\MSBuild\EnableOutOfProcBuild
Note: this is for Visual Studio 2015
In my case I had installed Visual Studio 2010 alongside Visual Studio 2008. My setup project, when opened in Visual Studio 2008 gave the same error, but was OK in Visual Studio 2010.
If copied to another machine that did not have Visual Studio 2010, but did have Visual Studio 2008, then it would compile.
I installed Visual Studio 2010 and converted the solutions to that version. Because of performance issues I changed my solutions back to Visual Studio 2008. Everything was better now but I got an error when I tried to compile the setup project. I realized that I had a Visual Studio 2010 Test Project in my solution so all I had to do was unload the Test Project and Build the setup project again.
Summary: unload any Visual Studio 2010 project in solution.
I hope it helps.
I know this is kinda old news, but my particular issue and solution are not specifically stated here (as far as I can tell - if I missed it, I apologize).
I had same problem. It would not compile my project, but had no errors. All I could see was "Build Failed". I opened up the "Output" file (Click View--> Output on menu), and it told me exactly which reference (in my case a .dll) was causing the problem.
I deleted and recreated the reference and it changed the reference name from Microsoft.Office.Core (which was appearently only a 32 bit version) to "OFFICE". Then everything worked great. -- Make sure to make a note of the path to the file you are referencing in the properties window... My new path was exactly the same, but the reference name changed anyway.... still scratching my head on that one...
So the moral of the story is... When you get no errors and your build fails, check the "Output" tab and it might help.
I read this answer from another post on Stack Overflow, and it has worked for me.
Open your setup project file (.vdproj) in Notepad (or any other text editor). Delete these lines at a beginning of the .vdproj file:
"SccProjectName" = "8:"
"SccLocalPath" = "8:"
"SccAuxPath" = "8:"
"SccProvider" = "8:"
Build again - the error is gone. That error didn't stop me from deploying, building, debugging (or anyting) my project; it just annoyed me. And it came on even if I set all projects to be build in a current configuration and the setup project not to.

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