Can not reference System.data Error when creating project - visual-studio

I am using Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise to generate Coded UI Tests. Things have been working well until this morning. When I attempt to create a new Solution/Project, I am given the following error:
I am then able finish loading the project. However, I see another issue in solution explorer:
Note that there is no path given for the selected reference. If I try to remove it/add it back as a reference manually, I still do not see a path or version. I have tried the following:
Selected different .Net framework versions when creating the solution/project
Tried different project types: Window Forms, Class Library
Repaired visual studio
Repaired .Net Framework 4.6.1
So far I have been unable to make the error go away. Any other suggestions?

I was not able to resolve this issue. I ended up performing a reinstall of the OS/Visual Studio to get things working again.

Related

Add Reference is missing in Visual Studio when using with Unity 3D - Need Npgsql.dll

I installed Unity 2017 with Visual Studio 2017. I am attempting to add an external DLL to the Visual Studio project through the solution explorer. When I right click on References, the "Add Reference" option is completely missing!
I'm trying to use NpgSQL. Hence, the need to add npgsql.dll.
Can anyone give light?
The Add Reference... is in a different place in this case.
Things to do in Unity:
Create a folder named Plugins as a child to your Assets folder. (Assets\Plugins...)
Next copy your DLL to this plugins folder. You can do this using Windows Explorer or just drag it into the folder in the Unity editor, like shown:
Things to do in Visual Studio:
Click on Analyzers in your project as shown below, then click Project from your menu, then navigate to Add Reference...:
Now Browse to your DLL:
And... there it is:
Accepted Brien's answer (Thank you, Brien!).
I'm adding my own answer pertinent to Npgsql.dll, because it's apparently a common problem all over the internet with poor documentation. If you got here from google about Npgsql.dll then read on:
Unity (for some unknown reason) comes bundled with it's own npgsql.dll inside of the application mono/2_0 folder. Some people have reported conflicts with this.
Many of the npgsql.dll versions currently do not work with Unity. Attempting to include them in Unity's assets will cause Unity to throw a Type error. This is what caused me to think that I needed to add the file as a reference in C#. This is why I came here and asked the question about Add Reference. But, with Unity, this was simply wrong on my part.
As far as I can tell, Unity insists on managing all project properties and references for you. Both managed and unmanaged DLLs must be added via Unity assets. Even Visual Studio project properties cannot be changed within Visual Studio for Unity. And if you attempt to edit the .csproj files (for instance to disable compiler warnings), Unity will overwrite the .csproj files completely next time you load your Unity project.
Anyone who has problems getting Npgsql.dll to work in Unity needs to use the proper Unity workflow where you drop npgsql.dll into Unity assets. If you get errors, it's an npgsql.dll version conflict. Try other versions of the dll first.
This gentleman has provided a Unity specific build to resolve a namespace conflict (Just pull the dll from the bin folder on the Github link):
Unity NPGSQL.DLL
Unity 2017 currently allows you to change to .NET 4.6 as an experimental setting. Some people have toyed with using that setting to get newer versions of npgsql.dll to work properly, but they report intermittent results. For now, I solved my problem with Unitynpgsql.dll. It's an older build, so hopefully I won't run into any features I need that it doesn't support. If so, I'll probably just work around them.
To anyone else trying to make npgsql.dll work in Unity: do not despair, just try to resolve the version conflicts. Also here is another relevant recent thread about it:
Barebones Master Server Npgsql.dll Issue - January 2018

Xamarin.Forms UWP missing references

When I create a new project in Xamarin.Forms I get a lot of errors in the UWP part of the project.
It looks like I miss all the referencs in UWP?
I installed Xamarin trough Visual Studios modify
Below is a screenshot of my Visual Studio
I also started to work with Xamarin about two weeks ago and came across many problems and one was just like yours. If you dont have Xamarin studio go and download it. Just do it.
Intellisense breaks really often and you get 200 errors that are dump(or not).
To get rid of the errors there are many ways.
Sometimes you just have to wait.
Open the xaml pages and save them.
Clean - rebuild the project it should run(at third try). If it doesnt you have to open Xamarin studio and built it from there.
If your project is new, just delete it and create a new one.
If you have MVC 5 or Core 1 Installed you will have to remove them(if that doesnt help do a PC Reset like a format).
If it says something for .zip files, find them keep a backup and delete them. Xamarin will re-download on Build.
I had same problem here using Visual Studio 2015 Update 2. Unload the UWP and everything works.
Tried in Xamarin Studio Professional and the following error: -
Could not load project 'blah\blah.UWP\blah.UWP.csproj' with unknown item type '{A5A43C5B-DE2A-4C0C-9213-0A381AF9435A}'
The following link has some helpful points and mentions "UWP is available in Xamarin.Forms 2.1 and later"
https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-forms/platform-features/windows/installation/universal/
The default setup when creating a new project in VS 2015 Up2 is to use Xamarin Forms v2.0.0.6482, however when I try to update to v2.1.0.6529 I get nuget errors
Checking my output when trying to update to 2.1 using nuget i got the following: -
The content at 'https://{myteamcityserver}/guestAuth/app/nuget/v1/FeedService.svc/FindPackagesById()?id='Microsoft.NETCore.UniversalWindowsPlatform'' is not valid XML.
Root element is missing.
So I turned of my local Package Source in Tools | NuGet Package Manager | Package Manager Settings | Package Sources
And woo hoo it all worked for me.
Regards
Peter

An exception occurred while invoking executor 'executor://mstestadapter/v1': Object reference not set to an instance of an object

We are using Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2010 in our project. Since, we are using Microsoft Fakes, we could have not used the started Test functionality of our Team Build 2010, I have created a build activity which invokes VSTest.Console.exe passing the test assemblies. This approach has been working well for us. However, after a recent check-in we are getting the following error when executing Vstest.console.exe
Error: An exception occurred while invoking executor 'executor://mstestadapter/v1': Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
I copied the binary files to my local machine and was able to get the error again. Interestingly, we run a dev build before check-in which runs the same vstest.console.exe with the same parameters and that works correctly. I have got two folders on my machine, for one the call works fine and for other it doesn't. The compiled assemblies look same size and there aren't much differences to suggest.
I tried using Process Monitor but couldn't find anything obvious other than that the process returns with an exit code 1. Does anybody know much about this error? Is there any way I can find out more information from my test run?
Regards,
Hamid
We got to the bottom of the problem. We are using Entity Framework 5.0 and we also have a situation where some of our test assemblies are targeting .Net 4.0 and some are targeting .Net 4.5.
When we are trying to run the tests such that assemblies targeting different versions of .Net framework and using Entity Framework 5.0 are run in the same Test (vstest.console.exe) process, we get this error.
I think this has to do with the way Entity Framework 5.0 ships with two versions (net40 and net45). Once one version of the library is loaded in the process, the other version cannot be loaded and this caused the error.
I had the same error message just now with Visual Studio 2017 using the new MSTest.Framework and MSTest.TestAdapter (to be able to use Live Unit Testing). It turned out I was using multiple versions of those packages in my solution. Consolidating them to the latest version solved the problem.
This is what worked for me:
In Visual Studio, Test -> Test Settings -> Default Processor Architecture -> X64.
Though it might not solve everyone's issue, hope it helps some of you out there.
I have the same error specified in the subject when in the AssemblyInfo of the project is specified the AssemblyAttribute:
[assembly: AssemblyCulture("en")]
If this attribute is present, the run of the unit tests fails.
If I remove this line of code or I remove the en language, the run of the unit tests success.
An exception occurred while invoking executor 'executor://mstestadapter/v2'
I had multiple TestAdapter's and TestFramework's in my BuildAgents Folder, deleting the v1.1.11 versions fixed the issue:
This happened to me recently in VS 2019. Using NuGet to update to the latest versions of MSTest.TestAdapter and MSTest.TestFramework solved the problem for me.
I tried everything on the web to solve this exception. Finally I solved this issue by installing the Update v4 of Visual Studio 2013 (which is that I'm using currently). Hope it helps!
Deleting app.config and packages.config, if exists, and reinstalling Entity framework via nuGet packages works for me.

Upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 throws a build error

Recently upgraded to VS 2010 from 2008, the previously built solutions are throwing the following error.
Error 14 Encountered multiple versions of the assembly with GUID 'a5851ea0-2f9a-40b2-a73a-cd7db32f09c5'. Try pre-importing one of these assemblies
I tried re-installing VS 2010 and it didnot help. Any ideas?
Is it the VS 2010 application itself crashing, or does it not like your solution? Can you open VS 2010 by itself? If so, it sounds like it doesn't like some of your references in one or more of your projects. Check the project references. If that doesn't work, start removing projects until you find the offending one.
This may happen, if you copy-paste-renamed a project file to re-use its settings but didn't changed the project GUID of it. Also could be a project migration error, anyway you will have to manually edit the project file and remove the duplicate references if the project fails to load because of the error.
I had the same issue when migrating 2008 -> 2013.
It was caused that we use same linked AssemblyInfo.cs for all projects in solution.
And only for the assembly that used some COM objects (MSMQ) it seems that it starts looking on referenced assemblies GUID and two of them from our solution...
So when I provide individual AssemblyInfo.cs for projects with unique GUIDs it start working.
Hope this info will helpful.
Try to remove the references to the debug folder.
In Visual Studio right click on Project
Select Properties
Select the references tab.
Check to see if any of the references are from the obj\Debug folder and remove them.
See similar question here.

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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