I'm not a a very experienced Windows developer, so I hope this all makes sense.
I created a Managed Assembly DLL using Visual Studio 2010. The DLL (Plip.dll) contains a C++ class that is using System.IO.SerialPort class to do some simple communication over a serial port.
In a second Visual Studio project I created a simple GUI that uses the class found in Plip.dll. In my GUI project I have the line : #using "Plip.dll" . In the Project Properties I set the 'Resolve #using References' value to the correct location of Plip.dll. The GUI builds just fine. If I copy the GUI.exe and Plip.dll to the same folder, the GUI runs just fine on my computer.
The problem I am having is that when I copy both files to a second computer, I cannot get the GUI executable to run. I get the following error : "System.IO.FileNotFoundException. Could not load file or assembly "Plip.dll" Vesion=.... ". I get this error even though both the exe and dll are located in the same folder.
Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue? Is there some option I need to set in my GUI project to load the DLL correctly at run time?
I suppose the problem is not the Plip.dll, but it's dependencies.
Use Dependency Walker on the second computer to see if it needs any other dll's (they might be installed in System folder or in %PATH% on your development computer, but not on the other).
If this second computer doesn't have Visual Studio installed, you are probably missing Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (you need to install it on the other computer)
Also make sure that you compile in Release because debug builds need debug dependencies.
I found the answer to this problem to be much simpler than Dependency Walker (but admittedly, that was fun to look at).
In my case, the issue was a mis-match between the .DotNet versions in the DLL and with the application's .net version. This was caused by building the "class library" using .DotNet 6.0 (dot net core?).
Instead, the entire class needed to be re-built using "Class Library (.NET Framework)"
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I wrote an article on this problem.
https://keyliner.blogspot.com/2022/09/visual-studio-c-linked-dll-exception.html
Related
I'm going to create my first managed plugin for Unity (2018.2) using Visual Studio Community for Mac (7.6.11 build 9).
I've read the documentation but I think that the step-by-step instructions are not meant to be followed on Visual Studio Community for Mac.
As you can see in the screenshot below, I've created several projects using each and every library template available.
All of them compiled successfully to a DLL targeting versions of .NET framework that are incompatible with Unity.
The only project I could change the .NET framework version to match Unity's 3.5 is the one based on the Other > .NET > Library.
Everything works fine but I'd like to know if the assumptions, the process and the final result are correct. Can you tell me, please?
I don't know the difference between the "Class" and the "Class Library" option but you're supposed to use the "Class Library" option. This is not the main point of this answer.
Two future issues you haven't solved yet:
1. Referencing Unity's API.
If you ever have to use any Unity library or API in youir plugin such as Vector3, you need to add Unity's UnityEngine.dll to your library settings. If you don't, you will run-time exceptions.
Go to Project --> Add Reference ---> Browse ---> Browse Button
then select <UnityInstallationDirecory>\Editor\Data\Managed\UnityEngine.dll. You can now build your managed plugin. Since you're using Mac, this path is different on your OS. On Mac, this could be /Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/Frameworks/Managed/UnityEngine.dll. You just have to find where UnityEngine.dll is located.
2. Invisible stack trace
With your current setup, if you run into error with your managed plugin, the stack trace won't be there. You won't have the file names and line numbers and this makes is very hard to debug your plugin code.
When you build the project, Visual Studio generates a PDB file instead of an MDB file. Unity can't use this directly. You have to convert the PDB files into MDB files.
From command line, run this:
<UnityInstallationDirecory>\Data\MonoBleedingEdge\lib\mono\4.5\pdb2mdb.exe UnmanagedPlugin.dll
Again, the path might be different on Mac, you just need to find "pdb2mdb.exe" that converts the PDB files into MDB files.
After that, copy the MDB and dll file into the "Assets" folder in your Unity project.
I have the following scenario:
Visual Studio 2010 solution with one WPF-project, output file is "Tool.exe"
Eclipse Shared Library project, output file is "Tool.dll"
I place the dll in the same folder as the exe and then I try to debug using Visual Studio; but I get the following error:
Error while trying to run project: Could not load file or assembly 'Tool' or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest.
I have managed to find a solution to the problem, rename the dll, apparently the exe and dll cannot have the same name. My question is, why is this error occuring in the first place? Why does the name of the dll affect Visual Studio? The error occurs before even trying to pinvoke the dll. If I run my application without Visual Studio it works perfectly, but I want to be able to debug it of course.
Right now renaming the dll is plan B, but before I do that I would like to know if there is anything else I can do to fix this problem?
Thanks in advance.
I found simple steps to solve this error.
1- change your windows.
2- install Symantec Endpoint Protection Client 12.1.6318.6100 x32 or x64 bit.
You can geting it software(32 bit) from link: (ftp://192.168.168.215/Public/Antivirus/Symantec/Symantec Endpoint Protection Client 12.1.6318.6100 x86.rar)
drag and drop it to your software(IE ,....) to work.
3- install all driver on your computer.
4- install Visual studio.
End
I created an .exe using the OpenNETCF's SerialPort class, but when I copied the .exe to the Motorola device running Windows CE 6 and tried to run it, I got:
TypeLoad
Exception
File or assembly name 'OpenNETCF, Version=1.3.50123.0...or one of its dependencies was not found.
What file or files do I need to copy over to remedy this? Is there a way to cause Visual Studio (2003, .NET 1.1) to bundle the required bits into the .exe?
I noticed in Build | Configuration Manager that the only context I have set up is "Debug"; would changing this from Debug to Release make any difference?
I don't know about Visual Studio 2003, but in 2008 you can create a Smart Device Deployment CAB, which essentially creates an installer for you, which would have a copy of all the references you need for your program to work.
This may have been overkill, but I copied all the OpenNETCF dlls over, and the problem was solved.
I have a C# 4.0 application that is referencing a type library from a C++ application. This is used for some secure COM interop, a question I originally had asked here.
On my development machine this second application is installed so I can compile without any issues. If I attempt to compile on our automated build server, or any machine with Visual Studio installed but without this second program, I receive the following errors and compilation fails:
Text for google:
The type or namespace name could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
Cannot get the file path for type library "guid...." version 1.0. Library not registered. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8002801D (TYPE_E_LIBNOTREGISTERED))
The referenced component 'SecurityAgentLib' could not be found
Picture for readability:
I'm not sure how to get around this other than by installing the application that registers the actual dll that implements these types, but I don't want to do that on our build server. The code that uses these types are wrapped in a class that is never instantiated unless prerequisite checks are run to verify the app is actually installed, so there is no chance of a runtime error. In fact I can run my app just fine on a machine without the second app installed - I just can't compile it there.
In visual studio the reference points to the .tlb file which is included in the solution directory, so the tlb file itself is present.
I can't imagine it should work this way, and I've searched around, but I'm apparently not searching for the right terms.
EDIT:
Running tlbimp.exe generates a dll but the type library should be sufficient for compilation, I thought at least. There is also an issue of broken references. I was reading this article Troubleshooting Broken References and it says that if the reference was to a COM component that is not installed than installing the component corrects the error, which is true.
Installing it on the build server really isn't an option. Opening visual studio and re-adding a reference if the path was broken doesn't work either.
I was able to use tlbimp to create a dll and used visual studio add a reference to that dll. That let me compile, but how would this work in an unattended build server?
EDIT
Okay I came up with two solutions that worked given my requirement of this all being unattended
Ran tlbimp to create a dll from the type library. I removed the reference to the tlb from my project and added a reference to the dll itself. When the source code was copied over to a new computer it compiled without issues.
In this scenario ideally we would checkout from SVN on the build server and copy the latest DLL from the second project, then compile this project.
I also removed the tlb and added the dll in visual studio and did a diff on the .csproj file. I don't see any downside to just having a reference to the dll instead of the tlb but if needed the build server could make modifications directly to this file to remove the tlb section and add a reference to the dll following a build of the second product.
Here are a couple options that each worked.
Ran tlbimp to create a dll from the type library. I removed the reference to the tlb from my project and added a reference to the dll itself. When the source code was copied over to a new computer it compiled without issues.
In this scenario ideally we would checkout from SVN on the build server and copy the latest DLL from the second project, then compile this project.
I also removed the tlb and added the dll and did a diff on the .csproj file. I don't see any downside to just having a reference to the dll instead of the tlb but the build server could make modifications directly to this file to remove the tlb
I have developed a Win32 Console app DLL and a small tester application for it. As far as I know neither uses MFC, .COM, .NET or dot-anything else. Development platform is VS2009 on WinXP/SP3
When I give the DLL and EXE to someone else, they are unusable. Attempting to use them generates errors similar to "Application cannot be used, the application configuration is wrong." and "cannot find xxx.dll" (not exact wording on these error messages).
I have learned from reading that there are dependencies that must ship with the EXE and DLL. These dependencvies seem to be specific to VS 2009 abd should include the MSVCRT09, etc.
When I followed MS's instruction to make a setup.exe/MSI installer for a Setup and Deployment Project (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235317%28v=VS.90%29.aspx) I add the dll to the project, move it to the "MyLibrary" folder and no dependencies are found or listed in the Solution Explorer. Yet, I know there are dependencies, DEPENDS.EXE says so.
Can anyone walk me through this or name a better site with instructions. Once again, MS's help isn't all that helpful.
thanks,
Wes
Visual Studio 2008 is version 9.0. A program built with Visual C++ 2008 normally does have dependencies on the C run time library MSVCRT09, as you discovered. If the C run time library is not installed on the destination PC (either already installed or as part of your setup project) then your application fails, as you discovered. It is no surprise that DEPENDS.EXE displays the dependency. The only question seems to be why Visual Studio 2008 doesn't display the dependency in its Solution Explorer window.
Before building your Visual Studio setup project (MSI and setup file), Visual Studio might not have had any reason yet to search for dependencies. But after the setup project is built, in my experience the Solution Explorer does show the dependencies it found, next to other dependencies that you set explicitly. If those don't show up after building, something is weird.