I am working on a rather large project in visual studio, and I have several references to other solutions and projects within my current solution. One of my user controls resides in a separate solution, so I need to consistently be able to update the DLL to fit any changes to my code. The only problem is, Visual Studio will not update my references unless I go through a long, meticulous process which I will try to describe now:
First, I must clean and rebuild the solution that contains the changed code. Here is a snippet of the class I need to update:
I just added the highlighted property, so my other project does not recognize it yet. I used blank properties like HelloWorld and ISuddenlyDespiseYogurt because they are easy to spot in code and properties will show in the compiled version of the code.
Secondly, I must go to the project I am trying to use the DLL in, delete the reference, and re add it.
I right click on the reference I want, click delete, then right click on the "References" tab, press "Add Reference", then I use the file path of my other solution and update the reference.
Lastly, I must restart Visual Studio and reopen the project I was working on.
And now our new property is recognized by my project. This solution works every time, but it is a ridiculously annoying workaround, and I am hoping someone out there knows how to make this process much easier.
This is the closest thing I can find to a similar problem on StackOverflow, and the rest of the internet is no help. If anyone has any clue how to fix this problem, I would very much appreciate your insight.
I have a feeling that your project is copying the library .DLL to your project folder, instead of linking over to the Hamilton.HST project's Release folder.
Two things I would check from your side: when you're linking the reference and clicking 'Browse', where exactly are you grabbing the .DLL from? Hopefully the Release folder, or some other output that changes when the Hamilton.HST project is recompiled. And second, check your main project and the properties on the Reference, to make sure it's pointed to that Hamilton.HST folder (like I said, I have a suspicion its pointing to somewhere in your second project's folder, and that VS copied the DLL over instead of linking.)
I managed to fix the problem, hopefully for good. For the sake of anyone else who may have this problem, here is my solution:
I went into the "Properties" tab of my project, by right clicking on the project name in Solution Explorer and clicking "Properties". I then navigated to "Build Events", where I saw something like this:
The first two lines were there when I opened the window, and I added the last line. From what I can gather, the addition of that line tells my program where to look for updated DLL's upon building the project, and I had the wrong location before.
Other than that, I have no idea how this solution worked, but hopefully it can work for someone else. If anyone knows the logic behind this solution, please let me know so I can clarify my answer. Thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions to fix this!
Visual Studio 2019. The error was misleading in my case. After building one project at a time, I ran into the actual build error in one of the projects, which prevented that project from compiling and therefore caused the missing dll error. Once the issue was resolved, everything built properly.
I've got a really strange error occurring in my solution one of my projects which is a class library is causing a project it is referenced in to throw a TypeLoadException. I've looked through various answers on SO and the closest to my issue is;
TypeLoadException was unhandled in C# [closed]
This answer led me to question if this was my issue, doing some digging in the debug folders I found that my project that was referencing my class library is generating a DLL and EXE with the same name, could this be my problem?
If so how do I fix this?, I have other class libraries in my solution that are also referenced in this project they are not generating both DLL and EXE files.
I don't believe it but I've actually found the cause via a colleague, hopefully this will help others who encounter this (nice one Adam).
The reason was my project referencing my class library had the same assembly name, I had been doing some re-jigging of my namespaces and hadn't noticed that my main project had the same name, this meant that when my code was built the compiler created a EXE for my main project and a DLL for my class library this in turn forced the TypeLoadException because the compiler had already loaded the EXE with the same name.
My code is now working. Thanks to all who took the time to post.
my class library is generating a DLL and EXE with the same name
Yes, that causes this problem. You can easily see it by running Fuslogvw.exe and logging all bindings. It is a somewhat odd quirk of Fusion, but when it looks for an assembly then it only looks at the filename and ignores the extension. It will accept both a .dll and a .exe as an acceptable match for the assembly it is looking for. Which is otherwise somewhat logical, there is no true difference between DLLs and EXEs when they contain managed code. Referencing an EXE is for example entirely supported.
There's no way to force the loader to do this differently. The workaround should otherwise be simple, just be sure to generate a distinct assembly names.
Under Project -> (YourProjectName) Properties -> Application, make sure that "Output Type" is set to "Class Library".
After I build a few of my references, which are present in the project and accessible through intellisense before the build is performed.
Unfortunately none of my projects are set to target Client Profile, as answered in this thread.
The type or namespace name could not be found
This seems to be the most common cause, does anyone know what else other than this can cause the same issue?
Edit:
The Types that aren't found are all from the referenced DLLs. I have the correct using directives for these and they are present in the resource folder, however they become underlined red after a build (I did try cleaning to).
My initial thought was the framework (the project is on v3.5), but I checked all my resources working or otherwise all where on v2 bar a few (working ones) on v4 which I removed temporarily to make sure we're causing issues.
Unable to access the project from my current location but will post any requested specifics as soon as I can.
edit:
Resolved the issue by deleting all of the custom class libraries... found and rebuilt each of their projects then added the new DLLs back into the project. Stored libraries weren't very organised, so I probably have some confliction between old/new versions.
Have you read the warning in the error list? You might need to install nuget package used by the referenced projects
for me the error warning was
All projects referencing "project file" must install nuget package Microsoft.Bcl.Build.
Are the projects being built correctly ?
Sometimes, you need to manually generate them (right click on them, generate), before being able to run a full build.
I dont exactly know why, but this might be the way to go for you.
~A few simple things to try before getting into more complicated water...
Try clicking:
Build->Clean Solution
Build->Build Solution
If this doesn't work, check your using statements are all there and correct, check your references all still exist.
I had a similar issue today, and I thought I would mention it here in case it helps someone else out. In my case, I have a VB.net Class Library which is referenced by a C# class library. The solution would build fine, but in the IDE, as soon as I started editing a file in the C# project, I would get errors about not finding a reference to the VB.Net library. It turns out that the VB.Net class library had a reference to System.web (lowercase w). I'm not sure how that came about -- but the solution was to delete that reference and replace it with a reference to System.Web (uppercase W).
Make sure all the projects in your solution have the same "Target framework" value
answer = The problem was simple we had a common lbrary with functions. the service was a new functionality that had been attempted by someone in this common, and was still present in the one referenced by the project.
this caused the project to have 2 identical namespaces (one in the common dll and one in the service).
We had a problem adding this reference at first because of the rights the service had in IIS. we fixed that problem however, when adding the reference again it seems to only partly add the reference. It does appear in the service list but not in the app config, and it can't be used (intellisense doesn't find it nor does manually typing work).
if we try this in a diffrent project it does add perfectly and wehave tried deleting anything we can find about the reference before readding it (the subfolder, opening the project in notepad and deleting all references there) but nothing seems to work.
when deleting and readding a diffrent service to this project in similar ways and that works and we can add it to diffrent projects in the same solution, just not in this project.
Anyone have any idea why this could happen and possible solutions?
EDIT: When we recreated the project in the same solution and dragged all classes etc over we can add and remove this reference as we want. although this would count as a solution i would actually like to know why things happened like they happened rather then recreate projects when things seem to get stuck. Is there a cache or something in visual studio that could cause this?
Also at times it takes longer (or never finds it) to find the service then at other times where it does so in <1 second. the best way to get it seems to stop and start the search. not sure if it is related but it does seem like a difference between my PC and the other one we use as well.
Edit2: we have also tried deleting the services folder, re-adding services recreates the folder and adds this reference it does not work. if we add a different service after the deletion of the folder, that reference does work. adding the reference we want to add after that does not make it work.
Edit3: in an additional project, i can add it once where it works however deleting the reference and then re-adding it makes it so it doesn't work again. a similar reference to this one i can delete and re-add as many times as i want within the same project and it keeps working. this one reference keeps not being found when re-added after a delete and giving the "Type or namespace can't be found" error.
We also tried changing the solution and projects GUIDs and still, it does not add the service reference correctly in the project.)
**Edit4: When turning off the Reuse types in referenced Assemblies in Configure Service Reference.. Dialog box visual studio adds the information to the Reference.cs page leaving that page empty. unticking this box does add all references to that file and makes the service reference work.
However i can use most of the reference, i am missing the entry point meaning i can't run it.
this is the dialog box where i untick to be able to get a tad further.
When I worked with Service References I found out that in addition to remove the Service Reference Folder I had to remove the reference in app.config, along these lines:
<system.serviceModel>
<bindings>
a lot of lines...
</client>
</system.serviceModel>
Could be a help...
Gorgen
Finally really solved this. as Mike Cheel said in his comment. ill reprovide the link
The problem was simple we had a common lbrary with functions. the service was a new functionality that had been attempted by someone in this common, and was still present in the one referenced by the project.
this caused the project to have 2 identical namespaces (one in the common dll and one in the service).
So, simply, build a new common dll, added it to the project and now it works perfectly.
I would start by deleting the whole "Service References" folder that is generated when Visual Studio is adding service reference.
Did you try it?
I have a solution that contains a website and a class library in Visual Studio 2008.
I then have another web site project outside of the solution that needs to reference the class library. I right click the Bin folder or Project and select Add Reference, then select my Class Library Project, it adds the 15 or so DLLs that the class library needs to the websites bin folder, but none of the .cs files recognize the using statements.
using MyLibrary.MyFolder;
It says that it can't resolve it, and ReSharper just says it can be safely removed since it's not being used.
ReSharper can recognize that it needs the reference and suggests that it "Reference MyLibrary and use MyFolder". I'm not sure why it's suggesting I add a reference I already have. When I go with the suggestion, I get the error
"Failed to reference module. Probably, reference will produce circular dependencies between projects."
I've tried going to the websites property pages and removing all the references and re-adding them, but it gives the same errors. Any ideas why this isn't working?
Also, check that the new solution's projects run against a compatible framework to the project you're trying to include. I was trying to include a reference to a 4.0 project in a 3.5 project.
I found how to fix this issue (for me at least). Why it worked, I'm not sure, but it did. (I just tried against a second website that was having the same problem and the following solution worked for that as well).
I tried the normal cleaning of the projects and rebuilding, shutting down all my Visual Studio instances and restarting them, even tried restarting my computer.
What actually worked was opening up the project in Visual Studio, closing all the open tabs, and then shutting it down.
Before I had left the tabs open because I didn't think it mattered (and I hardly ever close the tabs I'm using).
One possibility is that the target .NET Framework version of the class library is higher than that of the project.
I had a similar problem, will all my references being buggered up by Resharper - The solution which worked for me is to clear the Resharper Cache and then restarting VS
tools->options->resharper->options-> general-> click the clear caches button and restart VS
I had a similar problems where VS would sometimes build and sometimes not. After some searching and attempts I discovered that I had an ambiguous reference to a class with the same name in different libraries ('FileManager'). The project that would not build were my Unit Tests that reference all modules in my solution. Enforcing the reference to a specific module sorted things out for me.
My point is: Rather than blaming ReSharper or VS, it may be a good idea to double check if there really isn't some kind of circular reference somehow. More than often, classes with the same names in different modules could cause confusion and is often a symptom of bad design (like in my case).
This sounds like a similar issue with ReSharper:
http://www.jetbrains.net/devnet/thread/275827
According to one user in the thread forcing a build fixes the issue (CTRL+Shift+B) after the first build..
Sounds like an issue with ReSharper specifically in their case.. Have you tried building regardless of the warnings and possible false errors?
Since they are both in the same solution, instead of adding a reference to the DLL, add a reference to the class library project itself (the Add Reference dialog will have a tab for this).
Ahh, it's a different solution. Missed that. How about you try instead of adding a reference to the project addding a reference to the compiled DLL of your class library. The Add Reference dialog has a Browse tab which does this.
After confirming the same version of asp.net was being used. I removed the project. cleaned the solution and re-added the project. this is what worked for me.
If you're referencing assemblies for projects that are in the same solution, add a Project reference (using the "Projects" tab) rather than browsing for the dll in the \bin\Debug (or \bin\Release) folder (using the "Browse" tab). See screen shot below. Only browse for the assembly/dll file if it's considered an external assembly.
I deleted *.csproj.user ( resharper file) of my project, then, close all tabs and reopen it. After that I was able to compile my project and there was no resharper warnings.
I had this problem. It took me ages to figure out. I had people over my shoulder to help. We rebuilt, cleaned and restarted Visual studio and this didn't fix it. We removed and re-added the references...
All to no avail.... Until!
The solution to my problem was that my class declaration was spelt incorrectly.
Before you start judging me harshly, allow me to explain why it wasn't stupid, and also why this mistake could be made by even the most intelligent of programmers.
Since the mistake was early on in the name, it wasn't appearing in the intellisense class listing when I began typing.
e.g.
Class name:
Message.cs
Declaration:
public class Massage
{
//code here
}
At a glance and in a small font, Massage looks identical to Message.
Typing M listed too many classes, so I typed e, which didn't appear in the mistyped version, which gave the impression that the class wasn't being picked up by the compiler.
I had a similar issue in VS 2010, when creating a test project for an MVC 2 application.
The symptoms were identical.
The message from ReSharper was somewhat misleading. For a moment I completely ignored ReSharper and did it the "manual VS way":
I cleaned the solution.
I manually added the reference to the MVC project.
I manually added the using directives.
ctrl-shift-b
At this stage I got a compilation error: I should have referenced the System.Web.Mvc assembly in my test project (sigh). Adding this reference causes the project to compile. The ReSharper issues remain, but the ReSharper test runner works.
When I restart VS, the ReSharper errors are gone too. I'm not sure if the restart is required - simply closing the .cs file might be enough.
From now on, when I see the ReSharper message
Failed to reference module. Probably,
reference will produce circular
dependencies between projects.
I'll read
Failed to reference module. Probably,
reference will produce circular
dependencies between projects,
or you are missing some references to dependencies of the reference's dependencies.
Another possible fix that just worked for me:
If you have Assembly A, which references Assembly B, both of which reference a non-project (external) assembly X, and Assembly B's code will not recognize that you have referenced X, then try the following steps in order:
Drop reference to X from BOTH A and B
Recreate reference to X in B
Recreate reference to X in A
Apparently, VS will not recognize a reference to an external assembly in a project that is a dependency of another project that already references the external. By setting up the references again from the ground up, you overcome this. It's just very odd.
I faced this problem, and I solved it by closing visual studio, reopening visual studio, cleaning and rebuilding the solution. This worked for me.
If using TFS, performing a Get latest (recursive) doesn't always work. Instead, I force a get latest by clicking Source control => Get specific version then clicking both boxes. This tends to work.
If it still doesn't work then deleting the suo file (usually found in the same place as the solution) forces visual studio to get all the files from the source (and subsequently rebuild the suo file).
If that doesn't work then try closing all your open files and closing Visual studio. When you next open Visual studio it should be fixed. There is a resharper bug that is resolved this way.
I had stumbled upon a similar issue recently. I am working in Visual Studio 2015 with Resharper Ultimate 2016.1.2. I was trying to add a new class to my code base while trying to reference a class from another assembly but Resharper would throw an error for that package.
With some help of a co-worker, I figured out that the referenced class existed in the global namespace and wasn't accessible from the new class since it was hidden by another entity of same name that existed in current namespace.
Adding a 'global::' keyword before the required namespace helped me to reference the class I was actually looking for. More details on this can be found on the page listed below:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/c3ay4x3d.aspx
If both projects are contained within the same solution, it will be more apropiate if you add the reference for the project you need, not its compiled dll.
I had the exact same problem.
I tried closing Visual Studio numerous times, I tried deleting and adding a new class library.Checked if I had the right version, if I had referenced it in the target project. Nothing worked.
Then I thought maybe, just maybe I cannot reference the library because it was empty... and that was it.
As soon as I added a class to it the problem was fixed. So if you have tried everything and you are close to losing your sanity. Just try adding something to the class library.
the solution for was just adding the access modifier
my class didnt have any access modifier then i just added public and it worked!
Contracts class library:
namespace Contracts
{
public interface ILoggerManager
{
void LogInfo(string message);
void LogWarn(string message);
void LogDebug(string message);
void LogError(string message);
}
}
Logger service class library:
using Contracts;
using NLog;
public class LoggerManager : ILoggerManager
{
private static NLog.ILogger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();
public LoggerManager()
{
}
}
I tried various solutions for this issue. An old WebForms application refused to acknowledge the existence of a library even though a reference existed.
Oddly, what worked was to add and reference the class library in Visual Studio 2022, safe the project, then reopen in an earlier version of Visual Studio.
My solution was simple, but I'll share it in case someone else has the same issue and finds this question by googling like I did.
It turns out that the most recent build of the supporting DLL was done in Debug mode, and my code was looking at the Release version of the DLL. I rebuilt the DLL in Release mode and all is working properly.
Unfortunately the only thing that worked for me was completely deleting and recreating the class library project, after having temporarily copied the class files in it elsewhere. Only then would the ASP.Net web project recognise the using statements that referred to the class library project. This was with Visual Studio 2010, not using ReSharper.
I had similar issue. What worked for me is that I had added wrong Class Library from visual studio. I added by using the search feature of visual studio.
What I needed to do was Add New Project > Visual C# > Class Library. And this newly added class library is the right one and can now be added as reference to any project.
You may forget to add reference the class library which you needed to import.
Right click the class library which you want to import in (which contains multiple imported class libraries), -->Add->Reference(Select Projects->Solution->select the class library which you want to import from->OK)