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Did anyone of You had the same problem as described below? If so, do you have any tip or solution for this?
I have a problem with my local environment. Every time I try to build the solution, a lot of its projects are being skipped and I receive many CS0006 errors: "Metadata file (...) could not be found".
Another thing I noticed is ribbon with message "Current solution contains incorrect configurations mappings. It may cause projects to not work correctly. Open the Configuration Manager to fix them." When I open Configuration Manager, all projects of solution are checked, and everything seems to be correct there.
I use Visual Studio 2022 (64-bit), version 17.4.1 and .NET Framework version 4.8.04084.
I tried almost all recommendations from the Internet, including uninstalling and installing again Visual Studio or reuploading of repository, but there is no update about this problem.
Thank You in advance.
You could try the steps provided by Sabah Shariq.
Right click on the solution and click Properties.
Click Configuration on the left.
Make sure the check box under "Build" for the project is checked. If check then uncheck and check again and save the settings.
Clean the solution by right clicking on the project solution and rebuild the project again.
Make sure you don't have any other error messages in your project and if you do, fix those first!
For more information, please refer to:
Error CS0006_Metadata file could not be found
Thank you for your help. I have found the cause of this problem by myself. It turned out that some lines of code was removed from sln file by mistake (in my opinion there was an error of Visual Studio). When I re-added them, the solution is able to be built.
Anyway, thank you for your support.
I have a Xamarin project, which is based on MvvmCross. The project is for both iOS and Android. I opened this project in Visual Studio 15. I got some errors, which I solved in no time. There are some errors, which are stuck and I couldn't solve them even after searching on Google and on Stackoverflow. I have tried each and every method found on Stackoverflow, but still all remaining errors are there.
This project is using 3rd party libraries like RestSharp and BoxApi.V2 (few more)
I am posting my error log below.
Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error The "ResolveLibraryProjectImports" task failed unexpectedly.
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load assembly 'RestSharp(Android), Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken='. Perhaps it doesn't exist in the Mono for Android profile?
File name: 'RestSharp(Android).dll'
at Java.Interop.Tools.Cecil.DirectoryAssemblyResolver.Resolve(AssemblyNameReference reference, ReaderParameters parameters)
at Java.Interop.Tools.Cecil.DirectoryAssemblyResolver.Resolve(String fullName, ReaderParameters parameters)
at Java.Interop.Tools.Cecil.DirectoryAssemblyResolver.Resolve(String fullName)
at Java.Interop.Tools.Cecil.DirectoryAssemblyResolver.GetAssembly(String fileName)
at Xamarin.Android.Tasks.ResolveLibraryProjectImports.Extract(DirectoryAssemblyResolver res, ICollection`1 jars, ICollection`1 resolvedResourceDirectories, ICollection`1 resolvedAssetDirectories, ICollection`1 resolvedEnvironments)
at Xamarin.Android.Tasks.ResolveLibraryProjectImports.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.<ExecuteInstantiatedTask>d__26.MoveNext() BoxApi.V2 (Android)
This error is repeating for all projects included in this solution. So I am getting this error multiple times.
I also want to add that the project was previously built on MAC and I am using windows, does this make some compatibility or cross OS issue?
I have checked all assembly references and all are working fine.
I've literally just had this with a brand new Xamarin.Forms application in Visual Studio 2017.
The root cause appears to be that I let VS2017 create the project in it's default location 'C:\Users\Dave\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects' and this has resulted in one of more files now having a path which it too long.
I moved the solution to the root of my D drive and it builds without any problem.
Your issue is most likely linked to this post on the Xamarin forums, and this bugzilla entry. Without a reproducible sample, all I can advise you try is:
Updating Xamarin for Visual Studio, Xamarin.Android, and Xamarin.iOS
to the latest stable versions
Cleaning and rebuilding
Deleting all of the bin and obj folders from your project directories
Restarting Visual Studio/your PC
Failing all of that, there's not likely to be anyone who can help you without a reproducible sample and potentially your Xamarin logs.
edit your android project file (csproj) like below
this issue topic may guide https://github.com/xamarin/AndroidSupportComponents/issues/51
Had same problem. Here is my solution
Restart Visual Studio
Open the Project
Clean the solution
Rebuild the solution
Close solution
Reopen the project
I'm working with XAML (.xaml) and code-behind file (.xaml.cs). My issue was that I had the same page name, but under different namespaces. The XAML and the code behind file didn't match together. So finally it was an issue with my XAML, because of course it couldn't find the view element.
Well for me the problem was in my xaml file...
Somehow while setting the Layout bounds i used '.' as a separator instead of ','
e.g
AbsoluteLayout.LayoutBounds="0.5.0.3,1,0.3" should have been AbsoluteLayout.LayoutBounds="0.5,0.3,1,0.3"
Hence changing the '.' to ',' solved the problem
This happened to me when I accidentally installed nuget packages in a class library that was included in the solution. I just had to uninstall the packages from the class library project.
In my case, this issue came with another related to my xaml.
I had to solved the second in order this error dissapear. I clean up the class with a new default content and then clean all projects and solution. By last, close visual studio, open it , run the project and It works know .-.
This is still a fresh problem, after all attempts i wanted to try to shift the code to a shorter path - however that is lot of work as svn management will get complicated, so i wanted to first verify if path is really an issue, one way to do this was to check where the android SDKs are stored. I am on mac and the investigation revealed that SDKs path was longer than my project path. Plus i tried with a fresh project, and that was compiling correctly.
So i dropped the idea of shifting. Instead i used svn and compared what has changed since last correct build.
The comparison revealed that the project file of droid was somehow referring to the project file of iOS, it seems like some bug of Visual Studio. So i reverted the changes and than all got back to normal.
i get the same error and i usually solve this by closing all other opened xamarin solutions and there is one more way i had solved this issue -> go to taskmanager and find MSBUILD Service and end that service -> clean your solution -> Rebuild
We have encountered this too, it appears to be some type of race condition when building multiple projects and a very deep/complex dependency tree (our example has over 100 projects).
The only way we've been able to resolve this (beyond continually rebuilding) is to disable Visual Studio 2017's Parallel Build Abilities (Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->Build and Run->"1" Maximum number of parallel project builds).
The problem appears to be in ResolveLibraryProjectImports.cs (https://github.com/xamarin/xamarin-android/blob/93ddf96f86710ad848d5189858567dd7fe964579/src/Xamarin.Android.Build.Tasks/Tasks/ResolveLibraryProjectImports.cs) there is most likely a race condition with their logic to shorten up the file names.
There are zero tests around this which means there is most likely some dodgy code.
I am going to attempt to dig more and get an issue opened up on GitHub but finding a reliable repo is probably going to be very difficult.
This worked for me:
Clean solution
Build one project at a time starting at the top - NOT rebuild solution - just one project at a time
Try deleting the contents of Obj and bin folder as well
When done delete the project from the emulator or device before you run it again
Hope this helps.
Still have issues ? Check your namespaces and your xaml code. Sometimes when you copy/paste some files, it can be the problem.
Not sure if it will help anyone of you. For my case, I comment the erroneous class (eg. those with missing references), and it will start to pick up everything and build again.
In my case, I just forgot to delete the clicked event in XAML that doesn't exist in my code behind(cs file). After that, I just clean and rebuild.
I think that error was caused by not updated references.
It's probably an issue with your references / reference assemblies?
If you look under each project's references folder in the solution explorer, any references that visual studio cannot find, delete and re-add them (right click reference folder to add).
I have Faced this issue a thousand times its actually a very simple thing when you create a new project visual studio creates it in C:Drive in its default folder all you have to do is move your project out in some other Drive Like D:, E: whatever just make sure to keep it in the root of your Drive i.e. If you move it in D: Then place it like this D/Project/solutionFile
Here is the problem:
System.IO.PathTooLongException: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.
Try to move you project to another location like "C:/" , or change the name of the project for something more brief
I encountered the same issue and none of the solutions above worked. After noticing and error on the list regarding Cryptography I knew it had to be related to FIPS being enabled (required by a VPN client)
By disabling FIPS and restarting Visual Studio the issue was resolved.
I had this error as well. In my situation it was accompanied by Xamarin.Forms.Maps not importing into the one of the xaml.g.cs files correctly. I had all the using statements correct. The IDE was showing no errors but it kept telling me that Xamarin.Forms did not have a name space Map. It was generating in MapPage.xaml.g.cs as Xamarin.Forms.Map instead of Xamarin.Forms.Maps.Map and I couldn't force a fix manually. It turned out though that the suggested xmlns:maps for maps was causing the problem. The IDE had told me to use "http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms" but the correct namespace is "clr-namespace:Xamarin.Forms.Maps;assembly=Xamarin.Forms.Maps". After I changed this it was able to build my App1.dll
This was how I got the error. In a StackLayout I put in a Padding property, and I seperated the 4 digits by a space rather than a comma.
To find the bug I had to comment out the XAML controls individually and rebuild to isolate where the error is, and eventually I found the problem line.
So basically this was the error message I got for a syntax error in my XAML code!
In any other language I would expect to be informed what the error is so I can fix it in seconds. But this took me a few hours - although next time I know what to do.
This kind of issue may also come if by mistake you have any syntactical error like in my case: two text cells were present in the ListView -
<ListView x:Name="ProductsView">
<ListView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextCell Text="{Binding ProductId}" />
<TextCell Text="{Binding ProductDescription}" />
</DataTemplate>
</ListView.ItemTemplate>
</ListView>
I went through other posts for this issue and found the same issue occurred due to the presence of syntactical errors, which VS doesn't report directly. So look for this, otherwise, reinstall the compatible version of xamarin.forms -> clean solutions -> rebuild by reopening VS.
I have faced the same problem today. After two days searching, I have found the solution here. The issue is Xamarin.Forms library does not install all its dependent Nuget packages while first creating project by choosing cross-platform Mobile(Xamarin.Forms) project template from Visual Studio 2017. I have to manually install the upgraded dependent nuget packages to build the project successfully. Also have removed and added Xamarin.Forms at the end which resolves the issue.
Also, it is some time creating issues when two instances of Visual Studio 2017 is running, make sure only one instance is only running as I have encountered this issue as well.
xmlns:maps="clr-namespace:Xamarin.Forms.Maps; assembly=Xamarin.Forms.Maps"
The problem was because of the space between the semicolon above and the assembly as stated above. As soon as the gap is closed, it compiles.
Shorteninig the path(folder names) to the solution solved it for me.
For example : the path was :
C:\Users\Username\Downloads\Compressed\ListView-GettingStarted-in-Xamarin-Forms-master\ListView-GettingStarted-in-Xamarin-Forms-master\GettingStarted
and i changed it to :
C:\Users\HelloKali\Downloads\Compressed\3\2\1.
Whenever I try opening a .cs file with Visual Studio, I get this error :
Expected 1 export(s) with contract name "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities.IContentTypeRegistryService" but found 0 after
applying applicable constraints.
Visual Studio had been working working fine for me, then all of a sudden this started happening. I tried deleting the cache and even uninstalling the program altogether, but the error persists. I checked online everywhere, but nobody seems to have had this issue before. Here is a picture.
The best SO link I've found gives heaps of different options - see here - I would suggest running a repair on the install and try things other than clearing the cache.
The referenced link indicates a bunch of different conditions that affect how you resolve the issue. For example are you running express/community edition or professional etc?
Without knowing what causes the cache to get corrupted I can't answer exactly how to fix it.
I'm trying to update my Visual Studio Extension Diff All Files to support Visual Studio 2015. Everything works fine in VS 2012 and 2013, but in 2015 it throws the following error when I open the Team Explorer Pending Changes Windows, which should show my new control on it:
System.ComponentModel.Composition.CompositionContractMismatchException: Cannot cast the underlying exported value of type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Composition.NetFxAdapters+MefV1ExportProvider+ComposablePartForExportFactory' to type 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Controls.ITeamExplorerSection'.
at System.ComponentModel.Composition.ExportServices.CastExportedValue[T](ICompositionElement element, Object exportedValue)
at System.ComponentModel.Composition.ReflectionModel.ExportFactoryCreator.LifetimeContext.GetExportLifetimeContextFromExport[T](Export export)
at System.ComponentModel.Composition.ReflectionModel.ExportFactoryCreator.<>c__DisplayClass4`2.<CreateStronglyTypedExportFactoryOfTM>b__5()
at System.ComponentModel.Composition.ExportFactory`1.CreateExport()
at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Controls.WPF.TeamExplorer.Framework.TeamExplorerSectionHost.Create()
This blog post explains that VS 2015 moved from MEF v1 to v2, which I think may be part of the problem, but I'm not really sure. I'm fairly certain that the error occurs when it tries to process the following attribute on my VSPackage control class:
[TeamExplorerSection(PendingChangesSection.SectionId, TeamExplorerPageIds.PendingChanges, 35)]
Any ideas what the problem might be or how to solve it?
The project is open source so you can download it and reproduce the problem if you like. You can grab the source code from here, just make sure you get the "AddVs2015Support" branch.
Thanks in advance.
So it turns out that I had included the 2015 (v14.0) TFS assemblies in the VS 2015 project, but in their reference properties Specific Version was set to False. I flipped that to True for the TFS assembly references and it's working as expected now.
I had also posted this question in the MSDN Forums and they were able to point me in the right direction.
I am working on a WPF, C# 3.0 project, and I get this error:
Error 1 Metadata file
'WORK=- \Tools\VersionManagementSystem\BusinessLogicLayer\bin\Debug
\BusinessLogicLayer.dll' could not be found C:\-=WORK=- \Tools
\VersionManagementSystem\VersionManagementSystem\CSC VersionManagementSystem
This is how I reference my usercontrols:
xmlns:vms="clr-namespace:VersionManagementSystem"
<vms:SignOffProjectListing Margin="5"/>
It happens after every failed build. The only way I can get the solution to compile is to comment out all my user controls and re-build the project, and then I uncomment the usercontrols and everything is fine.
I have checked build orders and dependencies configurations.
As you can see, it seems to have truncated the DLL file's absolute path... I have read that there is a bug with the length. Is this a possible problem?
It's very annoying and having to comment, build, and uncomment, the build is becoming extremely tiresome.
I just had the same problem. Visual Studio isn't building the project that's being referenced.
Written Instructions:
Right click on the solution and click Properties.
Click Configuration on the left.
Make sure the check box under "Build" for the project it can't find is checked. If it is already checked, uncheck, hit apply and check the boxes again.
(Optional) You had to do it for both Release and Debug modes on the solution properties.
Screen capture Instructions:
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Click on the GIF to zoom in, and hopefully it will be easy to follow:
This can still happen in newer versions of Visual Studio (I just had it happen on Visual Studio 2013):
Another thing to try is to close Visual Studio and delete the .suo file that is next to the .sln file. (It will be re-generated the next time you Save all (or exit Visual Studio)).
I've had this problem when adding new projects to the solution on another machine and then pulling the revisions in, but the .suo file can be corrupted in other cases as well and lead to very strange Visual Studio behaviour, so deleting it is one of the things I always try.
Note that deleting the .suo file will reset the startup project(s) of the solution.
More on the .suo file is here.
The suggested answer did not work for me. The error is a decoy for another problem.
I found out that I was targeting a slightly different version of .NET and this was flagged as a warning by the compiler, but it was causing building to fail.
This should have been flagged as an error and not a warning.
Well, my answer is not just the summary of all the solutions, but it offers more than that.
Section (1):
In general solutions:
I had four errors of this kind (‘metadata file could not be found’) along with one error saying 'Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)'.
I tried to get rid of ‘metadata file could not be found’ error. For that, I read many posts, blogs, etc. and found these solutions may be effective (summarizing them over here):
Restart Visual Studio and try building again.
Go to 'Solution Explorer'. Right click on Solution. Go to Properties. Go to 'Configuration Manager'. Check if the checkboxes under 'Build' are checked or not. If any or all of them are unchecked, then check them and try building again.
If the above solution(s) do not work, then follow sequence mentioned in step 2 above, and even if all the checkboxes are checked, uncheck them, check again and try to build again.
Build Order and Project Dependencies:
Go to 'Solution Explorer'. Right click on Solution. Go to 'Project Dependencies...'. You will see two tabs: 'Dependencies' and 'Build Order'. This build order is the one in which solution builds. Check the project dependencies and the build order to verify if some project (say 'project1') which is dependent on other (say 'project2') is trying to build before that one (project2). This might be the cause for the error.
Check the path of the missing .dll:
Check the path of the missing .dll. If the path contains space or any other invalid path character, remove it and try building again.
If this is the cause, then adjust the build order.
Section (2):
My particular case:
I tried all the steps above with various permutations and combinations with restarting Visual Studio a few times. But, it did not help me.
So, I decided to get rid of other error I was coming across ('Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)').
I came across a blog post: TFS Error–Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)
I tried the steps mentioned in that blog post, and I got rid of the error 'Source File Could Not Be Opened (‘Unspecified error ‘)' and surprisingly I got rid of other errors (‘metadata file could not be found’) as well.
Section (3):
Moral of the story:
Try all solutions as mentioned in section (1) above (and any other solutions) for getting rid of the error. If nothing works out, as per the blog mentioned in section (2) above, delete the entries of all source files which are no longer present in the source control and the file system from your .csproj file.
In my case it was caused by a .NET Framework version mismatch.
One project was 3.5 and the other referencing project 4.6.1.
Visual Studio 2019 this worked for me:
Close Visual Studio
Delete the hidden .vs folder
Reopen Visual Studio and rebuild the solution.
Closing and reopening Visual Studio 2013 worked for me!
Well, nothing in the previous answers worked for me, so it got me thinking about why am I clicking and hoping when as developers we should really try to understand what is going on here.
It seemed obvious to me that this incorrect meta data file reference must be held somewhere.
A quick search of the .csproj file showed the guilty lines. I had a section called <itemGroup> that seemed to be hanging onto the old incorrect filepath.
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="..\..\..\MySiteOld\MySite.Entities\MySite.Entities.csproj">
<Project>{5b0a347e-cd9a-4746-a3b6-99d6d010a6c2}</Project>
<Name>Beeyp.Entities</Name>
</ProjectReference>
...
So a simple fix really:
Backup your .csproj file.
Find the incorrect paths in the .csproj file and rename appropriately.
Please make sure you backup your old .csproj before you fiddle.
In my case, I have my installed directory in mistaken ways.
If your solution path is something like "My Project%2c Very Popular%2c Unit Testing%2c Software and Hardware.zip", it cannot resolve the metadata file, perhaps we should prevent some invalid words like %2c.
When a repository is cloned from certain sites, the directory name is URL encoded. Which would convert space characters in directory names to %20, forward slashes to %2f, underscores to %5f, etc. Although, I'm not sure why the % symbol is breaking things.
Renaming the path into a normal name resolved my issue.
I also met this problem. Firstly you have to manually build you DLL project, by right-click, Build. Then it will work.
In my case, the problem was caused by a simple build error,
error CS0067: The event 'XYZ' is never used
that, for any reason, did not show up in the error window.
Because of that, the Visual Studio build system seemed to miss the error and tried to build dependent projects, which in turn failed with the annoying metadata message.
The recommendation is -as stupid as it may sound-:
First look at your Output Window!
It took me half an hour before this idea hit me...
I got the same error "Metadata file '.dll' could not be found", and I tried several things described above, but the reason for the error was that I was referencing third-party DLL file which was targeting a .NET version higher that my project target .NET version. So the solution was to change the target framework of my project.
I added a new project to my solution and started getting this.
The reason? The project I brought in was targeting a different .NET framework (4.6 and my other two were 4.5.2).
For me, it was trying to find a DLL in a path that used to contain the Project, but we'd moved it to a new directory. The Solution had the correct path to the Project, but Visual Studio somehow kept looking in the old location.
Solution: Rename each problem Project - just add a character or whatever - then rename it back to its original name.
This must reset some global cache of some kind in Visual Studio, because this clears both this issue up and several like it, while things like Clean do not.
It looks like such kind of errors related to the fact that Visual Studio doesn't provide correct information about an error. The developer doesn't even understand the reason for the failed build. It can be a syntax error or something else. In common, to solve such problems you should find the root of the problem (for example, look at the build log).
In my case the problem was in fact that the Error List window didn't show any errors. But really there were syntax errors; I found these errors in the Output window, and after fixing them, the problem was solved.
For me it occurred when I included a new project to a solution.
Visual Studio automatically selects .NET framework 4.5.
I changed to version .NET 4.5.2 like the other libraries, and it worked.
If you have a space in your solution name, this will also cause the issue. Removing the space from your solution name, so path doesn't contain %20 will solve this.
Coming back to this a few years later, this problem is more than likely related to the Windows maximum path limit:
Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces, Maximum Path Length Limitation
For me the following steps worked:
Find the project that is not building
Remove/add references to projects within the solution.
I was pulling my hair out with this problem also, but after trying the previous answers the only thing that worked for me was to open each project in my solution 1 by 1 and build them individually.
Then I closed Visual Studio 2013, reopened my solution and it compiled fine.
It's strange, because if I clicked each project in my Solution Explorer and tried to build them that way, they all failed. I had to open them alone in their own solutions.
In my case the issue was that I'd manually deleted a non-compilation file which was marked as "missing". Once I deleted the reference to the now-missing file and recompiled - all was well.
My instance of the problem was caused by a common project that had a duplicate class name in it (under a different filename). It is strange that Visual Studio could not detect that and instead just blew up the build process.
I got this problem in Visual Studio 2012 in a solution that had many projects. Rebuilding each project in the solution manually in the same order as the Project Build Order (right-click and rebuild in Solution Explorer) fixed it for me.
Eventually I got to one that gave me a compile error. I fixed the error, and the solution would build correctly after that.
I too had the same error. It hides as in the below path.
The path which I referred to for the DLL file is like "D:\Assemblies Folder\Assembly1.dll".
But the original path in which the assembly referred was "D:\Assemblies%20Folder\Assembly1.dll".
Due to this path name variation, the assembly could not be retrieved from its original path and hence throws the "Metadata not found" error.
The solution is in Stack Overflow question How do I replace all the spaces with %20 in C#?.
Most of the methods explained here did not solved the problem for me.
Finally, I fixed the problem by applying the following steps:
1. Close Visual Studio.
2. Delete all the contents in the bin folders of each project.
3. Open solution and rebuild.
I hit and solved this problem today on VS2022 in a solution with a Blazor project.
The underlying problem is that I had introduced a routine C# compilation error
in C# code declared in a .razor file. VS2022 was dropping the display of the error from the Build Error List tab. I found the C# error by scanning the build output in the Output console log tab where my C# error was described as expected.
p.s. In case you are wondering, I had a Unit Test project referencing my Blazor web project. The project DLL reference from the Unit Test project to the Blazor app was complaining about the missing Blazor DLL.
Based on the error message I don't believe the file path is being truncated. It looks to just be incorrect. If I'm reading the message correctly it appears to be looking for the DLL file at ...
WORK=-\Tools\VersionManagementSystem\BusinessLogicLayer\bin\Debug\BusinessLogicLayer.dll
This is not a valid path. Is it possible that you have a macro definition in the build process set to an invalid value?
I'd faced the same problem. In my case I'd referenced to a class library project with higher .Net version than my project and VS failed to build the project and raised the same error you posted.
I simply set .Net version of my class library project(the one that had broken the build) identical to the .Net version of referenced project and problem solved.
Just pointing out the blatantly obvious: if you don't have "Show output window when build starts" enabled, make sure you're noticing if your build is failing (small "build failed" error in lower left)!!!!
I had this error when I was trying to publish a web application. Turned out that one of a class properties was wrapped into
#if DEBUG
public int SomeProperty { get; set; }
#endif
but the property usage was not. The publishing was done in Release configuration without the DEBUG symbol, obviously.