As the title says, I want to consume all of PDFSharp's source code into my own project. But let me explain why I came to this scenario, so if there is something else I can do, maybe there are other options.
Goal: Compile my project into a single .exe file to use. No installers.
Problem: It uses PDFSharp.dll which is causing me issues.
What I am trying to do, is use ILMerge to create the .exe. I've used this successfully in the past for other projects.
The issue I think is that ILMerge is requiring references to other assemblies that PDFSharp uses. The first being Microsoft.ApplicationInsights. So to by-pass this, I installed Microsoft.ApplicationInsights into my project via Nuget. Then removed the actual reference from the project, but referenced the library in my ILMerge command as below:
/lib:"C:\<path to assembly>\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.2.16.0\lib\net46"
This actually worked. Except, now it asked for another library and I get this error:
Unresolved assembly reference not allowed: GdPicture.NET.11.
This looks like a paid library, perhaps downloading the trial may get me past this. I didn't try yet. I switched gears as I felt I may be trying to reference an endless amount of assemblies.
I then tried to get the PDFSharp source code and I found that version 1.32 here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfsharp/files/pdfsharp/PDFsharp%201.32/
I added a reference to this project within my solution file, so now I have a solution with 2 projects. Great.
I then I tried to link source files into my project. How to do that is here:
https://jeremybytes.blogspot.com/2019/07/linking-files-in-visual-studio.html#:~:text=To%20link%20files%2C%20use%20the,CLICK%20THE%20%22Add%22%20BUTTON.
This seems to work, but every file I add requires another file, which references another file etc. It seemed endless. So that led me to the idea of just consuming the entire source code into my project and I haven't seen a good way to do that yet. I can't add a reference to the project as it just references the compiled dll which again, iLMerge can't combine.
I've also tried updating the tag within the .csproj file of PDFSharp to "module" to create a .netmodule file. This creates the file in the obj directory but throws an error:
\PDFsharp\code\PdfSharp\obj\Release\PdfSharp.netmodule' is not an assembly
Any help is appreciated. thanks.
UPDATE: I reversed everything and added the PdfSharp reference - back to where I was and changed my project to module and built which created a .netmodule file. Then used the assembly linker to create a .exe from that file. That worked using this command from VS Dev prompt.
al MyModule.netmodule /target:exe /out:MyProgram.exe /main:MyNamespace.MyClass.Main
This created the .exe, but when run without any other supporting files produces a file not found error:
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'MyModule.netmodule' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Which is interesting since the module should be inside the exe right?
I have this working now, so I just wanted to place my results here since it is already posted.
My initial problem was that I mistakenly thought the PDFSharp.dll was causing the issue, but it was actually another group of 3rd Party dlls I was referencing.
I tried for hours to get iLMerge to work with the only success being it would kick out a single .exe file but it would have runtime errors.
Errors that I encountered:
Error: Unresolved assembly reference not allowed: Custom.Assembly.
Solution: Reference the assembly if possible. If you have many, you can reference a folder with the /lib:"C:\folderpath" switch.
Error: Unresolved assembly reference not allowed: ADotNetFramework.dll.
Solution: You can reference the desired .Net Framework path where iLMerge will search for missing references. Example: /targetplatform:"v4,C:<Path To Framework>.NETFramework\v4.8"
Error: The assembly 'xyz.dll' was not merged in correctly. It is still listed as an external reference in the target assembly.
Solution: You can get past this error with the /closed switch. However, I don't think I should even have gotten this error because 'xyz.dll' was a referenced dll to be combined.
Also - use the /log switch, it is extremely helpful in seeing exactly what iLMerge is doing and figuring out your issue. Example: /log:mylog.txt
This allowed me to see that iLMerge was finding duplicate namespaces, in the 3rd Party assemblies and automatically renaming them. Here is an example from my log:
Merging assembly 'My.Assembly.Name' into target assembly.
Duplicate type name: modifying name of the type '<>f__AnonymousType02' (from assembly 'My.Assembly.Name') to 'My.Assembly.Name.<>f__AnonymousType02'
Duplicate type name: modifying name of the type '<>f__AnonymousType12' (from assembly 'My.Assembly.Name') to 'My.Assembly.Name.<>f__AnonymousType12'
Duplicate type name: modifying name of the type '' (from assembly 'My.Assembly.Name') to 'My.Assembly.Name.
Finally - the solution that I found was not to use iLMerge. I found this Answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/40786196/2596309
which used Costura.Fody
I installed the nuget package with:
Install-Package Costura.Fody -Version 4.1.0
Cleaned and built my solution and it created a single .exe file that I tested and it worked. Literally, I put 3 days of work into this and the solution took 3 minutes...
I'm creating a VISX project. It runs normally, but after I update all it's nuget packages, it start to show errors when I try to run it in the Visual Studio Experimental Instance.
I tried to revert the packages, but it seems that some packages versions are no longer available for download.
The main reason is that the VISX can't load the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading assembly after the dependecies are updated.
I tried adding the assembly to the package's Assets too. The VISX can load it now, but can't find the following method in the AsyncPackage class, like it would be loading the wrong assembly version.
JoinableTaskFactory.SwitchToMainThreadAsync(cancellationToken);
There's also the same error (assembly not found) for the Newtonsoft.Json dependency.
Can someone help me with this?
I zipped everything and upload in my onedrive: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmhLdtS8gKjrl71Vmnp85m4ZPUILgw
I included all packages, since there's a chance that who download the project could not execute it because the packages could not be downloaded from nuget.org.
To simulate the error, just update the dependencies.
Update 1
As suggested, I was able to redo the entire project using "package reference" to target dependencies.
The visx builds and work, but the problem with the dependency for Newtonsoft.Json still occurs.
Also, I tried adding another dependency from a nuget package that I created, and the same error occurs too.
I wrote a piece of code that uses JsonConvert just to make use of the dependency.
When I execute the "TestCommand" from VS Experimental instance, them the error popups.
Link for the second project in my onedrive:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmhLdtS8gKjrl71ZCd1WIYNDTZaSCw
I have 2 webapp projects that work perfectly with this assembly.
I've tried everything, copy the BIN folder, delete, make a rebuild.
Search for things in the GAC, remove and add references again, with NUGET without NUGET, copy from the folder of projects that work.
My error was that on the first try I added the reference through the nuget manager rather than simply copying the DLLs from the projects that work
Now there is something causing version error.
System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'PayPalCoreSDK, Version = 1.7.0.0, Culture = neutral, PublicKeyToken = 5b4afc1ccaef40fb' or one of its dependencies. The localized assembly manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)
How to clear this mess and fix those references?
Everything is the same as the other 2 projects that work, even code, even web.config.
I do not know where else to look for solutions.
PayPalMerchantSDK (2.16.204.0)
Dependencies: PayPalCoreSDK (1.7.1.0) - Newtonsoft.Json (9.0.0.0)
Did you check the .net framework version in same as your other 2 projects?
After many attempts I managed to make the project work.
However, I had to work with older versions of PayPalCoreSDK and Newtonsof.Json.
Now I will try to adjust the versions to see if I can align all the projects.
But the references are confusing and if it gives problem it seems that only NUGET can refresh DLLs properly
Manual settings in the BIN folder do not work much less in web.config.
I encounter this error as well. I was able to fix it by just downgrading the version of the PaypalCoreSDK to the previous one.
I'm trying to compile my excel addin using C# 4.0, and started to get this problem when building my project in Visual Studio. It's important to tell you that I haven't had this problem before. What could cause this to happen?
When I had this problem I fixed it by turning off the 'Enable ClickOnce security settings'.
Menu: Project | 'Project name' Properties... | Security tab | 'Enable ClickOnce security settings' check box.
My guess is that you're not working with strongly named assemblies. I've had this error when two projects reference slightly different versions of the same assembly and a more dependent project references these projects. The resolution in my case was to remove the key and version information from the assembly name in the .csproj files (it didn't matter anyway), and then do a clean build.
Changes between the different assembly versions were compatible with the parts of the solution referring to them. If this is not the case with you, you might have to do some more work to resolve the issue.
NuGet
With NuGet it's easy to get into this situation if:
You install a package to one project in your solution.
A new version of that package is deployed to the package source.
You install it to another project in the same solution.
This results in two projects in your solution referencing different versions of that package's assemblies. If one of them references the other and is a ClickOnce app, you'll see this problem.
To fix this, issue the update-package [package name] command at the Nuget Package Manager Console to bring everything up to a level playing field, at which point the problem goes away.
You should manage NuGet packages at the solution level rather than at the project level unless there is a compelling reason not to. Solution level package management avoids the potential of multiple versions of dependencies. When using the management UI, if the Consolidated tab shows 1 or more packages have multiple versions, consider consolidating them to one.
See this answer.
Go to the publish page and click on "Application Files". From there you should see a list of your DLL's. Ensure that the ones that are giving you trouble have their Publish Status marked as "Include" rather than "Prerequisite".
I've had this problem. It happened because i had many projects pointing to the same assembly but from different versions. I solve it selecting the same version to all projects in my solution.
If you have changed your assembly version or copied a different version of the managed library stated in the error you may also have previously compiled files referencing the wrong version. A 'Rebuild All' (or deleting you 'bin and 'obj' folders as mentioned in an earlier comment) should fix this case.
If you tried all the other answers in this question and you:
Have multiple projects in your solution
Have a project (Project A) that references another project (Project B), whose project references a NuGet package.
In Project A, you used Intellisense/ReSharper to bring in the reference to the NuGet package referenced in Project B (this can happen when a method in Project B returns a type provided by the NuGet package and that method is used in Project A)
updated the NuGet package via NuGet Package Manager (or CLI).
...you may have separate versions of the NuGet packages DLL in your projects' References, as the reference created by Intellisense/ReSharper will be a "normal" reference, and not a NuGet reference as expected, so the NuGet update process won't find or update it!
To fix this, remove the reference in Project A, then use NuGet to install it, and make sure the NuGet packages in all projects are the same version. (as explain in this answer)
Life Pro Tip:
This issue can come up whenever ReSharper/Intellisense suggests to add a reference to your project. It can be much more deeply convoluted than the example above, with multiple interweaving projects and dependencies making it hard to track down. If the reference being suggested by ReSharper/Intellisense is actually from a NuGet package, use NuGet to install it.
you need to sign the assembly with a key. Go in the project properties under the tab signing:
Adding my solution for this issue for anyone it might help.
I had a ClickOnce solution throwing this error. The app referenced a common "Libs" folder and contained a project reference to a Foo.dll. While none of the projects in the solution referenced the static copy of the Foo.dll in the "Libs" folder, some of the references in that folder did (ie: my solution had refs to Libs\Bar.dll which referenced Foo.dll.) Since the CO app pulled all the dependencies from Libs as well as their dependencies, both copies were going into the project. This was generating the error above.
I fixed the problem by moving my Libs\Foo.dll static version into a subfolder, Libs\Fix\Foo.dll. This change made the ClickOnce app use only the project version of the DLL and the error disappeared.
Deleting the DLL (where the error is occurred) and re-building the solution fixed my problem. Thanks
When this happened to me with the WindowsAPICodePack after I updated it, I just rebuilt the solution.
Build-->Rebuild Solution
I encountered this problem after migrating an Excel Addin from packages.config to PackageReference. Seems to be related to this issue.
The following works as a crude workaround if you're not using ClickOnce (it will omit all the dependency information from the .manifest file):
Unload project, edit .csproj
Find the section looking like this:
<!-- Include additional build rules for an Office application add-in. -->
<Import Project="$(VSToolsPath)\OfficeTools\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.targets" Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' != ''" />
Edit a renamed copy of the referenced .targets file (in my case, the file resolved to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\OfficeTools\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.targets and I made a copy Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office_FIX.targets in the same folder - didn't check if it works from a different folder).
Find the GenerateApplicationManifest element and change its attribute Dependencies="#(DependenciesForGam)" to Dependencies="".
Change the section found in 2. to reference your edited .targets file instead.
This will have to be repeated whenever the version of the .targets file shipped with VS is updated (or you won't get the updates), but I'm hoping it will be fixed soon...
There were too many projects in my solution to go through and individually update so I fixed this by:
Right-clicking my solution and selecting 'Manage NuGet Packages for Solution...'
Going to the Updates tab
Finding the affected package and selecting Update
Clicked OK and this brought all instances of the package up to date
Unloading and reloading the problem project solved it for me.
I went to publish, application files, found the dll throwing the error changed it to 'Include' from 'Include (Auto)'. I can now publish.
Is your assembly properly signed?
To check this, press Alt+Enter on your project (or right click, then Properties). Go to "Signing". Verify that the check box "Sign the assembly" is checked and the strong name key file is selected and "Delay sign only" is unchecked.
Now Here is a different approach to the problem:
Right click on the project and select the 'Unload Project' option. You will notice you project becomes unavailable.
Right click on the unavailable project and select the 'Edit' option.
Scroll down to the ' < ItemGroup > ' tag that contains all the resource tags.
Now go to the reference that has been displayed on the error list, you will notice it it uses a single tag (i.e. < Reference Include="assemble_name_here, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral" / >).
Change that to look as follows:
.
<Reference Include="assemble_name_here, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, processorArchitecture=MSIL" >
< Private > True < / Private >
< HintPath > path_here\assemble_name_here.dll < / HintPath >
< / Reference >
Save your changes, Right click on the unavailable project again and click on the 'Reload Project' option, then build.
This is caused when you change the version of the .dll that is referenced. You need to delete all items, or the .dll in the target build folder.
I got the similar compiler error. Once I add the dependent project of the dll file to the solution, issue resolved.
If your main project using some library projects and have reference to them, you can cause this problem if your project reference to a assembly dll file instead to library project when you change something in your library project (ex: rename a class).
You can check all references to your main project by view in Object Browser window (menu View->Object Browser). A reference to a dll file always has a version number. Ex: TestLib [1.0.0.0]
Solution: delete the current reference of your main project to the library project and add reference to that library project again.
After trying most of the solutions here, I finally just added a reference to the project from the click once project, this changed it to Include (Auto) from Include and it finally worked.
What helped me was I went onto Package Manager Solution and looked at the installed package which was causing the issue. I saw that several projects were referencing the same package but different versions. I aligned them based on my needs and it worked.
I had this in a solution w/ 6 projects.
One of my projects was referring to the named assembly as a file reference. The others were all pointing to the project reference.
I usually get a different error in these cases.
My solution was to delete the named assembly anywhere it was referenced and add it back.
Once I worked through the project, ths problem disappeared.
Before doing this, I tried cleaning the solution as well as making sure none of the projects were signed.
hope it helps someone...
If its a mismatch of a dependencies dependencies, go to the NuGet package manager at the solution level and check the Update and Consolidate tabs, harmonise it all.
I recently hit this problem. In my case, I have NuGet packages on different assemblies. What I had was different versions of the same NuGet packages associated with my own assemblies.
My solution was to use the NuGet package manager upon the Solution, as opposed to the individual projects. This enables a "consolidation" option, where you can upgrade your NuGet packages across as many projects as you want - so they all reference the same version of the assembly.
When I did the consolidations, the build failure disappeared.
I also bump into kind of problem, all I just had to do is delete the .dll (can be found in reference) that causing the error and add it again.
Works like a charm.
Try with update-package -reinstall -ignoredependencies
Just go to Publish -> Application File -> And change the effected dll publish status from prerequisite to include!
This worked for me!
In my case, I upgraded the project to .net 4.7.2 but still built in old visual studio version (2015).
When i built the project in VS 2019, the build failure disappeared.
I'm getting the following error:
error CS1704: An assembly with the same simple name
'Interop.xxx.dll, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=null has already been imported. Try removing one of the
references or sign them to enable side-by-side.
Everything I've seen says that I am referencing two assemblies with the same name and I need to remove one of them. However, I've checked and I'm only referencing it once.
This also only happens when I'm using msbuild to build from the command line on my dev box. If I build through Visual Studio or do a clean build on our CI server I don't see this error.
I've tried completely removing all of my source and building from scratch to more closely resemble the build machine but no luck.
So it looks like I can't read today!
The project had a reference to the Interop and a COM reference that generated the "same" interop. So there were two and I just didn't search very well. I still don't understand why it worked in other places but this did fix it.
In the Error List window, the project that was triggering this error was listed in the Project column. I got around the error by doing the following:
I unloaded the listed project (right-click => Unload Project)
Opened the XML for edit (right-click the unloaded project => Edit {ProjectName.csproj}).
Searched for the offending .dll, and noticed it was listed multiple times in the XML
Removed the entire Reference tag related to the offending dll, and did so for every copy of the reference except the first one listed
The reason it was listed multiple times was because several referenced libraries used that dll. This shouldn't be a problem, in and of itself, so I'm not sure what caused this error to suddenly pop up for me. I'll update this answer if I figure that out.
In my case the duplicate entry was caused by a NuGet package reference and a direct file reference to the same assembly in the packages folder. I am not sure how the project got into this state, but unloading the project and searching the XML file for the offending assembly name resolved the issue for me.
Note that in my case this started happening after updating a NuGet package to a newer version with no other changes to the project, so this maybe caused by a bug in NuGet.
If this is a web project, are there any strong-named references to the other version there? Those won't show up as a project dependency, but will cause a run-time error like you describe. Hope that helps
I had this problem but in my case, I had an old copy placed in the current folder for the EXE loading my component, that was loaded together with the current one, that was loaded by hand from my projects folder. Deleting that old copy solved my problem.
I used Debug > Windows > Modules window to see which modules were loaded at that time and that solved my problem.
For others facing the same as me: if building via command line using property AssemblyName, it will overwrite all assemblies generated by all solution projects - in other words, you will end up with (N -1) assemblies named the same where N is the no. of projects - the startup one (which generally will generate an exe).
This happens because all build command line properties are global and overwrite any project-specific setting. See this and this.
From the msdn link mentioned above:
Global properties are properties that are set by using the
/property switch on the command line, or properties that are set by
the integrated development environment (IDE) before a project is
built. These global properties are applied to all projects that are
built by using this Engine.
In my specific case, where Jenkins is the CI tool, I ended up adding a windows batch command at the end to rename the .exe only to what I originally intended when passing the AssemblyName parameter.
For those developing UWP projects that have project references that include specifically the Microsoft.Windows.SDK.Contracts nuget package (or other dependencies that reference it), this is a common error when the version of the SDK contracts is targeting a different version of the runtime to how your project is configured.
For instance, when targeting Windows 10, version 1903:
Any dependencies or reference projects should target or at least support the same runtime version.
it is common thought process to update all NuGet packages when a new stable version is available, but this is not always a helpful practise on its own. Just because a new stable version of a package is available does not mean that you should or that you can easily use that version.
Even though this package for SDK contracts has a stable update, it is not compatible with my main project configuration, Nuget does not know this so it allows the update.
This package is specifically designed to provide windows dlls for project types that DO NOT have windows platform targeting support, it copies the same dlls that are included by the UWP targeting config. By installing later versions of the package the references from the satellite project will be included in the output along with those provided due to platform targeting, ultimately causing OPs error.
There are similar SDK and targeting packs for Windows IoT Device Runtimes, this information should help you identify and resolve those issues if you get stuck on this issue as my team often does :)
In my case, the issue was on wrong characters in the ProjectReference section of my csproj file.
Background
I have a project that references another library I maintain, which I publish as a NuGet package.
Whenever I make changes to my library, I usually reference the local dll in my project to test and make sure everything looks good before I publish the library as a NuGet package.
When testing, I just comment out the PackageReference line and uncomment the ProjectReference one so it references my local dll, like so:
<ProjectReference Include="..\..\my-class-library\MyClassLibrary.csproj" />
<!--<PackageReference="MyClassLibrary" Version="2.0.1"/>-->
Root cause
I had the slashes inverted, so I was using / rather than \ in the path, like so:
<ProjectReference Include="../../my-class-library/MyClassLibrary.csproj" />
Once corrected, the issue went away.
Try this instead: remove Interop.xx.dll from the reference section in Solution Explorer and Rebuild the project
In our case this error was shown when we had a duplicate reference inside the .csproj file (although I have no idea how this happened).
The difference to an already posted answer is that, in our case, one was a project reference and another one was direct binary reference to a dll.
Once we removed one of those, project correctly compiled.