Develop Reference

VSTest.Console.exe Could not load file or assembly Microsoft.TestPlatform.CoreUtilities

I'm trying to set up a C# project with the latest version of Visual Studio, 2022; this is with .Net 6 on Windows 10. It's a simple console program, and I've set up the project and a corresponding unit test project basically following the steps described in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/test/walkthrough-creating-and-running-unit-tests-for-managed-code?view=vs-2022 so I've got something isomorphic to that tutorial project.
And the unit tests work fine when run from within Visual Studio.
Now I want to also run them from the command line.
vstest.console bin\Debug\net6.0\foo.dll
gives
Testhost process exited with error: Unhandled exception. System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.TestPlatform.CoreUtilities, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: 'Microsoft.TestPlatform.CoreUtilities, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestPlatform.TestHost.Program.Main(String[] args)
. Please check the diagnostic logs for more information.
Looks like the toolchain is failing to find one of its own libraries? Is there some option I need to be specifying?

Make sure that foo.dll is the project which contain the tests and reference MSTest.TestFramework if you follow convention naming, this should be fooTests.dll
vstest.console bin\Debug\net6.0\fooTests.dll
in the example you mention the following line will throw error
vstest.console ..\BankTests\bin\Debug\net6.0\Bank.dll
While this will run normally
vstest.console ..\BankTests\bin\Debug\net6.0\BankTests.dll

After upgrading from .Net 5 to .Net 6, I had to face the same issue.
Add the following two lines to your .csproj file to fix the issue.
<CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>false</CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>
<GenerateRuntimeConfigDevFile>true</GenerateRuntimeConfigDevFile>
Example:

NUnit Tests won't run because of "System.IO.FileNotFoundException : Could not load file or assembly X"

I'm using Visual Basic .Net, .NET-Verion 4.6.1, VS 2019 Community.
I want to include Unittests in my project so I istalled NUnit, created a Test-Project, imported the project I want to test, call a class in the project and I get:
SetUp failed for test fixture *Project*_Test.*Class*_Test
System.IO.FileNotFoundException : Could not load file or assembly 'System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=cc7b13ffcd2ddd51'. The system can't find the required file.
So I searched around and installed the Config-Manager with Nuget-Console -> didn't do anything.
... copied the Config-Manager.dll from the project to my test-project -> different fileNotFound exception. This time it wants the next file.
So I debugged and saw, that the error originates on this line of code
Private ReadOnly STR_CONNECTION_STRING As String = DirectCast(New Global.System.Configuration.AppSettingsReader().GetValue("*DB_Conn_String*", GetType(String)), String)
How do I remove this error? The line of code doesn't seem to be the problem, since the test can't find the classes in the first place.
Thx for the help
Daedra

Okay, I spend a good day to figure this out:
If you use .NET-Framework for the project, you want to write tests for, you don't want to go
Add
-> New Project
-> NUnit Test (.Net-Core)
You run into unlimited problems with .NET-Core vs .NET-Framework.
Instead do
Add
-> New Project
-> Class-Library (.NET-Framework)
Then go to NuGet and install NUnit and NUnit3TestAdapter.
I simply copied my already written tests and they worked instantly.
Hope this helps someone someday ^~^
Cheers Daedra

Desktop application + SQLite - Version=1.0.65.0 vs. Version 1.0.104.0

I am currently writing a desktop application (nothing hosted in IIS or similar, .NET 4.5.2) which makes use of SQLite and the Entity Provider for SQLite. For this to get it to work in Visual Studio, I had to install the 1.0.65.0 version package from the SQLite site to get the EF6 provider for SQLite inside Visual Studio. This worked as expected ad as far as I understood, this is also the only way this can be done.
For my application, I would like to use the current version which is 1.0.104.0 (again, info from the sqlite page). I have successfully added the Nuget package for this version to my application and when I look into the references tab, I can see System.Data.SQLite, System.Data.SQLite.EF6 and System.Data.SQLite.Linq, all with the version 1.0.104.0 and Specific Version set to True. Copy Local is set to true for all three of them.
So now when I run my application and get to the line:
using (var ctx = new SmtAoiLookupEntities())
{
foreach (var lu in ctx.Lookups.Where(d=>!string.IsNullOrEmpty(d.Aoi)))
{
...
}
}
I get the following error message:
An exception of type 'System.IO.FileLoadException' occurred in mscorlib.dll and wasn't handled before a managed/native boundary
Additional information: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Data.SQLite, Version=1.0.65.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=db937bc2d44ff139' or one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)
From this, I understand that my application tries to load version 1.0.65.0, although all my references point to 1.0.104.0. I have absolutely no idea where my application gets the idea that I want to load 1.0.65.0. I even did a find in files to catch any reference to "1.0.65" with absolutely no results.
I used
gacutil -l System.Data.SQLite
to see which Assemblies are stored in the GAC -> Version 1.0.104.0
Now, this appears only to happen when I run the application from within Visual Studio; If I run the application outside Visual Studio as an executable I get a different error when saving the context. It appears that this is an application error and not related to the assembly version problem. I have also tried setting the application to a 32bit application, the issue stays the same.
The main issue: I would like to be able to debug the application inside Visual Studio, otherwise this could become quite cumbersome. Any ideas how I tell Visual Studio not to load the 1.0.65.0 libs?

A project in your solution is still pointing to previous SQLite version. In my case it was the project which file was throwing the error. Making sure every project in the solution has the updated package version solved the problem for me.

Silverlight 5 VS 2012 Unit Tests

For last couple hours i have been trying to generate a Unit Test for a Silverlight application.
A number of posts refer to a "Silverlight Unit Test Project" which is part of the Silverlight Toolkit. But I downloaded the toolkit and still do not have the Test Project, it seems to be only available in VS 2010?
I have added a "Silverlight Class Library" project and added references to:
Microsoft.Silverlight.Testing
Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTesting.Silverlight
and the following TestClass:
using Microsoft.Silverlight.Testing;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
namespace UnitTesting
{
[TestClass]
public class Class
{
[TestMethod]
public void TestMethod()
{
.....
}
}
}
But there are no tests being discovered by Visual Studio 2012 Test Explorer. Even after re-build of solution and restart of application.
Anyone have any ideas? Is this even possible?

This link has the answer that worked for me:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/5e991b0d-8061-4c4e-a17d-82b4abd58d6c/vs-2012-silverlight-unittest
I recommend starting a new Silverlight project and installing the
SilverlightToolkit-Testing NuGet package. In your test files, put in
usings for Microsoft.Silverlight.Testing and
Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting and use regular
[TestClass] and [TestMethod] attributes. To run them, you can use the
Toolkit test runner by putting RootVisual =
UnitTestSystem.CreateTestPage(); in your App.Application_Startup(),
use Silverlight Unit Test Adapter (which currently is at v0.0.1 and
doesn't really work), or (the best approach by far) install ReSharper
and the AgUnit plugin.

To complete this thread,
The Silverlight DLLS are located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v5.0\Toolkit\dec11\Testing
I could not get Resharper 7.1 to run the tests but this library helped. You will need to extract using 7-zip so that the DLLS are not blocked. Then restart Visual Studio 2012 and Resharper will run your unit tests.

I believe that you need to install the Silverlight Unit Test Adapter to get the tests to show up in Test Explorer
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/caca1e81-becb-41e4-9110-bc247f3f400b?SRC=VSIDE

I was able to run some tests:
Given Visual Studio 2012 Professional(with test runner).
Create class library targeting .NET 4.5 with name like MyProject.Tests.
Reference C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies\Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework.dll or from your location.
Add test as usual test for .NET 4.5.
Add project reference to MyProject - project targeting Silverlight 5.
Add some tests. Build. May get error of missing reference:
Error 12 The type 'System.Xml.Serialization.IXmlSerializable' is defined in an assembly that is not referenced. You must add a reference to assembly 'System.Xml, Version=5.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e'
Reference C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\Silverlight\v5.0\System.Xml.dll
Build and get same error. Open *.csproj and ensure hint path:
xml
<Reference Include="System.Xml">
<HintPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\Silverlight\v5.0\System.Xml.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
Run test, e.g. via right click on TestMethod -> Run Tests. May get error:
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Windows, Version=5.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.
To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.
Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.
To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].
Fix is:
<Reference Include="System.Windows">
<HintPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\Silverlight\v5.0\System.Windows.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
Notes:
Recall that Silverlight 5 assemblies are in the same format as .NET 4.5.
Test fail because .NET 4.5 assemblies are default for project, we need to override via HintPath. I think there may be other way via MSBuild scripts modification and/or assembly binding redirection.
.NET core assemblies are loaded from 4.5, if these differ from Silverlight things may fail. I hope not.
Features depending on Silverlight hosting runtime may fail. Like showing Silverlight window or access HTML DOM. Which is good indicators to refactor code to be Silverlight agnostic. Possible error:
Test Outcome: Failed
Result Message:
System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'agcore': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)
Result StackTrace:
at MS.Internal.XcpImports.Application_GetCurrentNative(IntPtr context, IntPtr& obj)
at MS.Internal.XcpImports.Application_GetCurrent(IntPtr& pApp)
at System.Windows.Application.get_Current()
indicates need to load ActiveX runtime for SL into process.
Referencing Silverlight Toolkit versions of testing assemblies(with [TestMethod] attribute inside) instead of .NET one leads to issue that tests are visible, but not run.

Visual Studio 2010 Setup Project Settings

I have a solution that contains three projects; UI (winforms), Business Layer and Data Access Layer, and I have created a setup project. I have added UI project as a primary output, and other two projects (actually dlls) automatically added to application folder and these two projects appears under the Detected Dependencies folder in the solution.
After building the solution, I have installed the program. When I run the program, I get the following error:
"Could not load file or assembly 'xxxBL', Version = 1.0.0.0 Culture = neutral, PublicKey Token = null or one of its dependencies." What am I doing wrong?

First make sure the dll that failed to load is actually in the search path of your Application. If it is, run the Dependency Walker on the dll that failed to load to see why it failed to load. Like the error message says it is possible that one of the dll's dependencies failed to load. For instance, a common mistake occurs if you deploy a debug version of your dll. It would work on your development machine since it most likely would have whaterver SDK you used already installed, but on a fresh machine it would fail to load because the debug dlls are not installed. The Dependency Walker will allow you to find this sort of problem.