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I had some unusual errors on a relatively small Unity project with six c# scripts written in Visual Studio. It was all working fine, and I came back to it after the weekend. Upon opening, there were 18 new errors which were preventing the code from compiling and I spent several hours trying to figure out what was going on.
The main errors were saying things like Type or namespace name 'GUIColorOverride' could not be found and associated script cannot be loaded, assign a valid script, even though they were linked and I could see the scripts had no errors in Visual Studio. I even did a full Unity uninstall and rebooted, then a clean install. This didn't fix it.
I tried a number of other things such as backing up the scripts from the assets folder and then deleting them. Opening the project and pasting them back in as 'clean' new scripts. This didn't work. I am using Unity's Cloud Collab so was even able to use this to go back to earlier pushes of the project (which had all worked). Nope.
Solved it! The issue was that the local Projects folder I had been using was connected to Google Backup and Sync. This messed with some of the files in some of the folders in PackageCache in Particular in the MyProject > Library > PackageCache > com.unity.timeline#1.2.13 > Editor > directory.
[FIX] To fix and prevent this from happening in future, I turned off Google Backup and Sync for my Unity Project(s), and am now exclusively using Unity Collab and Git. Using the specific errors that were showing in the Unity console, I located the exact path of the Unity-created files that were causing these errors in my broken project, and replaced them with the same files from a working project. This fixed all of the errors. There must have been some corrupted or partially synced files in these folders which caused Unity to have a tantrum. Hope that helps someone!
You should exclude these from the Backup!
Basically you can exclude anything that would also be excluded from git via e.g. this "official" .gitignore file for Unity projects.
Any file and folder listed here will be regenerated by Unity automatically and should not appear in any version control / Backup.
The entire Library folder in particular is part of it since its content changes quite rapidly and is recompiled every time you change a script, install/remove a package etc.
Checkout Unity Manual - Behind the Scenes for more information in detail
When backing up a project, or adding a project to a Version Control Repository, you should include the main Unity project folder, containing both the Assets
and ProjectSettings folders. All the information in these folders is crucial to the way Unity works. You should omit the Library and Temp folders for backup purposes.
To solve an already present issue with the Library folder you can most of the times fix it by simply closing Unity, deleting the entire Library folder via your file browser and opnening Unity again → Unity will rebuild the Library
In my project I created a Plugins folder (named it "Plugins", of course) and in it I have three plugins that get imported from my c++ project. Every time I hit build content I have my dlls show up into the "Plugins" folder.
The things is that I get a DllNotFoundExeption every time I run the game and it points to two out of my three plugins. Me and my teammates found online that you can solve this by placing the dlls in the the Assets folder. We did so, and as luck would have it, that solved it, by moving the two dlls that were giving us the error it solved it. We left the one dlls that was fine where it was inside the Plugins folder.
But something was nagging at the back of my head that this would not solve our entire issue, and I was right. When w build the game and create our executable only one dll gets built, which is the only one that is within the Plugins folder.
My question is: how do I fix my other two dlls so I don't get that DllNotFoundExeption error?
UPDATED REPORT I found that the one dll that works is done in C# while the other two that don't seem to work inside the Plugins folder are made in C++.
So my new question is how do I get Unity to accept those two dlls within the Plugins folder, or is that not possible for c++ plugins?
Note that normally C++ Native Plugins are for Unity Pro only. That aside, there are some other ways to get it to work without a pro license as shown here.
I have a visual studio solution.
I have many projects in the solution.
There is one main project which acts as the start up and uses other projects.
There is one project say "ProjectX". Its reference is added to main project.
The ProjectX references another .NET dll (say abc.dll) that isn't part of the solution.
Now this abc.dll should be copied to bin/debug folder of main project, but it isn't getting copied there. Why is it not getting copied, any known reasons ?
I found that if ProjectX referenced the abc.dll but didn't directly use any of the types DEFINED in abc.dll, then abc.dll would NOT be copied to the main output folder. (It would be copied to the ProjectX output folder, to make it extra-confusing.)
So, if you're not explicitly using any of the types from abc.dll anywhere in ProjectX, then put a dummy declaration somewhere in one of the files in ProjectX.
AbcDll.AnyClass dummy006; // this will be enough to cause the DLL to be copied
You don't need to do this for every class -- just once will be enough to make the DLL copy and everything work as expected.
Addendum: Note that this may work for debug mode, but NOT for release. See #nvirth's answer for details.
Just a sidenote to Overlord Zurg's answer.
I've added the dummy reference this way, and it worked in Debug mode:
public class DummyClass
{
private static void Dummy()
{
var dummy = typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass);
}
}
But in Release mode, the dependent dll still did not get copied.
This worked however:
public class DummyClass
{
private static void Dummy()
{
Action<Type> noop = _ => {};
var dummy = typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass);
noop(dummy);
}
}
This infomation actually costed me hours to figure out, so I thought I share it.
Yes, you'll need to set Copy Local to true. However, I'm pretty sure you'll also need to reference that assembly from the main project and set Copy Local to true as well - it doesn't just get copied from a dependent assembly.
You can get to the Copy Local property by clicking on the assembly under References and pressing F4.
It looks slick when you make it an assembly attribute
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Assembly)]
public class ForceAssemblyReference: Attribute
{
public ForceAssemblyReference(Type forcedType)
{
//not sure if these two lines are required since
//the type is passed to constructor as parameter,
//thus effectively being used
Action<Type> noop = _ => { };
noop(forcedType);
}
}
The usage will be:
[assembly: ForceAssemblyReference(typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass))]
Ran into this same issue. Background info: before building, I had added a new Project X to the solution. Project Y depended on Project X and Project A, B, C depended on Project Y.
Build errors were that Project A, B, C, Y, and X dlls could not be found.
Root cause was that newly created Project X targeted .NET 4.5 while the rest of the solution projects targeted .NET 4.5.1. Project X didn't build causing the rest of the Projects to not build either.
Make sure any newly added Projects target the same .NET version as the rest of the solution.
Not sure if this helps but for me, many times I reference a DLL (which automatically adds it to the bin folder of course). However that DLL might need additional DLLs (depending on what functions I'm using). I do NOT want to reference those in my Project because they just simply need to end up in the same folder as the DLL I am actually using.
I accomplish this in Visual Studio by "Adding an existing file". You should be able to add it anywhere except the Add_data folder. personally I just add it to the root.
Then change the properties of that file to ...
Build Action = None (having this set to something like Content actually copies the "root" version to the root, plus a copy in the Bin).
Copy to output folder = Copy if Newer (Basically puts it in the BIN folder only if it is missing, but doesn't do it after that)
When I publish.. my added DLL's only exists in the BIN folder and nowhere else in the Publish location (which is what I want).
You could also check to make sure the DLLs you're looking for aren't included in the GAC. I believe Visual Studio is being smart about not copying those files if it already exists in the GAC on the build machine.
I recently ran in this situation where I'd been testing an SSIS package that needed assemblies to exist in the GAC. I'd since forgotten that and was wondering why those DLLs weren't coming out during a build.
To check what's in the GAC (from a Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt):
gacutil -l
Or output to a file to make it easier to read:
gacutil -l > output.txt
notepad.exe output.txt
To remove an assembly:
gacutil -u MyProjectAssemblyName
I should also note, that once I removed the files from the GAC they were correctly output in the \bin directory after a build (Even for assemblies that were not directly referenced in the root project). This was on Visual Studio 2013 Update 5.
If you right Click the referenced assembly, you will see a property called Copy Local. If Copy Local is set to true, then the assembly should be included in the bin. However, there seams to be a problem with Visual studio, that sometimes it does not include the referenced dll in the bin folder... this is the workaround that worked for me:
In my case, it was the stupidest thing, caused by a default behavior of TFS/VS that I disagree with.
Since adding the dll as a reference to the main project did not work, I decided to add it as an "Existing Item", with Copy Local = Always. Even then the file was not there.
Turns out that, even though the file is present on the VS Solution and everything compiled both locally and on the server, VS/TFS did not add actually add the file to source control. It was not included on the "Pending Changes" at all. I had to manually go to the Source Control Explorer and explicitly click on the "Add items to folder" icon.
Stupid because I've been developing for 15 years in VS. I've run into this before, I just did not remember and somehow I missed it because everything still compiled because of the file being a regular reference, but the file that was added as Existing Item was not being copied because it did not exist on the source control server.
I hope this saves someone some time, since I lost 2 days of my life to this.
Issue:
Encountered with a similar issue for a NuGet package DLL (Newtonsoft.json.dll) where the build output doesn't include the referenced DLL. But the compilation goes thru fine.
Fix:
Go through your projects in a text editor and look for references with "Private" tags in them. Like True or False. “Private” is a synonym for “Copy Local.” Somewhere in the actions, MSBuild is taking to locate dependencies, it’s finding your dependency somewhere else and deciding not to copy it.
So, go through each .csproj/.vbproj file and remove the tags manually. Rebuild, and everything works in both Visual Studio and MSBuild. Once you’ve got that working, you can go back in and update the to where you think they need to be.
Reference:
https://www.paraesthesia.com/archive/2008/02/13/what-to-do-if-copy-local-works-in-vs-but.aspx/
Make sure that the dependent DLL used by you does not have target .NET Framework higher than the target .NET framework of your project's Application.
You can check this by selecting your project, then press ALT+ENTER, then select Application from left side and then select Target Framework of your project.
Suppose,
dependent DLL Target Framework = 4.0 and
Application DLL Target Framework = 3.5 then change this to 4.0
Thank you!
This is a slight tweak on nvirth's example
internal class DummyClass
{
private static void Dummy()
{
Noop(typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass));
}
private static void Noop(Type _) { }
}
I would do add it to Postbuild events to copy necessary libraries to the output directories. Something like XCopy pathtolibraries targetdirectory
You can find them on project properties -> Build Events.
TLDR; Visual Studio 2019 may simply need a restart.
I encountered this situation using projects based on Microsoft.NET.Sdk project.
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
Specifically:
Project1: targets .netstandard2.1
references Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console via Nuget
Project2: targets .netstandard2.1
references Project1 via a Project reference
Project2Tests: targets .netcoreapp3.1
references Project2 via a Project reference
At test execution, I received the error messaging indicating that Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console could not be found, and it was indeed not in the output directory.
I decided to work around the issue by adding Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console to Project2, only to discover that Visual Studio's Nuget Manager did not list Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console as installed in Project1, despite it's presence in the Project1.csproj file.
A simple shut down and restart of Visual Studio resolved the problem without the need to add an extra reference. Perhaps this will save someone 45 minutes of lost productivity :-)
You may set both the main project and ProjectX's build output path to the same folder, then you can get all the dlls you need in that folder.
NO NEED FOR DUMMY IN CODE
Just :
add a Reference to the Executeable Project
or/and ensure that the reference in the executeable project has "Copy Local" set to TRUE (which was my "fault") is seems that this "overwrote" the setting in the base referenced library-project...
Other than the common ones above, I had a multi-project solution to publish. Apparently some files target different frameworks.
So my solution: Properties > Specific Version (False)
Add the DLL as an existing item to one of the projects and it should be sorted
VS2019 V16.6.3
For me the problem was somehow the main .proj file ended up with an entry like this for the project whose DLL wasn't getting copied to the parent project bin folder:
<ProjectReference Include="Project B.csproj">
<Project>{blah blah}</Project>
<Name>Project B</Name>
<Private>True</Private>
</ProjectReference>
I manually deleted the line <Private>True</Private> and the DLL was then copied to the main project bin folder on every build of the main project.
If you go to the reference of the problem project in the references folder of the main project, click it and view properties there is a "Copy Local" setting. The private tag equates to this setting, but for me for some reason changing copy local had no effect on the private tag in the .proj file.
Annoyingly I didn't change the copy local value for the reference, no idea how it got set that way and another day wasted tracking down a stupid problem with VS.
Thanks to all the other answers that helped zone me in on the cause.
HTH
I had a similar issue in which a DLL I had included in the project as content and 'Copy always' set, wasn't being copied to the bin folder. I solved this by adding a dependentAssembly reference to the DLL in the app.config.
Hereis the situation:
I have a folder that contains library DLLs, which are not built as part of my solution - lets say it is .\libs.
I add references to these DLLs. I then build. Everything is fine.
If I then delete the libs folder and rebuild my solution, the compilation still succeeds! Weird - I would have expected compilation errors since the library dlls are not there!
But looking at the reference properties in Visual studio, I see that the reference path has been changed from .\libs\foo.dll to myproject\bin\Debug\foo.dll. So it is picking up the referenced DLL from its old build output.
If I open myproject.csproj in a text editor, I see that the HintPath of the reference is still .\libs\foo.dll. If I re-create the libs folder, visual studio still uses myproject\bin\Debug\foo.dll (it does not revert to the actual DLL I want!)
Is this expected behaviour?
Is there a way to stop this behaviour because it is causing me problems - especially when I want to rebuild myproject with different versions of the libs: half the time I find that I am using a different version than what I wanted.
This is not magic. Your DLL's Copy Local Property is probably set to true, that's all.
Setting it to false will get you the desired behaviour.
This is driving me crazy.
I have a rather large project that I am trying to modify. I noticed earlier that when I typed DbCommand, visual studio did not do any syntax highlighting on it, and I am using using System.Data.Common.
Even though nothing was highlighted, the project seemed to be running fine in my browser. So I decided to run the debugger to see if things were really working as they should be.
Every time the class that didn't do the highlighting is called I get the "the source file is different from when the module was built" message.
I cleaned the solution and rebuilt it several times, deleted tmp files, followed all the directions here Getting "The source file is different from when the module was built.", restarted the web server and still it tells me the source files are different when they clearly are not.
I cannot test any of the code I have written today because of this.
How can the source be different than the binary when I just complied
it?
Is there any way to knock some sense into visual studio, or am
I just missing something?
I got this issue running a console app where the source that was different was the source that had the entry-point (static void Main). Deleting the bin and obj directories and doing a full rebuild seemed to correct this, but every time I made a code change, it would go out-of-date again.
The reason I found for this was:
I had checked "Only build startup projects and dependencies on Run" (Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> Build and Run)
In Configuration Manager, my start-up project didn't have "Build" checked
(For #2 -> accessible via the toolbar under the 'Debug/Release' drop down list.)
I was just having this same problem, my projects were all in the same solution so they were using Project to Project references, so as one changed the others should have been updated. However it was not the case, I tried to build, rebuild, close VS2010, pulled a new copy from our source control. None of this worked, what I finally ended up trying was right clicking on the project and rebuilding each project individually. That updated the .dlls and .pdb files so I could debug through.
The issue here is that your dll and or your pdb files are not in sync.
Follow these steps
Just delete the bin directory from the project where the DLL is generated.
Re-build the project.
Remove reference from the project that make reference to the DLL.
Include again the reference.
Enjoy.
In addition to these answers I had the same issue while replacing new DLLs with old ones because of the wrong path. If you are still getting this error you may not refer the wrong path for the DLLs. Go to IIS manager and click the website which uses your DLLs. On the right window click Advanced Settings and go to path of the Physical Path folder on File Explorer and be sure that you are using this folder to replace your DLLs.
Some things for you to check:
Have you double checked your project references?
Do you have a Visual Studio started web server still running? Check the system tray and look for a page with a cog icon (you may have more than one):
(source: msdn.com)
Right click and close/exit it. You may have more than one. Can you debug your changes now?
Are you running the debug version but have only built the release version (or vice versa)?
Did the compile actually succeed? I know I've clicked through the "there were errors, do you want to continue anyway?" message a couple of times without realising.
With web services, the problem can be caused by using the Visual Studio "View in Browser" command. This places the service's DLL and PDB files in the bin and obj folders. When stepping into the web service from a client, somehow Visual Studio uses the PDB in the bin (or obj) folder, but it uses the DLL in the project's output build folder. There are a couple workarounds:
Try deleting the DLL and PDB files in the web service bin and obj files.
Try clicking "View in Browser" in Visual Studio.
If you previously got the source file mismatch error, Visual Studio might have added the filename to a black list. Check your solution properties. Choose "Common Properties -> Debug Source Files" on the left side of the dialog box. If your web service source files appear in the field "Do not look for these source files", delete them.
Unload the project that has the file that is causing the error.
Reload the project.
Fixed
I just had this issue.
I tried all the above, but only this worked:
delete the .pdb file for the solution.
delete the offending .obj files (for the file being reported out of sync)
build the solution.
This fixed the issue for all builds moving forward for me.
In Visual Studio 2017 deleting the hidden .vs folder in the resolved this issue for me.
This is how I fixed the problem in Visual Studio 2010:
1) Change the 'Solutions Configurations' option from "Debug" to "Release"
2) Start debugging
3) Stop debugging and switch the 'Solutions Configurations' option back to "Debug"
This worked for me. Step 3 is optional - it was working fine when I changed it to "Release" but I wanted to change it back.
My solution:
I had included an existing project from a different solution in a new solution file.
I did not notice that when the existing project was rebuilt, it was putting the final output into the NEW solution's output directory. I had a linker path defined to look into the OLD solution's output directory.
Switching my project to search in the new solution's output directory fixed this issue for me.
I had this problem, and it turns out I was running my console application as a windows application. Switching the output type back to console fixed the issue.
I had the same problem. To fix it I used the "Release Mode" to debug in VS2013. Which is sufficient for me, because I'm working in a node js\c++ addon.
My problem was that I had two projects in my solution. The second one was a test project used to call the first one. I had picked the path to the references from the bin folder's release folder.
So whenever I made a change to the first project's code and rebuilt it, it would update the dlls in the debug folder but the calling project was pointing to the release folder, giving me the error, "the source file is different from when the module was built."
Once I deleted the reference to the main project's dll in the release folder and set it to the dll in the debug folder, the issue went away.
In my case, the #Eliott's answer doesn't work.
To solve this problem I had Exclude/Include From Project my deficient file, andalso Clean and Rebuild the solution.
After these actions, my file with my last modifications and the debugger are restored.
I hope this help.
solution:-
the problem is:-
if your some projects in a solution , refer to some other projects,
then sometimes the dll of some projects, will not update automatically, whenever you build the solution,
some projects will have previous build dlls, not latest dlls
you have to go manually and copy the dll of latest build project into referenced project
I was using Visual Studio 2013 and I had an existing project under source control.
I had downloaded a fresh copy from source control to a new directory.
After making changes to the fresh copy, when building I received the error in question.
My solution:
1) Open Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config
2) Update virtualDirectory node with directory to the fresh copy and save.
My problem was that I had a webservice in the project and I changed the build path.
Restoring the default build path solved my issue.
I had this same problem and I followed the majority of the guidance in the other answers posted here, nothing seemed to work for me.
I eventually opened IIS and recycled the application pool for my web application. I have IIS version 8.5.9600, I right-clicked my web application, then: Deploy > Recycle > Recycle application pool > OK.
That seems to have fixed it, breakpoints now being hit as expected. I think that doing this along with deleting the bin and obj folders helped my situation.
Good luck!
I know this is an old question but I just had the same problem and wanted to post here in case it helps someone else. I got a new computer and the IT dept merged my old computer with the new one. When I set up TFS, I mapped a different local path than what I was previously using, to an additional internal drive. The old path still existed from the merged data on my hard drive so I could still build and run. My IIS paths were also pointing to the old directory. Once I updated IIS to the correct path, I was able to debug just fine. I also deleted the old directory for good measure.
I also experienced that. I just open the obj folder on the project and then open the debug folder delete the .pdb file and that's all.
This error also happens if you try to make changes to a source file that is not part of the project.
I was debugging a method from a .dll of another one of my projects, where Visual Studio had quite helpfully loaded the source because the .dll had been built on the same machine and it knew the path to the source. Obviously, changing such a file isn't going to do anything unless you rebuild the referenced project.
Delete all breakpoints.
Rebuild.
Done
At Visual Studio 2015, using C++, what fixed for me the the source file is different from when the module was built problem was
restart Visual Studio.
Check if the location you pointed to using mex() in Matlab is correct (contains lib and obj files which are modified to the last date you compiled the library in Visual studio).
If this is not the case:
Make sure you are compiling Visual studio in a mode that saves .lib files :
properties -> Config properties -> General -> Config type -> static library
properties -> Config properties -> General -> Target extension=.lib (instead of exe)
Make sure the output and intermediate directories match the Matlab directory in
properties -> Config properties -> General -> Output directory
properties -> Config properties -> General -> Intermediate directory
I get this issue when debugging sometimes w/ Visual Studio but when the application is served by IIS. (we have to develop in this form for some complicated reasons that have to do with how the original developer setup this project.)
When I change the file and rebuild, that fixes it a lot of the time. I know that sounds silly, but I was just trying to debug some code to see why it's doing something weird when I haven't changed it in a while, and I tried a dozen things from this page, but it was fixed just by changing the file..
In my case, the problem was that the debugger exe path was pointing to a net5.0 bin folder. I am using net6.0, so I should've updated the exe path back when I updated the target framework. Works fine now.
Debug-> start without debugging.
This option worked for me. Hope this helps!