CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studiomsbuild
GaryW
GaryW

Reputation: 67

Why does Visual Studio 2019 deletes my referenced assemblies after the build?

I have a Visual Studio 2019 solution that I inherited from someone else with multiple projects. I'm trying to build one of the projects in particular. I have a reference to an external assembly with "copy local" set to true.

When I build my project, my referenced assembly gets copied over tot he output folder but then it gets deleted.

I know it gets copied because I have tried using the post build event "dir $(TargetDir)" and it shows the dll.

Any idea why it would get deleted afterward?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 712

Answers (2)

GaryW
GaryW

Reputation: 67

The problem was caused by by these lines in my csproj file:

<Target AfterTargets="AfterBuild;NonWinFodyTarget" Name="CleanReferenceCopyLocalPaths">
    <Delete Files="@(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths->'$(OutDir)%(DestinationSubDirectory)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />
  </Target>

The solution was using Fody to weave the assemblies. I had removed the weaving, but this line in the csproj file was a left over from the use of Fody.

Upvotes: 1

Mr Qian
Mr Qian

Reputation: 23780

The issue is that you have used some nuget packages like Costura.Fody which could merge your specific external assembly into the main output file while it is set to Copy Local True.

So please check if your FodyWeavers.xml file has any merge operation of your external assembly.

In my side, I have an external assembly called ClassLibrary22.dll and set it to CopyLocal to true.

enter image description here

And add these on FodyWeavers.xml file:

enter image description here

So the assembly ClassLibrary22.dll will be merged into the main project exe or dll output file and did not exist under output folder. That is the cause.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions