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My web projectA references my projectB that references Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Client that references Newtonsoft.Json assembly. It is not referenced anywhere else. The problem was that on my deployment server Newtonsoft.Json was not copied to bin directory once run as 

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe .\src\path.to.Web.projectA.csproj /t:Rebuild /p:Configuration=Release

And it eventually broke with this exception:

FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Newtonsoft.Json, Version=7.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=30ad4fe6b2a6aeed' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

I've resolved it by adding a stub code to projectB: 

string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new Something());

Can someone describe why it was not copied before?

Note. These questions do not seem to answer the question or out of date or I miss something?

Community
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Artyom
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1 Answers1

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I made a comment under Alex's blog post,

It does not work for me when the indirect dependency comes from NuGet packages (Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Client and Newtonsoft.Json). But the tip described in http://www.paraesthesia.com/archive/2014/05/09/recursively-copying-indirect-project-dependencies-in-msbuild.aspx/ solves the issue. I think it uses a more suitable indirect dependency detection approach.

If you follow that solution, then there is no need to use the stub at all.

About why the dll is not copied over, it has been narrowed down to an MSBuild issue (or more as there are too many reports related), which Microsoft claims won't fix on Connect,

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/797034/msbuild-handles-direct-and-transitive-references-differently-for-unused-assembly-references

Lex Li
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