Could not load file or assembly Microsoft Web Infrastructure

Question

I tried to upload my web site to a server  It was working fine with my local host  so I uploaded everything in my localhost wwwroot folder to the server and changed the connection string   But there is this error    Exception information       Exception type  InvalidOperationException      Exception message  The pre-application start initialization method Start on type RouteDebug PreApplicationStart threw an exception with the following error message  Could not load file or assembly  Microsoft Web Infrastructure  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31bf3856ad364e35  or one of its dependencies  The system cannot find the file specified      at System Web Compilation BuildManager InvokePreStartInitMethods ICollection 1 methods     at System Web Compilation BuildManager CallPreStartInitMethods      at System Web Hosting HostingEnvironment Initialize ApplicationManager appManager  IApplicationHost appHost  IConfigMapPathFactory configMapPathFactory  HostingEnvironmentParameters hostingParameters  PolicyLevel policyLevel  Exception appDomainCreationException   Could not load file or assembly  Microsoft Web Infrastructure  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31bf3856ad364e35  or one of its dependencies  The system cannot find the file specified     at RouteDebug PreApplicationStart Start     The project was nopcommerce   What should be done to resolve this error

User · Answer

Experienced this issue on new Windows 10 machine on VS2015 with an existing project. Package Manager 3.4.4. Restore packages enabled.

The restore doesn't seem to work completely. Had to run the following on the Package Manager Command line

Update-Package -ProjectName "YourProjectName" -Id Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure -Reinstall

This made the following changes to my solution file which the restore did NOT do.

<Reference Include="Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
  <HintPath>..\packages\Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.1.0.0.0\lib\net40\Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.dll</HintPath>
  <Private>True</Private>
</Reference>

Just adding the above elements to the ItemGroup section in you solution file will ALSO solve the issue provided that ..\packages\Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.1.0.0.0\lib\net40\Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.dll exist.

Easier to just do the -Reinstall but good to understand what it does differently to the package restore.

User · Answer

Install AspNetMVC3ToolsUpdateSetup downloaded from  here  would solve this problem without adding reference

User · Answer

In some cases cleaning the project solution  physically removing bin  and obj  and rebuilding would resolve such errors  This could happen when  for example  some packages and references being installed added and then removed  leaving some artifacts behind    It happened to me with Microsoft Web Infrastructure  initially  the project didn t require that assembly  After some experiments  the net effect of which was supposed to be zero at the end  I got this exception  Above steps resolved it without the need to install unused dependency

User · Answer

Try installing Web Platform from https   www microsoft com web platform   Hope it helps

User · Answer

It turns out after doing a Reference Cleaning  it removed Microsoft Web Infrastructure  but not from the packages config file  After trying to add it again using the Package Manager Console  Visual Studio says that it is already installed which is false because it was removed   I then removed the line of code in the packages config file    lt package id  Microsoft Web Infrastructure  version  1 0 0 0  targetFramework  net45    gt    and ran the command again  PM gt  Install-Package Microsoft Web Infrastructure   After this  now it works fine

User · Answer

Here was my scenario   I had a multi project solution containing projects A  B  C    N   Project B was a code library that contained a factory for selectlist objects   The project would run as expected in development  but when publishing to our test environment I was getting the error you were encountering   Could not load file or assembly  Microsoft Web Infrastructure  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31bf3856ad364e35  or one of its dependencies  The system cannot find the file specified    What had happened was through nuget package manager  I had accidentally installed  Microsoft ASP NET MVC  which installed dependencies for    Microsoft AspNet Razor Microsoft AspNet WebPages   Low and behold  Microsoft AspNet WebPages depends on  Microsoft Web Infrastructure    My solution was uninstalling the three packages mentioned above  MVC  Razor  WebPages  then right click references   add reference   Assemblies   Extensions   System Web MVC

User · Answer

You need to download the ASP NET MVC framework on the server hosting your application  It s a quick fix just download and install from here  This is the MVC 3 framework http   www asp net mvc mvc3   then boom you are good to go

User · Answer

You will need to include the dll with your project and add a reference to it as well   Here is a link to a similar issue already on Stack  MVC3 Deployment Dependency Problems

User · Answer

So  here s what worked for me using VS2019   I was getting this error trying to update Nuget packages on one project while the Microsoft Web Infrastructure was in a different project in the same solution   I had to delete the Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0 0 folder from my project s Packages folder   Reinstalled it via nuget and then everything started working again   Crazy stuff

User · Answer

I don t know what happened with my project but it referenced the wrong path to the DLL  Nuget installed it properly and it was indeed on my file system along with the other packages but just referenced incorrectly    The packages folder exists two directories up from my project and it was only going up one by starting the path with    packages   I changed the path to start with       packages  and it fixed my problem

User · Answer

On my machine the Nuget dependency wasn t downloaded correctly  the lib folder inside the nuget package didn t exist  hence the error    Before    I renamed the Nuget Package in the packages folder and Nuget redownloaded it correctly with the necessary lib folder   After

User · Answer

Resharper detected Microsoft Web Infrastructure as an unused reference an so I deleted it  Locally was working fine but then I got the same error after publishing to dev   Conclusion  beware when deleting references marked as unused by Resharper

User · Answer

I had a similar problem  NuGet showed the package successfully installed  but the reference was not added to my project   Running  lt PM gt  Install-Package Microsoft Web InfraStructure also didn t help as the package manager kept saying it s already installed  I finally added it manually by editing the csproj file and adding these lines     lt Reference Include  Microsoft Web Infrastructure  gt     lt HintPath gt    packages Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0 0 lib net40 Microsoft Web Infrastructure dll lt  HintPath gt     lt Private gt True lt  Private gt   lt  Reference gt    That solved the problem

User · Answer

I had to set  Copy Local  in the Reference Properties to False  then back to True  Doing this added the Private True setting to the  csproj file    lt Reference Include  Microsoft Web Infrastructure  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31bf3856ad364e35  processorArchitecture MSIL  gt        lt HintPath gt    packages Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0 0 lib net40 Microsoft Web Infrastructure dll lt  HintPath gt         lt Private gt True lt  Private gt       lt  Reference gt    I had assumed this was already set  since the  Copy Local  showed as True

User · Answer

I had this problem  I had the DLL included into the project and the setting to Copy Local was true by default  Don t know why it started  since that DLL was in the project for a long while  I ve heard some mentions of ReSharper possibly removing it  but I can t say I ve ran a unused reference removal   What helped me was   - Running  Update-Package Microsoft Web Infrastructure -Reinstall  on the project  which updated the whole solution  but didn t end up helping in and of itself   - Then I went through the projects  references and set the Copy Local to false  and then back to true  This actually resulted in a line being added into CSPROJ file under the DLL reference  True  Or something along the lines    Either way  now the build was copying the files as expected

User · Answer

I found that even though it worked on my dev box  the assembly wasn t added to the project  Search for Microsoft Web Infrastructure in NuGet and install it from there  Then  make sure it has Copy Local selected

User · Answer

First remove Microsoft Web Infrastructure from package config    and ran the command again  PM  Install-Package Microsoft Web Infrastructure and make sure Copy Local property should be true

User · Answer

For me Microsoft Web Infrastructure dll was missing from the bin folder  it wasn t set to copy local in the project  Copied the dll from another project in the solution and the page loads

User · Answer

Despite the number of answers I ll add another one which IMHO makes the things a bit clearer    As Rob and wrightmail already mentioned Microsoft Web Infrastructure is a NuGet package  link not needed  you have it in NuGet Package Manager    Apparently  it was referenced by your project and suddenly disappeared  A number of reason may exists but the important thing is that despite you may have enabled Automatic Package Restore in Visual Studio by    Manage NuGet packages for solution  context menu in Solution Explorer    Allow NuGet to download missing packages  settings   Automatically check for missing packages during build in Visual Studio  settings     certain packages may require a manual reinstall  I am not aware what confuses NuGet  maybe manually removing a reference  but here is the solution I usually apply in such cases  The following PM Console helps restoring a package while preserving the original version  not updating to possibly existing new one       Update-Package Microsoft Web Infrastructure -Reinstall   Version preservation may be required if you do not want to accidentally overwrite an existing package with its newer version which possibly removes  old  functionality you may have used in your project   And  as a proof  despite a bit lengthy one  that the version does not change  here s the output when the command is executed   PM gt  Update-Package Microsoft Web Infrastructure -Reinstall Attempting to gather dependencies information for multiple packages with respect to project  Samples NuGet DemoApp DemoApp   targeting   NETFramework Version v4 5 2  Attempting to resolve dependencies for multiple packages Resolving actions install multiple packages     Package removal starts here        Removed package  Microsoft AspNet Web Optimization 1 1 3  from  packages config  Successfully uninstalled  Microsoft AspNet Web Optimization 1 1 3  from DemoApp Removed package  WebGrease 1 5 2  from  packages config  Executing script file  D  Projects DemoApp packages WebGrease 1 5 2 tools uninstall ps1  Successfully uninstalled  WebGrease 1 5 2  from DemoApp     More package removals here  Omitted for brevity        Removed package  Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0 0  from  packages config  Successfully uninstalled  Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0 0  from DemoApp     More package removals here  Omitted for brevity        Removed package  Antlr 3 4 1 9004  from  packages config  Successfully uninstalled  Antlr 3 4 1 9004  from MvcLenseApp Package  Antlr 3 4 1 9004  already exists in folder  D  Projects Lense Mvc5 packages  --- Install packages  in reverse order  --- Package  Antlr 3 4 1 9004  already exists in folder  D  Projects DemoApp packages  Added package  Antlr 3 4 1 9004  to  packages config  Successfully installed  Antlr 3 4 1 9004  to DemoApp     More package installs here  Omitted for brevity        Package  Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0  already exists in folder  D  Projects Lense Mvc5 packages  Added package  Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0  to  packages config  Successfully installed  Microsoft Web Infrastructure 1 0 0  to MvcLenseApp     More package installs here  Omitted for brevity        Package  WebGrease 1 5 2  already exists in folder  D  Projects DemoApp packages  Added package  WebGrease 1 5 2  to  packages config  Executing script file  D  Projects DemoApp packages WebGrease 1 5 2 tools install ps1  Successfully installed  WebGrease 1 5 2  to DemoApp Package  Microsoft AspNet Web Optimization 1 1 3  already exists in folder  D  Projects DemoApp packages  Added package  Microsoft AspNet Web Optimization 1 1 3  to  packages config      End of package re-install       Successfully installed  Microsoft AspNet Web Optimization 1 1 3  to DemoApp PM gt     Of course if you wish to reinstall all packages you may need to get familiar with update install commands in NuGet here and here

User · Answer

Very easy solution   In Visual Studio  go to Tools Library Package Manager Package Manager Console   lt PM gt  Install-Package Microsoft Web InfraStructure   Have a nice time

[c#] Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure,

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