Troubleshooting BadImageFormatException

Question

I have a Windows service written in C  using Visual Studio 2010 and targeting the full  NET Framework 4   When I run from a Debug build the service runs as expected   However  when I run it from a Release build I get a System BadImageFormatException  details below    I ve been searching the internet for a solution but so far every thing I ve found hasn t helped me find a solution   The problem exists on both Windows 7 64-bit  dev  and Windows XP SP3 32-bit  target  systems   Here is what I ve tried so far    Verified build settings such as Platform Target are all the same  x86   Used peverify with the  verbose option to ensure the assembly binaries were valid  Uses fuslogvw to look for any loading issues  Used CheckAsm to look for missing files or assembiles    All of these checks didn t change anything   I ve included the full text of the exception information below  with some of the names changed to protect the secrets of my corporate masters      System BadImageFormatException was unhandled   Message Could not load file or assembly  XxxDevices  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken null  or one of its dependencies  An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format    Source XxxDevicesService   FileName XxxDevices  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken null   FusionLog Assembly manager loaded from   C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v4 0 30319 clr dll Running under executable  c  Dev TeamE bin Release XxxDevicesService vshost exe --- A detailed error log follows        Pre-bind state information     LOG  User   XXX LOG  DisplayName   XxxDevices  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken null   Fully-specified  LOG  Appbase   file    c  Dev TeamE bin Release  LOG  Initial PrivatePath   NULL Calling assembly   XxxDevicesService  Version 1 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken null      LOG  This bind starts in default load context  LOG  Using application configuration file  c  TeamE bin Release XxxDevicesService vshost exe Config LOG  Using host configuration file   LOG  Using machine configuration file from C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v4 0 30319 config machine config  LOG  Policy not being applied to reference at this time  private  custom  partial  or location-based assembly bind   LOG  Attempting download of new URL file    c  TeamE bin Release XxxDevices DLL  ERR  Failed to complete setup of assembly  hr   0x8007000b   Probing terminated     StackTrace         at XxxDevicesService Program Main String   args         at System AppDomain  nExecuteAssembly RuntimeAssembly assembly  String   args         at Microsoft VisualStudio HostingProcess HostProc RunUsersAssembly          at System Threading ExecutionContext Run ExecutionContext executionContext  ContextCallback callback  Object state  Boolean ignoreSyncCtx         at System Threading ExecutionContext Run ExecutionContext executionContext  ContextCallback callback  Object state         at System Threading ThreadHelper ThreadStart     InnerException

User · Answer

For anyone who may arrive here at a later time...
For Desktop solution I got BadImageFormatException exception.
All project's build options was fine (all x86). But StartUp project of solution was changed to some other project(class library project).

Changing StartUp project to the original(.exe application project) was a solution in my case

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You can also get this exception when your application target  NET Framework 4 5  for example  and you have the following app config     lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt configuration gt     lt startup gt       lt supportedRuntime version  v2 0 50727    gt       lt supportedRuntime version  v4 0    gt     lt  startup gt   lt  configuration gt    When trying to launch the debug of the application you will get the BadImageFormatException   Removing the line declaring the v2 0 version will clear the error   I had this issue recently when I tried to change the target platform from an old  NET 2 0 project to  NET 4 5

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When building apps for 32-bit or 64-bit platform  My experience is with Visual Studio 2010   don t rely on the Configuration Manager to set the correct platform for the executable   Even if the CM has x86 selected for the application  check the project properties  Build tab   it might still say  Any CPU  there   And if you run an  Any CPU  executable on a 64-bit platform  it will run in 64-bit mode and refuse to load your accompanying DLLs that were built for the x86 platform

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For anyone who may arrive here at a later time...
For Desktop solution I got BadImageFormatException exception.
All project's build options was fine (all x86). But StartUp project of solution was changed to some other project(class library project).

User · Answer

Remove your dependency on System Runtime in your Web Config  it worked for me    lt dependentAssembly gt           lt assemblyIdentity name  System Runtime  publicKeyToken  b03f5f7f11d50a3a  culture  neutral    gt           lt bindingRedirect oldVersion  0 0 0 0-4 0 10 0  newVersion  4 0 10 0    gt   lt  dependentAssembly gt

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Background  We started getting this today when we switched our WCF service from AnyCPU to x64 on a Windows 2012 R2 server running IIS 6 2   First we checked the only referenced assembly 10 times  to ensure it was not actually an x86 dll  Next we checked the application pool many times to ensure it was not enabling 32 bit applications   On a whim I tried toggling the setting  It turns out the application pools in IIS were defaulting to an Enable 32-Bit Applications value of False  but IIS was ignoring it on our server for some reason and always ran our service in x86 mode   Solution   Select the app pool  Choose Set Application Pool Defaults    or Advanced Settings     Change Enable 32-Bit Applications to True  Click OK  Choose Set Application Pool Defaults    or Advanced Settings    again  Change Enable 32-Bit Applications back to False  Click OK

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This error  Could not load file or assembly  example  or one of its dependencies  An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format  is typically caused by an incorrect application pool configuration     Ensure that the AppPool your site is currently running on has  Enable 32-Bit Applications  set to False  Ensure you are using the correct version for your platform  If you are getting this error on a web site  ensure that your application pool is set to run in the correct mode  3 0 sites should run in 64 bit mode   You should also make sure that the reference to that assembly in visual studio is pointing at the correct file in the packages folder  Ensure you have the correct version of the dll installed in the GAC for 2 0 sites   This can also be caused by WSODLibs being promoted with the web project

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I had the same problem even though I have 64-bit Windows 7 and i was loading a 64bit DLL b c in Project properties   Build I had  Prefer 32-bit  checked   Don t know why that s set by default   Once I unchecked that  everything ran fine

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When I faced this issue the following solved it for me    I was calling a OpenCV dll from inside another exe  my dll did not contained the already needed opencv dlls like highgui  features2d  and etc available in the folder of my exe file  I copied all these to the directory of my exe project and it suddenly worked

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Determine the application pool used by the application and set the property of by setting Enable 32 bit applications to True  This can be done through advance settings of the application pool

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Target build x64 Target Server Hosting IIS 64 Bit  If the application build is targeting 64-Bit OS  then on the 64-Bit server hosting the IIS Set the enable 32 bit application on the app pool running the website web application to false

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It can typically occur when you changed the target framework of  csproj and reverted it back to what you started with   Make sure 1 if supportedRuntime version  a different runtime from cs project target  under startup tag in app config   Make sure 2 That also means checking other autogenerated or other files in may be properties folder to see if there is no more runtime mismatch between these files and one that is defined in  csproj file   These might just save you lot of time before you start trying different things with project properties to overcome the error

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After I stopped banging my head on the desk thinking of the entire week I spent running down this problem  I am sharing what worked for me  I have Win7 64 bit  32-bit Oracle Client  and have my MVC 5 project set to run on x86 platform because of the Oracle bitness  I kept getting the same errors      Could not load file or assembly  Oracle DataAccess  or one of its   dependencies  An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect   format    I reloaded the NuGet packages  I used copies of the DLLs that worked for others in different apps  I set the codebase in the dependent assembly to point to my project s bin folder  I tried CopyLocal as true or false  I tried everything  Finally I had enough else done I wanted to check in my code  and as a new contractor I didn t have subversion set up  While looking for a way to hook it into VS  I tripped over the answer  What I found worked was unchecking the  Use the 64 bit version of IIS Express for Web Sites and Projects  option under the Projects and Solutions    Web Projects section under the Tools  Options menu

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I am surprised that no-one else has mentioned this so I am sharing in case none of the above help  my case    What was happening was that an VBCSCompiler exe instance was somehow stuck and was in fact not releasing the file handles to allow new instances to correctly write the new files and was causing the issue  This became apparent when I tried to delete the  bin  folder and it was complaining that another process was using files in there   Closed VS  opened task manager  looked and terminated all VBCSCompiler instances and deleted the  bin  folder to get back to where I was   Reference  https   developercommunity visualstudio com content problem 117596 vbcscompilerexe-process-stays-runing-after-exiting html

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For  NET Core  there is a Visual Studio 2017 bug that can cause the project properties Build page to show the incorrect platform target  Once you discover that the problem is  the workarounds are pretty easy  You can change the target to some other value and then change it back   Alternatively  you can add a runtime identifier to the  csproj  If you need your  exe to run as x86 so that it can load a x86 native DLL  add this element within a PropertyGroup    lt RuntimeIdentifier gt win-x86 lt  RuntimeIdentifier gt    A good place to put this is right after the TargetFramework or TargetFrameworks element

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Verified build settings such as Platform Target are all the same  x86     That s not what the crash log says      Assembly manager loaded from   C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64   Note the 64 in the name  that s the home of the 64-bit version of the framework   Set the Target platform setting on your EXE project  not your class library project   The XxxDevicesService EXE project determines the bitness of the process

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What I found worked was checking the  Use the 64 bit version of IIS Express for Web Sites and Projects  option under the Projects and Solutions    Web Projects section under the Tools  Options menu

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I fixed this issue by changing the web app to use a different  Application Pool

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