I've an old VB6 program which I have haven't used for several months. The program references numerous C# assemblies (.NetFramework 4.8). Running the programs as binaries, it all works fine.
I have opened the VB6 ide to step some of my code and I am now encountering an automation error "The system cannot find the file specified." (Err 80070002) when trying to instantiate one of the COM Interop classes. This didn't used to happen.
Private Sub InitMessageStore()
Dim l_oBusFactory As IfxBusService.BusFactory <= COM Interop reference
Set l_oBusFactory = New IfxBusService.BusFactory <= ERROR here
l_oBusFactory.InitialiseMessageStore GetConnection(m_oIfxsys.Dbase.Database.Definition)
End Sub
The COM Interop decls
[ComVisible(true)]
[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
[ComDefaultInterface(typeof(IBusFactory))]
[Guid("200C6C26-6881-4CB5-A8E7-E0E5532D6D5F")]
public class BusFactory : IBusFactory
[ComVisible(true)]
[InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIDispatch)]
[Guid("5531BD20-2C7B-452B-A7D7-2D05E39EB83E")]
public interface IBusFactory
I have rechecked the registry registrations for the above ... the salient one being
and the file is in the folder location as specified in the registry.
I'm using Win10 Version 10.0.19044 Build 19044. I'm running everything as administrator. I have DEP switched to essential Windows programs and services only.
As I said above, everything works fine when run as binaries, but, to me, it looks like the OS is stopping the VB6 ide from loading a COM Interop assembly.
Any suggestions as to how I can get stepping through (but not necessarily into) my COM Interop code working again.
In the end, I missed that there were 2 entries under the InprocServer32, one of which pointed to the correct file (1.0.0.0), but the other one (5.80.0.111 - which is actually the version no of our com binaries) didn't point to a file:///, but rather the pure .net assembly. Once I deleted the incorrect one, it all started working ok.
Still not sure where the wrong one came from!
I manage an application that allows the users to automate tasks by writing their own VB code. The user code is compiled using the VBCodeProvider and invoked against the running instance of the application. We've been doing this for a few years now starting with .NET 2.
Traditionally, we have imported the System namespace in the compiler settings so users wouldn't have to write System. all the time. When we went to .NET 4, however, we found that statements like Windows.Forms.Form wouldn't compile anymore. The error was "Type 'Windows.Forms.Form' is not defined." This is odd because other namespaces work. IO.Stream and Reflection.Assembly do not have an error without the System at the beginning.
I've created a simple example. I've put the below code into a file. Then I compiled this file with vbc.exe from both the .NET2 and .NET4 directories. The 2 version works fine. The 4 version will not compile unless you comment out the variable f2.
Imports System
Public Class MyClassName
Public Shared Sub Main
'this works in v2 and v4
Dim f As New System.Windows.Forms.Form
f.ShowDialog
'this does not work in v4
Dim f2 As New Windows.Forms.Form
f2.ShowDialog
End Sub
End Class
Does anyone know how to get this to compile in vbc.exe version 4? And before you say "Just tell the users to type System.Windows.Forms" I will agree that it would be great if they would do that, but users do what users do and I have to work it out.
UPDATE:
I've found that the Windows.Foundation.Diagnostics namespace is causing a collision with the abbreviated use of Window.Forms. Is there any way to hide this namespace from my compilation? Visual Studio 2010 does not have the same conflict, so it must be getting around it somehow.
I am moving a solution with multiple projects to VS 2015. The base project builds just fine in VS 2013. But when I try to build in VS 2015 I get the error below.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\Microsoft.VisualBasic.Core.targets(56,5): error MSB6006: "vbc.exe" exited with code -2146232797.
Need help please
I talked with MS Tech Support. It's a confirmed bug in the VB compiler. They say it will be fixed in the next update.
In the mean time the work around is to install a Nuget package.
Please follow these instructions to install Nuget package.
Open the affected project in Visual Studio
Open the Package Manager Console (Tools -> NuGet Package Manager ->
Package Manager Console)
Run:
Install-package Microsoft.Net.Compilers -version 1.1.1
I had a large solution that was failing to build after updating to VS 2015 Update 1 RTM. In my case, there were a number of warnings of
Namespace or type specified in the Imports '<import name>' doesn't contain any public member or cannot be found. Make sure the namespace or the type is defined and contains at least one public member. Make sure the imported element name doesn't use any aliases.
that occurred right before "vbc.exe" crashed. Once I removed those extra, unnecessary Imports, the solution build correctly.
This issue is resolved in the latest Visual Studio 2015 servicing update. The relevant download is KB 3110221 which is discussed in this KB article.
In my case, I found that an import was causing the issue. Specifically, after trying a lot of other suggestions, removing the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel import from a file, finally got my project to built.
I had the same issue after installing Update 1 to VS 2015.
I've download Microsoft.Net.Compilers NuGet package as Brien King suggested in his answer. This fixed the issue for one project. And then:
"c:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\Bin\vbc.exe" had version 1.1.0.51109
...userprofile.nuget\packages\Microsoft.Net.Compilers\1.1.1\tools\vbc.exe had higher version 1.1.0.51202
So I've copied entire "1.1.1\tools" directory into "14.0\Bin" directory and overrided 27 existing files.
This fixed it for all projects. Remember to create backup before you do this.
After trying both Microsoft.Net.Compilers -version 1.1.1 and KB3110221, my solution was still failing to compile with the same error. Only later I noticed that the error was accompanied by a warning which was letting me know that one of the libraries referenced by the solution was compiled against .NET Framework 4.5.2 while my solution was compiling against .NET Framework 4.5. I recompiled the said library against .NET Framework 4.5 and the solution compiled fine.
Now that my issue was solved after trying three fixes, I can't tell whether the last one alone would have done, but I hope it'll be of help.
I fixed the issue by opening all my .vb files are removing extra imports. Do this for all files and then rebuild. This should work.
I started getting this immediately upon installing vs2015 due to a licensing disagreement w/ MS , which I lost. :-(
Freshly back to work, i encounter this issue.
I tried doing the NUGET suggested by Brien King. Problem persisted.
I tried doing the KN suggested by Teodor Constantinescu. Problem persisted.
I tried a new trivial web app and things were fine, so I did not uninstall vs2013 or vs2015.
I chose to back up my project (3 times, once on a usb stick i put in the other room) and delete groups of files and compile after each group was pulled out.
Ultimately, when I got close to the end (nearly an empty project) it compiled.
By adding groups of files back, I identified the single file that causes this issue. I can recreate the issue by uncommenting a single line.
Further commenting out code, I isolated the problem to 4 lines of code. Beautiful.
Explanation is this...
I have 2 web references that reference ssrs
THese are currently defined in my project as
SSRS_reportservice2010
and SSRS_ReportExecution2005
I struggled getting these to work, so over time i had different names as i deleted and readded the web references. (Padawan)
For whatever reason, a file that was EXCLUDED, got INCLUDED today (2013--> 2015 issue, or greg mouse farting issue? we will never know)
In that (mistakenly included) file, there was a pair of old references
'1 Imports SSRS_ReportingService2010
'2 Imports SSRS = SSRS_ReportingService2010
'3 Imports SSRS_ReportExecution
'4 Imports SSRS_E = SSRS_ReportExecution
Line 1 used to reference the WS now named in my app as SSRS_reportservice2010
You can unComment that and things compile and run. Note that you do get a warning that you are referencing an empty namespace.
Line 2 is of course an alias to the long name, because I am an extremely lazy typer, plus I insist my code be readable and long names stink IMHO.
Line 2, if uncommented , cause vbc error -2146232797
Note that uncommenting 2 , or 1 & 2 cause the error. Its something about the bad alias that causes compiler upchuck.
Repeat the above discussion with lines 3 and 4 which have to do with the webservice currenlty named SSRS_ReportExecution2005
So there you have it.
This took me 8 hours to debug. hope it helps someone.
Many of the other posts, comments, etc also mention Import/Using Statements. The root bug probably lies somewhere in there.... (yes, this is a bug in the compiler)
PS - one thing that was interesting is that the offending file's name started w/ a W so was one of the first to come out.
Nothing improved when I took that file out of the project all together.
I can not explain why the app did not compile as soon as I took the offending file out.
I can offer that I took the webservices out very late in the process, I just didnt think they were the issue.
It baffles me that the file could be gone and I was still getting the issue when I can now simply comment out 4 lines and things work perfectly.
Apologies for the second answer, but this one is much simpler.
I got the error again in a different project 8 days after last time.
This time, I started the day by giving a better name to a class.
I had a class named conversionFactors and I renamed that class to constants to better represent what the class held.
Immediately got the error
vbc.exe" exited with code -2146232797. SizingEngine
tracked it down to this line. I should have used the rename utility. yes. No argument. The compiler should also be more robust. Tsk tsk Microsoft.
Imports cf = SizingEngine.conversionFactors
so steps to reproduce
1. create a new project
2. create a class named Foo
3. create a class named Bar
in Bar, add the following line
imports bar_ = project1.NoClassByThisNameExists
click f5
listen for pac man wilting sound
ps - VS does not report any updates ready for download today. Im sure this will get fixed at some point.
I've just had this same issue. Mine was caused by having a class that had an event inside. I'd referenced this in another class as a shared property. The shared property was causing the compiler to fail. I removed the "shared" declaration and it compiles fine now
I encountered this error when I had a post build event that was throwing an error.
There was no indication this was the problem, just the -2146232797 error.
So check this in the property pages of the project. Go to Compile -> Build Events ... and check the Post-build event command line field. I suppose this might happen with a Pre-build event so check that as well.
The problem may be related with some utilized function in .NET Framework. Try to change the project framework to 4.0 and see if the problem persists.
As part of our migration from .net 1.1 to .net 3.5, we had to change out a few vender DLLs.
One of them is giving us trouble in only 1 spot out of the 4 spots we use it at:
The trouble spot is a windows form project that uses reflection to dynamically load some DLLs that run long running processes. One of these long running processes is an agent that relies on one of our vender DLLs
We're getting the missing assembly exception at the point where we first enter a function that references the library. I already checked the silly things such as if we had forgotten to move a reference from the old version to the new version, but that's not the case. I also checked the bin directory of the project and the assembly is there.
Has anyone encountered a situation in which .net 2.0 runtime refuses to load an assembly like that? And if so, how could we fix the issue.
Additional Information:
The specific vendor in this case is dtSearch and this is the boundry where the error gets thrown:
Private Sub BuildIndex()
SetIndexOptions()
ExecuteIndexJob()
End Sub
Private Sub SetIndexOptions()
'Body removed for brevity
End Sub
The library is referenced in SetIndexOptions. BuildIndex() gets entered, but the exception happens when SetIndexOptions gets called. The function is never actually entered.
If you are still having problems you can use the Assembly Binding Log Viewer (Fuslogvw.exe) to identify which assemblies are loaded by your application. This tool is part of the .NET Framework. This will provide you with details on all dependent assemblies.
I have used this in the past when working with third party assemblies, very usefull
The FileNotFoundException can be raised even when the assembly does exist if one of the dependent assemblies couldn't be loaded.
Try using Dependency Walker to check and see that all dependent assemblies are also present.
Turns out the default compile option changed from VS2003 to VS2008 and it was compiling in the wrong bitness :\ Now I feel a bit silly!
Has any one used BITs in VB.NET? If so, do you have code samples and advice?
I was looking at SharpBits but I have a VB project that I wanted to use BITS for. Is it possible to use it with my VB.NET program? (.NET 2.0) I was tempted to try to convert each class to VB.NET in the SharpBits.Base folder but figured I'd ask in case someone has headed down this route before.
Edit: Ok folks in case you run across this question. What you can do is in the Sharpbits.Base folder (that you download from codeplex) there is a DLL you can reference in the Bin directory. You can add that into your references to access it. Marking Konrad as answer since he was kind enough to post.
Further edit:
I managed to get sharpbits working with some quick code which I pasted below for anyone who might stumble upon this question. Like I mentioned above add the DLL to your project.
Dim b As New SharpBits.Base.BitsManager
Dim mynewjob As SharpBits.Base.BitsJob = _
b.CreateJob("jobname", SharpBits.Base.JobType.Download)
mynewjob.AddFile("\\server\share\bigfile.zip", "c:\bigfile.zip")
mynewjob.Resume()
You'll need to write some logic to check for the status of the job. Once it hits "Transferred" status you can then mark it as complete. This will write the file from a .bin to the file name you listed. Something that helped me was installing the Windows Support Tools (you can get it from a Windows 2003 Cd/DVD in the sup tools folder)and using Bitsadmin.exe to view the status of the job while debugging. Hope this helps the next rookie. =)
Any reason why you can't simply use SharpBits in VB? The advantage of .NET is precisely that libraries written in the different .NET languages can interoperate seamlessly so you can simply use SharpBits in VB, no matter what .NET-compliant language it was written in.
You could take a look here:
Using Windows XP Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) with Visual Studio .NET
I have started from here to write my own library to manage BITS to transfer big video file across private LAN. Example are for NET 1.1 but should not be difficult port it to NET 2.0.
Here's a new alternative. The BITS team at Microsoft now has a page on Calling into BITS from .NET and C# using reference DLLs plus a complete sample call BITS Manager on GitHub.
I've just tried using them with Visual Basic; my code ended up looking like this:
Imports BITS = BITSReference1_5
Module Module1
Sub Main()
Dim mgr = New BITS.BackgroundCopyManager1_5
Dim jobGuid As BITS.GUID
Dim job As BITS.IBackgroundCopyJob
mgr.CreateJob("My simple job", BITS.BG_JOB_TYPE.BG_JOB_TYPE_DOWNLOAD, jobGuid, job)
job.AddFile("http://www.microsoft.com", "c:\temp\2019\BITS-VB\Downloadfile.html")
job.Resume()
End Sub
End Module
(Note that I also added a reference to a DLL that I downloaded from the BITS Manager source from the Reference DLL directory)