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Friday, 6 May 2011

MVC3 deploy - Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies

Whilst deploying my newly upgraded ASP.NET MVC 3 web application to the production environment I started receiving a FileNotFoundException with the error message "Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified." I have encountered this before so I know it is about bin-deploying that assembly. But where is the System.Web.WebPages.Razor assembly?

Since you have installed ASP.NET MVC 3 on your development machine you have all these MVC 3 assemblies installed in your GAC. Your production machine does not!

So you need to find this file and make it bin deployable however this cheeky assembly isn't in you solution so how can you do that? Well... add it. Go to Add Reference on your root web project (e.g. Web.csproj) and find System.Web.WebPages.Razor and add.

Now right click this assembly in your references directory and click properties.

Now you can make it bin deployable by setting Copy Local to true like so:

Note this is how to deploy the System.Web.WebPages.Razor assembly withe your ASP.NET MVC 3 web application. To deploy a typical setup of an ASP.NET MVC 3 app you will need to do the same for all of the following assemblies:
  • System.Web.Mvc
  • System.Web.Helpers
  • System.Web.Razor
  • System.Web.WebPages
  • System.Web.WebPages.Deployment
  • System.Web.WebPages.Razor as detailed above
  • Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure this will also need a reference added as above
  • WebMatrix.Data this also needs the reference

Of course you only need to add the reference to these assemblies if they are not already there - in most cases it will be. This was mainly a blog post for the slightly more complicated System.Web.WebPages.Razor.dll

Update

There is an easier way to do this if you are using Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 and using Web Deploy as your publish action when publishing. You can add deployable dependencies to your ASP.NET MVC project that will choose the necessary assemblies for you. Even easier!

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Posted by Colin Farr at Friday, May 06, 2011 Labels: , ,

15 comments:

  1. Anonymous31 May 2011 at 21:46

    Thanks for this. Saved my team lots of time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Colin Farr1 June 2011 at 09:06

    That's what I like to hear!

    ReplyDelete
  3. TGAW9 July 2011 at 01:20

    Thanks! You got us fixed right up!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous15 July 2011 at 15:11

    Thanks for this. Saved me lots of time!! I mean it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pelo mundo...31 July 2011 at 12:27

    Wowwww... Perfect.. After 2 days reading heaps of blogs finally your blog solved my problem!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous9 August 2011 at 11:41

    You forget about "NuGet.Core" (you may notice in your other post http://www.britishdeveloper.co.uk/2011/06/adding-mvc-dependencies-to-project-for.html - screenshot with this reference)
    Well, at least Azure force me to use it :)

    Thank you very much btw

    ReplyDelete
  7. TankSlapper11 August 2011 at 10:52

    What worked for me was to right-click on the project and select Add Deployable Dependancies

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3 February 2012 at 15:16

      thank you for your advise, it helped me!

      Delete
  8. Colin Farr11 August 2011 at 16:40

    Yes you can and it is much easier and works well (if you are publishing using Web Deploy). I wrote this post before SP1 had come out though (hence the update at the end of the post).

    ReplyDelete
  9. takutghaib5 February 2012 at 05:43

    I,m sorry, i.m a newbie in c# mvc3, i want to ask u, how to deploy my app in IIS7, what first I should do and What next? i need ur help, cz its urgently need...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Colin Farr6 February 2012 at 03:34

    If it is so urgent, why is 'a newbie' in charge? Anyway, sorry I haven't got the time to train you to do the job you don't deserve but I have found a link that should help: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=deploy+mvc3+to+iis7

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous13 February 2012 at 22:44

    thanks, helpful

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous17 May 2012 at 15:40

    Thank you, very helpful

    ReplyDelete
  13. Unknown15 August 2012 at 04:06

    You Rock!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tiago Crizanto18 May 2013 at 01:07

    Thanks Man! It help me to publish an application in a sub-domain.

    ReplyDelete

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