Application crashes in InitializeComponent()

Question

First off, I'm using Visual Studio 2010, Measurement Studio 2010 plugin, C# and .NET 4.0.

My application receives data from a USB device and graphs the data using a WaveformPlot() [which is a part of Measurement Studio]. I'm able to run the application fine in debug and release modes and even run it fine directly using the EXE file in the bin folders, on the development computer.

However, I am simply unable to run it in a different computer. I'm using ClickOnce to create an install file and folders, and I copy the publish folder from my development computer to the client computer. I then run the install file, ClickOnce downloads .NET (if it's not already installed) and then opens the application. The application shows my initial dialog asking me to choose a COM port from the many available. Once I do this, my code goes through the InitializeComponent() after which the main form is supposed to show up.

The main form doesn't open up after the initial box. Using Debug.WriteLine statements, I've been able to narrow it down to

this.waveformPlot = new NationalInstruments.UI.WaveformPlot();

It crashes here. It doesn't show me any error message or anything. It works fine on my development computer, just not on other computers. I included the National Instruments DLL files and other National Instruments components are initialized fine. It's just this one that doesn't. The application shows up in the Windows Task Manager for a while and then just vanishes after like 10 seconds.

What should I do?

Update 1

After reading another unrelated question on Stack Overflow, I realized that I could put the Application.run and the form1 mainform = new form1() in a try-catch block.

System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'NationalInstruments.UI.Internal.WaveformPlotElement' threw and exception. --> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'NationalInstruments.Common.Native.dll' or one of its dependencies. The specified module could not be found.

Since I at least know it's an exception now, I'll work on it, try to figure out which DLL is missing and why, and update this question.

Update 2

I checked the application files that are in the publish folder, and it does include the 'NationalInstruments.Common.Native.dll'. I have no idea why it can't load it.

Update 3

I ran Fusion Log Viewer on the client computer and saw that the NationalInstruments.Common.Native.dll was loaded succesfully. But still, the debug exception message shows up as shown in the OP,

Could not load file or assembly 'NationalInstruments.Common.Native.dll' or one of its dependencies"

Screenshot of what the Fuslogvw.exe shows

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Fuslog Viewer shows that all the assemblies have been loaded successfully. I checked on the client computer. Although, the National Instruments DLL files have a line which says "GAC lookup unsuccessful" in them while the other assemblies don't.

DebugViewer displays the exception that I print out using Debug.writeLine. This shows that the NationalInstruments.Common.Native.dll or one of its dependencies could not be loaded.

I am very confused.

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I tried adding references to the project, using a decompiler to check references, using other install programs (other than ClickOnce) and none of them seem to be getting me anywhere. :(

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Update 4

I just found out yesterday that the application was installing and running fine on 64-bit systems. The two computers I tried it on before were 32-bit Windows 7 systems. I am looking to see if that could help me somehow. The application was compiled on my 64-bit Windows 7 development laptop. The 'Platform' drop down menu in 'Build' under project properties shows 'Active (x86) and I have 'Any CPU' as the platform target.

Answer 1

After spending lots of time on this issue, I spoke to someone from National Instruments, and he helped me solve the issue I was having. I had previously noticed, by checking the module dependencies of mstudiocommon.2010.msm, that it (mstudiocommon.2010.msm) was looking for the vs100_crt_x86.msm file, but the installer had detected (and added) a vs90_crt_x86.msm (in the 'Detected Dependencies' of the installer project). Right-clicking the installer project and adding the VS100 .msm file manually fixed the issue that I was having.

Below, is a screenshot of the module dependencies that I could see for the mstudiocommon and mstudioui merge modules:

Although, I didn't quite understand why Visual Studio was detecting VS90 instead of VS100, I am happy that I finally fixed this problem, and I'll leave this for another day.

Answer 2

Try Fusion Log Viewer from SDK to identify which library causes the problem.

Answer 3

Without logs and error messages it's too difficult to find what is wrong. You should put a try catch in your code where you try to access the library components waveformPlot and print the error message and the stacktrace. After you can see what is missing.

Answer 4

You can use use either Reflector or JustDecompile to get what references 'NationalInstruments.Common.Native.dll' needs. From the sounds of it though with the word Native in the name of the DLL it maybe a wrapper around someother native Win32 C dll. Do you have those in the same folder? It may also be a wrapper around a COM dll which maybe is not registered?

Answer 5

I think what happen is that someone have installed application on target system that is using only subset of latest NI components. To fix this issue I have added bindingRedirect to app.config. It worked.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
 <startup>
  <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5"/>
 </startup>
 <runtime>
  <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
   <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="NationalInstruments.Common" publicKeyToken="DC6AD606294FC298" culture="neutral"/>
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-13.0.40.190" newVersion="9.1.40.159"/>
   </dependentAssembly>
   <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="NationalInstruments.Common.Native" publicKeyToken="DC6AD606294FC298" culture="neutral"/>
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-13.0.40.190" newVersion="9.1.40.159"/>
   </dependentAssembly>
  </assemblyBinding>
 </runtime>
</configuration>

Answer 6

I had the same problem and when having tons of references in your project it's really hard to find what assembly is actually missing. Especially if you're having this problem on a clients computer without Visual Studio.

After an hour or two messing around with fuslogvw.exe and not being able to get a clear answer I just googled "detect missing assemblies .net application" and found http://www.amberfish.net/

It works like charm, there is a free trial and the developer only asks a very democratic price for it... Very Cool !!

PS. I'm in NO WAY affiliated with amberfish, today is the first time I found out about this tool. the tool this guy built should be in the default toolkit of Windows. Just what i needed.