Assembly could not be loaded - deploying to Azure - Microsoft.Activities.Extensions

Question

I have a workflow project in my solution that referenced Microsoft.Activies.Extensions.dll 2.0.2.16

I used the NuGet Package Manager to upgrade to the current version 2.0.6.9

Deploying the web role that references the workflow project .dll to the cloud I get:

 Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Activities.Extensions, PublicKeyToken=23b0c89d0d5ad43f' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

I remote desktoped to the VM and checked the F:/approot/bin to see that neither version of the assembly was deployed.

Since this a NuGet package I can find it in my <Solution root>/Packages folder. I see the new folder created by NuGet but also the old version folder that was left behind although the assembly was not inside. I deleted that folder and put an assembly redirect in my web.config:

<dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Activities.Extensions" publicKeyToken="23b0c89d0d5ad43f" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="2.0.2.12" newVersion="2.0.6.9" />
  </dependentAssembly>

Clead, build, re-deploy via Publish.

The error persists, and digging into the approot/bin again shows that the assembly was still not deployed.

I, of course, have Copy Local set to true.

Why is it not getting deployed?

Answer 1

Ok, resolved from finding this article:

http://weblogs.asp.net/albertpascual/archive/2008/12/16/the-cloud-for-a-fast-deployment-of-proof-of-concepts.aspx

Turns out when a web-role references an assembly than in turn references other assemblies, those assemblies will not be deployed even if Copy Local = true.

The solution is to references those child dependencies directly in the web-role project with Copy Local to true.

Only then did they show up in my approot/bin upon deployment.