Referenced dll files present in test project bin folder but missing in out folder

Question

I have a unit test that references several c# projects for test purposes.  The build process works fine and might produce 26 dlls in the project bin folder.  However, when you debug the unit test, maybe only 16 of those dlls files get staged to the output unit test folder.  The unit test then fails with dll load errors because of missing dependencies.  I verified these missing DLL file references and Copy Local is set to true in the unit test.  It's bizarre that these dlls are present in the unit test project bin folder but not the unit test output folder.  Please advise.

VS2012 on Windows Server 2012

Answer 1

Hi scott_m,

Thank you for posting in the MSDN forum.

Like this document:

Out: Each test run folder contains a folder named Out. The Out folder is the actual deployment folder, to which assemblies and other deployment files are copied when the test run starts.

Just to make this issue clearly, do you mean that you are running your test with the MStest in the command line? Like the document provide in the above content, did you use any deployment item?

In addition, as far as I know, the VS is a 32 bit application, and if your test has 64 bit assembly dependence, I doubt that it will be failed to be loaded. How about changing the platform target to Any CPU or others, check the result.

If still no help, could you share us a simple sample? We will try to run it in our Environment.

Please also attach your Visual Studio project, you can upload it to the sky driver, and then share the download link in your post. If you got error messages, please also show the whole error messages in your post.

If there's any concern, please feel free to let me know.

Have a nice weekend,

---

Jack Zhai [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Hi scott_m,

Thank you for posting in the MSDN forum.

Like this document:

Out: Each test run folder contains a folder named Out. The Out folder is the actual deployment folder, to which assemblies and other deployment files are copied when the test run starts.

Just to make this issue clearly, do you mean that you are running your test with the MStest in the command line? Like the document provide in the above content, did you use any deployment item?

In addition, as far as I know, the VS is a 32 bit application, and if your test has 64 bit assembly dependence, I doubt that it will be failed to be loaded. How about changing the platform target to Any CPU or others, check the result.

If still no help, could you share us a simple sample? We will try to run it in our Environment.

Please also attach your Visual Studio project, you can upload it to the sky driver, and then share the download link in your post. If you got error messages, please also show the whole error messages in your post.

If there's any concern, please feel free to let me know.

Have a nice weekend,

---

Jack Zhai [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

I changed the build configuration to AnyCPU.   Test runner still fails to copy all dll files from bin folder to test output folder (running test in VS2012 ide).  This used to work in VS2010 but for some reason does not in VS2012.  This is a 284 project solution of proprietary nature so it is not practical for sharing.  Have written this up as a bug in Microsoft Connect,.