VS - Build error - Unable to load DLL "FileTracker.dll"

Last week I was facing a bit of a Visual Studio bug which was proving really hard to fix. Out of the blue some(!) projects just started throwing out this build error for no apparent reason:

Error 1 The "GenerateResource" task failed unexpectedly.
System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'FileTracker.dll': The specified module could not be found. 
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)

The fixes and workarounds that I managed to dig up were no good. Manually running CSC.exe seemed to compile, but then I had no way to generate the setup files. Modifying the Microsoft.Common.targets file at the .Net Framework installation folder also failed to correct the issue. Finally I managed to find a working fix. All that has to be done is to open the *.csproj of the project that is failing to build and add this little snippet before the </Project> closing tag (or if it’s already there but set to ‘true’… set it to ‘false’).

With this I was finally able to get some work done.

Filipe Duarte

Filipe Duarte
Hi, I’m Filipe. I’m a Software Engineer, from Portugal, currently living in London, building stuff for NewDay.

2021 Year in Review

Right, so 2021 was an improvement on 2020, but still not quite the year things take off again. 😅# 2021 Year in ReviewEvery year I usually...… Continue reading