Could not load file or assembly 'System.Net.Http.Formatting' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the path specified

c# asp.net .net asp.net-mvc-4
Norris picture Norris · Mar 14, 2014 · Viewed 199.8k times · Source

I have a small MVC app that I use for practice reasons, but now I am encountering an error every time I try to debug:

Could not load file or assembly 'System.Net.Http.Formatting' or one of its dependencies. 
The system cannot find the path specified.

I've googled but cannot find a solution. I'm using .NET 4.5.

It can't be the DLL file because I'm using .Net 4.5.

Answer

Jordan_Walters picture Jordan_Walters · Mar 14, 2014

Whenever I have a NuGet error such as these I usually take these steps:

  1. Go to the packages folder in the Windows Explorer and delete it.
  2. Open Visual Studio and Go to Tools > Library Package Manager > Package Manager Settings and under the Package Manager item on the left hand side there is a "Clear Package Cache" button. Click this button and make sure that the check box for "Allow NuGet to download missing packages during build" is checked.
  3. Clean the solution
  4. Then right click the solution in the Solution Explorer and enable NuGet Package Restore
  5. Build the solution
  6. Restart Visual Studio

Taking all of these steps almost always restores all the packages and dll's I need for my MVC program.

EDIT >>>

For Visual Studio 2013 and above, step 2) should read:

  1. Open Visual Studio and go to Tools > Options > NuGet Package Manager and on the right hand side there is a "Clear Package Cache button". Click this button and make sure that the check boxes for "Allow NuGet to download missing packages" and "Automatically check for missing packages during build in Visual Studio" are checked.

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