Metadata file ... could not be found error when building projects

visual-studio-2008
Robert Höglund picture Robert Höglund · Nov 30, 2008 · Viewed 87k times · Source

Every time I start Visual Studio 2008, the first time I try to run the project I get the error CS0006 The metadata file ... could not be found. If I do a rebuild of the complete solution it works.

Some information about the solution:

  • I'm building in debug mode and Visual Studio complains about not finding dll:s in the release folder.

  • The projects Visual Studio complains about are used by many other projects in the solution.

  • I have changed the default output path of all projects to a ......\build\debug\ProjectName and ......\build\release\ProjectName respectively. (Just to get all build files in one directory)

  • I have the same problem with a another solution.

  • The solution was created from scratch.

  • There are 9 projects in the solution. One WPF and 8 class libraries using dotnet 3.5.

Any ideas on what is causing this problem?

Answer

Uprock7 picture Uprock7 · May 4, 2009

i had the similar issue where "metadata could not be found". on the solution property, make sure that the "build" check box is marked in Build/Configuration Manager for each project.

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