Dependency warning (WAT150) when deploying Azure project

Question

I have an MVC3 project I have migrated to an Azure Web Role and it works fine. But there's one thing that's really bugging me: When I publish/package the project for deployment I get this error:

Warning WAT150: The project '' is dependent on the following assembly C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition\v4.0\Desktop\System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll. This assembly is not in the package. To make sure that the role starts, add this assembly as a reference to the project and set the Copy Local property to true.

All I can find on google is how to ADD the dependency. However, I removed it, and I can't find out where this dependency is getting picked up. It isn't causing any problems, other than grating on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Answer 1

For future visitors looking for solutions to the WAT150 error on assemblies they depend on, I found my warnings to be caused by assembly references set with Copy local = true to not actually copy the DLLs to the bin folder if the DLL is in the GAC. Read more about it here and here. Deleting the DLLs from the GAC solved the problem

Answer 2

Try rebuilding the Azure deployment project with your MSBuild settings set to "normal" or above. This should show what references can't be resolved.

In Visual Studio, choose Tools | Options, then Projects and Solutions / Build and Run. Set the "MSBuild project build output verbosity" to at least Normal.

This should help by creating much more trace output from MSBuild, and help you see where the missing references are being picked up.