LNK1318: Unexpected PDB error; OK (0)

Question

I'm trying to link against a library (libcef_wrapper_dll.lib) that was built with the /MDd flag. My application is build with /MDd and /CLR so should be compatible. The project compiles fine but when linking I get the very unhelpful error below:

   Error    1   fatal error LNK1318: Unexpected PDB error; OK (0) ''    c:\Projects\Cef\CefSharp\libcef_dll_wrapper.lib 1   CefSharp 

I don't have a .PDB file for the .LIB, do I need one?

Answer 1

Turned out that I needed to delete all of the project temp files inc. caches etc., kill the debug symbol server and restart windows.

Answer 2

I've seen LNK1318: Unexpected PDB error; UNKNOWN (24) when linking.

It happened when I had more than two links of large outputs happening at once - mspdbsrc.exe used more and more memory, hit 2gig or so, then crashed.