Partial binding information was supplied for an assembly mstest

Question

I am using the new SimpleMembership framework in .Net.

The unit tests to create users (using the API - see below) work fine locally in Visual Studio 2012 IDE.

WebSecurity.CreateUserAndAccount(entity.UserName, entity.Password, new { });

However, when running on the build server (using TeamCity) I get the following below.

I have tried Dependency Walker with no luck. I also can't think how this could be run in x64 - considering VS2012 runs in x86.

Any help would be appreciated.

threw exception:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'WebMatrix.WebData' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.=== Pre-bind state information ===
LOG: User =  
LOG: DisplayName = WebMatrix.WebData
(Partial)
WRN: Partial binding information was supplied for an assembly:
WRN: Assembly Name: WebMatrix.WebData | Domain ID: 2
WRN: A partial bind occurs when only part of the assembly display name is provided.
WRN: This might result in the binder loading an incorrect assembly.
WRN: It is recommended to provide a fully specified textual identity for the assembly,
WRN: that consists of the simple name, version, culture, and public key token.
WRN: See whitepaper http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=109270 for more information and common solutions to this issue.
LOG: Appbase = file:///C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 
LOG: Initial PrivatePath = NULL
Calling assembly : (Unknown).*

Answer 1

I ran into this as well, and it had nothing to do with MS Test or any unit testing framework, I was actually running into this in a web project, where code would compile fine but break when web.config referenced SimpleMembershipProvider. I had used the updated NuGet package Microsoft.AspNet.WebPages.WebData, which put WebMatrix.WebData in as a reference, but it failed to set CopyLocal=true.

The solution seems to be to simply set CopyLocal=true in the WebMatrix.WebData (and WebMatrix.Data) properties under the project's References.

I believe CopyLocal=false has to be explicitly set in a NuGet install script, in which case this seems to be a major design stupidity flaw, not a bug.

Answer 2

This seems to be a bug in the framework. However, was fixed by placing

WebMatrix.WebData.dll

inside the MsTest directory (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE) on the build server