Unable to load DLL 'SQLite.Interop.dll'

Question

I know I'm late to the party but I had this issue right after I pulled down latest x86/x64 today (version 1.0.88.0). My local IIS in VS2012 runs 32bit by default and there's no easy way to switch to x64. My production server runs 64bit.

Anyway I installed the NuGet package to a DLL project and I got this error. What I had to do to get it working I had to install it to the main site project, too. Even if it doesn't touch SQLite classes at all.

My guess is that SQLite uses the entry assembly to detect which version of Interop to load.

I had this problem because a dll I was using had Sqlite as a dependency (configured in NuGet with only the Sqlite core package.). The project compiles and copies all the Sqlite dll-s except the 'SQLite.Interop.dll' (both x86 and x64 folder).

The solution was very simple: just add the System.Data.SQLite.Core package as a dependency (with NuGet) to the project you are building/running and the dll-s will be copied.

So, after adding the NuGet the deployment doesn't copy down the Interops. You can add this to your csproj file and it should fix that behavior:

 <PropertyGroup> 
    <ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>true</ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>
    <CopySQLiteInteropFiles>false</CopySQLiteInteropFiles>
    <CleanSQLiteInteropFiles>false</CleanSQLiteInteropFiles>
    <CollectSQLiteInteropFiles>false</CollectSQLiteInteropFiles>
 </PropertyGroup>

If you look in the source for NuGet for SQLite you can see what these are doing specifically. This allowed me to get a deploy working with ASP.Net Core.

I had this same problem when using SQLite in a WPF project whose platform target was Any CPU. I fixed it by following the following steps:

1. Open the project designer in Visual Studio. Details on how to do it can be found here.
2. Click on the Build tab.
3. Disable the prefer 32-bit option.

Alternatively, you could just set the platform target to x86 or x64. I think this problem is caused by the System.Data.SQLite library using the platform target to get the location of the 'SQLite.Interop.dll' file.

UPDATE:

In case the project designer cannot be reached, just open the project (*.csproj) file from a text editor and add the value <Prefer32Bit>false</Prefer32Bit> into the <PropertyGroup>...</PropertyGroup> tag.

Example code

<PropertyGroup>
    <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
    <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
    <ProjectGuid>[Set by Visual Studio]</ProjectGuid>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <AppDesignerFolder>Properties</AppDesignerFolder>
    <RootNamespace>[Set by Visual Studio]</RootNamespace>
    <AssemblyName>[Set by Visual Studio]</AssemblyName>
    <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.5</TargetFrameworkVersion>
    <FileAlignment>[Set by Visual Studio]</FileAlignment>
    <!--Add the line below to your project file. Leave everything else untouched-->
    <Prefer32Bit>false</Prefer32Bit>
</PropertyGroup>