Web deployment task failed. (The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager' threw an exception.)

Question

I am getting the following error when I use web deploy from visual studio 2010. Web deployment task failed. (The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager' threw an exception.)

I suddenly started getting this error! I published my website many many times with all the same settings, but suddenly it started to give me this error. Could it be something in the website properties? I am using asp.net and have Windows 7 and publishing to Windows Server R2. Please help!

Answer 1

Okay, so I hit this problem and none of these answers worked for me. I boiled it down to a single line of code, namely:

var deploymentOptions = new Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentBaseOptions(); 

If you don't manually pass this to DeploymentManager it will internally instantiate this object. Even more interesting was that this code would run fine for me as the only line of a console app while it failed if I put it into a unit test (kicked off with vstest).

Here's the full body of the exception:

System.TypeInitializationException occurred   HResult=-2146233036   Message=The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager' threw an exception.   Source=Microsoft.Web.Deployment   TypeName=Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager   StackTrace:        at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager.GetLinkExtensions()        at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentBaseOptions..ctor()        at SimpleTest.Test.UnitTest1.TestMethod1() in f:\Source\Projects\SimpleTest.Test\UnitTest1.cs:line 12   InnerException: System.TypeInitializationException        HResult=-2146233036        Message=The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Deployment.BuiltInTypesCache' threw an exception.        Source=Microsoft.Web.Deployment        TypeName=Microsoft.Web.Deployment.BuiltInTypesCache        StackTrace:             at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.BuiltInTypesCache.get_Factories()             at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentProviderFactoryCollection.LoadFromRegistry()             at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentProviderFactoryCollection..ctor()             at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager.LoadDeploymentManagerSettings()             at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager..cctor()        InnerException: Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentException             HResult=-2146233088             Message=The provider 'Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.MsDeploy.MsDeployProviderFactory' could not be loaded.             Source=Microsoft.Web.Deployment             StackTrace:                  at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentProviderFactory.Create(Type type)                  at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.BuiltInTypesCache.InspectTypesForWebDeployAttributes(IEnumerable`1 types, String dllName)                  at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.BuiltInTypesCache..cctor()             InnerException: Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentException                  HResult=-2146233088                  Message=The type 'Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.MsDeploy.MsDeployProviderFactory' could not be loaded. The configuration settings may not be valid.                  Source=Microsoft.Web.Deployment                  StackTrace:                       at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.ReflectionHelper.CreateInstance[T](Type type, Object[] constructorArguments)                       at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentProviderFactory.Create(Type type)                  InnerException: System.TypeInitializationException                       HResult=-2146233036                       Message=The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.MsDeploy.MsDeployProviderBaseProviderFactory' threw an exception.                       Source=mscorlib                       TypeName=Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.MsDeploy.MsDeployProviderBaseProviderFactory                       StackTrace:                            at System.Runtime.Remoting.RemotingServices.AllocateUninitializedObject(RuntimeType objectType)                            at System.Runtime.Remoting.Activation.ActivationServices.CreateInstance(RuntimeType serverType)                            at System.Runtime.Remoting.Activation.ActivationServices.IsCurrentContextOK(RuntimeType serverType, Object[] props, Boolean bNewObj)                            at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandleInternal& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)                            at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)                            at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceDefaultCtor(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)                            at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)                            at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)                            at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)                            at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Object[] args)                            at Microsoft.Web.Deployment.ReflectionHelper.CreateInstance[T](Type type, Object[] constructorArguments)                       InnerException: System.IO.FileNotFoundException                            HResult=-2147024894                            Message=Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.Sql, Version=10.3.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.                            Source=Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.DbSqlPackage                            FileName=Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.Sql, Version=10.3.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a                            FusionLog=""                            StackTrace:                                 at Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.MsDeploy.MsDeployProviderBaseProviderFactory..cctor()                            InnerException: 

After talking to the team in Microsoft that owns this component I learned a simple solution:

Look for a key in the registry under the following paths that points the the problem assembly and delete it:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\IIS Extensions\msdeploy\3\extensibility HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\IIS Extensions\msdeploy\3\extensibility 

(After cleaning up the registry, remember to restart Visual Studio)

The problem registry key is installed by SQL.