Interesting bugs - MSB3246: Resolved file has a bad image, no metadata, or is otherwise inaccessible. Image is too small.

I got a very strange warning recently when building a .NET Core app with "dotnet build."

MSB3246: Resolved file has a bad image, no metadata, or is otherwise inaccessible. 

Image is too small.

Eek! It's clear, in that something is "too small" but what? A file I guess? Maybe it's the wrong size?

The error code is MSB3246 which is nice and googleable/searchable but it was confusing because I couldn't figure our what file specifically. It just felt vague.

BUT!

I had recently been overclocking my machine (overly aggressively, gulp, about 40%) and had a very nasty hard reboot. As a result I had a few dozen files get orphaned - specifically the files were zero'ed out! Zero is small, right?

Turns out you can pass parameters over to MSBuild from "dotnet build" and see what MSBuild is doing internally. For example, you could

/fileLoggerParameters:verbosity=diagnostic

but that's long. So how about:

dotnet build /flp:v=diag

Cool. What deep logging do I see now?

Primary reference "deliberately.zero.bytes.dll". (TaskId:41)

13:36:52.397 1:7>C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.1.400\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(2110,5): warning MSB3246: Resolved file has a bad image, no metadata, or is otherwise inaccessible. Image is too small. [S:\work\zero-byte-ref\zero-byte-ref.csproj]

 Resolved file path is "S:\work\zero-byte-ref\deliberately.zero.bytes.dll". (TaskId:41)

 Reference found at search path location "{RawFileName}". (TaskId:41)

Now with "verbose" turned on I can see that one of the references is zero'ed out/corrupted/bad. I reinstalled .NET Core in my case and doubled checked all the DLLs/Assemblies that I was bringing in - I also ran chkdsk /f - and I was back in business!

I hope this helps someone who might stumble on error MSB3246 and wonder what's up.

Even better, thanks to Rainer Sigwald who filed a bug against MSBuild to update the error message to be more clear. In the future I'll be able to debug this without changing verbosity!

Sponsor: Preview the latest JetBrains Rider with its built-in spell checking, initial Blazor support, partial C# 7.3 support, enhanced debugger, C# Interactive, and a redesigned Solution Explorer.

from Scott Hanselman's Blog http://feeds.hanselman.com/~/567201328/0/scotthanselman~Interesting-bugs-MSB-Resolved-file-has-a-bad-image-no-metadata-or-is-otherwise-inaccessible-Image-is-too-small.aspx

Comments

Rail Fence Cipher Program in C and C++[Encryption & Decryption]

Here you will get rail fence cipher program in C and C++ for encryption and decryption. It is a kind of transposition cipher which is also known as zigzag cipher. Below is an example. Here Key = 3. For encryption we write the message diagonally in zigzag form in a matrix having total rows = key and total columns = message length. Then read the matrix row wise horizontally to get encrypted message. Rail Fence Cipher Program in C #include<stdio.h> #include<string.h> void encryptMsg(char msg[], int key){ int msgLen = strlen(msg), i, j, k = -1, row = 0, col = 0; char railMatrix[key][msgLen]; for(i = 0; i < key; ++i) for(j = 0; j < msgLen; ++j) railMatrix[i][j] = '\n'; for(i = 0; i < msgLen; ++i){ railMatrix[row][col++] = msg[i]; if(row == 0 || row == key-1) k= k * (-1); row = row + k; } printf("\nEncrypted Message: "); for(i = 0; i < key; ++i) f...

Data Encryption Standard (DES) Algorithm

Data Encryption Standard is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encrypting the data. It comes under block cipher algorithm which follows Feistel structure. Here is the block diagram of Data Encryption Standard. Fig1: DES Algorithm Block Diagram [Image Source: Cryptography and Network Security Principles and Practices 4 th Ed by William Stallings] Explanation for above diagram: Each character of plain text converted into binary format. Every time we take 64 bits from that and give as input to DES algorithm, then it processed through 16 rounds and then converted to cipher text. Initial Permutation: 64 bit plain text goes under initial permutation and then given to round 1. Since initial permutation step receiving 64 bits, it contains an 1×64 matrix which contains numbers from 1 to 64 but in shuffled order. After that, we arrange our original 64 bit text in the order mentioned in that matrix. [You can see the matrix in below code] After initial permutation, 64 bit text passed throug...

Experimental: Reducing the size of .NET Core applications with Mono's Linker

The .NET team has built a linker to reduce the size of .NET Core applications. It is built on top of the excellent and battle-tested mono linker . The Xamarin tools also use this linker so it makes sense to try it out and perhaps use it everywhere! "In trivial cases, the linker can reduce the size of applications by 50%. The size wins may be more favorable or more moderate for larger applications. The linker removes code in your application and dependent libraries that are not reached by any code paths. It is effectively an application-specific dead code analysis ." - Using the .NET IL Linker I recently updated a 15 year old .NET 1.1 application to cross-platform .NET Core 2.0 so I thought I'd try this experimental linker on it and see the results. The linker is a tool one can use to only ship the minimal possible IL code and metadata that a set of programs might require to run as opposed to the full libraries. It is used by the various Xamarin products to extract...

Just 4 Programmers

Search This Blog