Missing Dependencies In Upgrade Packages

Missing Dependencies In Upgrade Packages — release and upgrade information for APG vNext the latest.

Upgrading APG vNext

• Back up your SQL Server database before starting any upgrade.
• Save your web.config, custom skins, and upfiles folder contents.
• Run the upgrade SQL scripts in sequential order — never skip versions.
• Test all key features after upgrading: login, posting, email notifications, file uploads.

Download & Support

• Download APG vNext
• Upgrade Guide
• Support Forum

Resolving Missing Dependency Errors During APG vNext Upgrades

Missing dependency errors during APG vNext upgrades manifest as DLL not found exceptions, assembly binding redirect failures, or HTTP 500 errors on the first application startup after deploying the new version. These errors occur when the upgrade package includes references to .NET assemblies or third-party NuGet packages that are not present in the deployment because they were added in the new version but not included in the release package, or because they depend on a .NET Framework version not installed on the target server.

Identifying the Missing Assembly

When APG vNext fails to start with a missing assembly error, the error message and event log entry typically include the assembly name, version, and public key token of the missing dependency. Use this information to identify exactly what is missing. Check the Fusion Assembly Binding Log (fuslogvw.exe) for detailed binding failure information if the event log entry does not contain sufficient detail. The binding log shows the probing paths and the specific failure reason for each assembly load attempt.

Common Missing Dependencies

The most frequently missing dependencies in APG vNext upgrades include: Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure required by ASP.NET Web Pages but not always present on servers configured for older ASP.NET versions, EntityFramework assemblies when the upgrade moves to a newer ORM version, and regional satellite assemblies for localization that are present in the development environment but excluded from lean deployment packages. Check the APG vNext release notes for each version to identify explicitly declared new assembly dependencies and install them via NuGet or the appropriate .NET installer before deploying the application files.

Resolving With NuGet Package Restore

If APG vNext is deployed from source code using Visual Studio or a CI/CD pipeline, run NuGet package restore before building and deploying to ensure all declared dependencies in packages.config or the .csproj file are downloaded and included in the output. For pre-built deployments from release packages, ensure the bin directory in the deployment package includes all required DLLs and that no assemblies were accidentally excluded from the release build by a build script misconfiguration.

Assembly Binding Redirects

Version conflicts between different assemblies requiring different versions of a common dependency are resolved in web.config through assembly binding redirects in the dependentAssembly section of the runtime configuration. If the upgrade changes the version of a dependency but the binding redirect in web.config still points to the old version, a VersionNotFoundException will be thrown at runtime. Update the newVersion attribute in the relevant bindingRedirect element to match the version of the assembly actually present in the bin directory after the upgrade deployment.

Looking for more help? Browse the support forum or check the Knowledge Base.