AssemblyBinding BindingRedirect not working for MVC4 app with T4MVCExtensions

Question

We have a large .NET web application that was MVC3, using T4MVC. We recently upgraded it to MVC4, and all is good except for T4MVCExtensions (version 3.6.5 from NuGet) is still dependent on System.Web.Mvc version 3. The runtime dependencies that you're supposed to setup in the web.config SHOULD be redirecting the assembly bindings, but they don't seem to be. The following exception occurs:

Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
Parameter name: index

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web     request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. 

Exception Details: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
Parameter name: index

We've got the following in our web.config file, which should be mapping it, but it doesn't seem to be -

<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Helpers"
                      publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0" newVersion="2.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc"
                      publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="4.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.WebPages"
                      publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0" newVersion="2.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>

I've enabled the fusion log, just to verify my craziness really, and see that, yes indeed, it does seem to be trying to use the mvc3 binary, and not going to 4:

*** Assembly Binder Log Entry  (5/21/2013 @ 3:37:23 PM) ***

The operation failed.
Bind result: hr = 0x80004005. Unspecified error

Assembly manager loaded from:  C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\clr.dll
Running under executable  c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\w3wp.exe
--- A detailed error log follows. 

=== Pre-bind state information ===
LOG: User = IIS APPPOOL\ASP.NET v4.0
LOG: DisplayName = System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
 (Fully-specified)
LOG: Appbase = file:///C:/Work/Webs/SSUApp/SSUApp/
LOG: Initial PrivatePath = C:\Work\Webs\SSUApp\SSUApp\bin
LOG: Dynamic Base = C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\lssapp\7a6e6cde
LOG: Cache Base = C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\lssapp\7a6e6cde
LOG: AppName = d5bcf9a8
Calling assembly : App_Web__managerulespartial.cshtml.38bccb18.jb5ozz39, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null.
===
LOG: Start validating all the dependencies.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating native image dependency mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating native image dependency System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating native image dependency System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Web.Razor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Web.WebPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Runtime.Caching, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Web.Extensions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Xml, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Data.Linq, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089.
LOG: [Level 1]Start validating IL dependency System.Data.Entity, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089.
Native image has correct version information.
LOG: Validation of dependencies succeeded.
LOG: Bind to native image succeeded.
Attempting to use native image C:\Windows\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\System.Web.Mvc\f234ba2bcf5f845279e46dc04198a7cd\System.Web.Mvc.ni.dll.
Rejecting code sharing because a dependent assembly did not match the conditional APTCA share mode
Native image successfully used.

Any ideas would rock, since I've already burned a bunch of hours on this.

Prine

Answer 1

I had a very similar assembly binding issue, after manually upgrading a set of MVC3 projects to MVC4. Despite having the assembly binding elements in web.config, I was getting errors similar to T4MVC errors but from the Telerik MVC Extensions.

The Fusion Log viewer was useful as it confirmed that two versions of system.web.mvc were being loaded into the application domain.

In the end, removing the namespace from the root configuration element in the project's root web.config resolved the issue.

So, the web.config was like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">
<!--... elements deleted for clarity ...-->
</configuration>

And after removing the namespace it looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<!--... elements deleted for clarity ...-->
</configuration>

This blog post has more information about the erroneous namespace: http://www.dotnetish.com/runtime/xmlnshttpschemas-microsoft-com-netconfigurationv2-0/

Alkalinity

Answer 2

To isolate, I would try creating a tiny dummy assembly that is built against MVC3 to see if it behaves similarly. There shouldn't be anything special about the T4MVC helper assembly.

Also, please look at my test project https://github.com/davidebbo/T4MVCSampleApp. This is an MVC4 project that uses the latest T4MVC, and it runs fine for me. Does it run for you?

If all else fails, if you can share a repro project (e.g. on github), I can try to take a look.

Fantoccini

Thank you for your response David, I tried isolating, and of course it worked perfectly. In fact, I've even now started a new web application project within my solution and it's rebinding perfectly too. Since I filed the bug, I've also had the same problem with an updated WebGrease.dll, so I think T4MVCExtension is completely innocent in this case, I'm sure it's just a misconfiguration in my project's web.config. BTW - I love T4MVC, it's such a fantastic addition to the framework, and really takes the guess work out of using MVC. Thanks so much. – Prine