The "SlowCheetah.Xdt.TransformXml" task could not be loaded from the assembly

Question

After installing Slow Cheeath (v. 2.5.10.3) to two projects in my solution, I am receiving the following error:

"The "SlowCheetah.Xdt.TransformXml" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Users
\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.2\SlowCheetah.Xdt.dll. Could 
not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild
\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.2\SlowCheetah.Xdt.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot 
find the file specified. Confirm that the <UsingTask> declaration is correct, that the 
assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public 
class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.  ISA.IMPD.FalseAlarm.Web.Portal"

I have removed both projects in their entirety (along with Slow Cheetah), re-installed both projects (along with Slow Cheetah), and Rebuilt the solution to no avail. Can anyone help with this type of error?

Darlington

Answer 1

In my case the error occured while compiling a web project. The folder

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.2

was empty. All the SlowCheetah components were in SlowCheetah\v1 folder instead. I've copied all files from V1 folder to v2.5.10.2 and everything compiled and transformed fine. To make non web projects compile, I also had to delete V1 folder as suggested by Whoever in this thread.

This was a brand new installation of the SlowCheetah Extension and I did not expect the v1 folder to exist at all. I believe this was a bug in the extension installation for Visual Studio 2012.

Clipped

I also needed to restart VS 2013. – Bergstein

@RobertGraves - ALL I had to do was reboot, thanks for ending the hours scratching my head – Chemist

Answer 2

delete

  AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v1 

Korte

this would be a better answer if you explained why it works. Also, is that a folder you want the person to delete? What will be the consequences of doing that? – Stackhouse

Depends on which version of windows you are using, it could be c:\Users\YourWindowId\AppData\... I think this only happens when upgrading SlowCheetah in older webform applications, new MVC, WebApi projects seems fine. Probably just version reference/update details are slightly different. Delete the folder and everything should be fine. – Korte

I needed to copy the contents of the v1 folder into the v2.5.10.2 folder before deleting. Just deleting the v1 folder without copying the contents did not have the desired effect. – Cyclopean

Yup, worked for me. Until I next started up "VS2012 Update 4" at which point the v1 directory was back again, along with this error. – Vile

Every time Nuget Package restore runs the folder gets added again and I have to go manually and delete it. Any thoughts on how to delete permanently? – Tryma

Answer 3

I seem to have found to solution to this problem.

Here's what I did:

1. You need to close Visual Studio, then navigate to:

2. C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\Extensions

3. Delete the cache file that has the latest date and time

4. Open Visual Studio and remove Slow Cheetah from the Solution level

5. Re-install Slow Cheetah from the solution level to the desired projects.

Darlington

Answer 4

This was failing on our build server, so I changed the revision number from:

<sc-MSBuildLibPathLocal Condition=" '$(sc-MSBuildLibPathLocal)'=='' ">$(LocalAppData)\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.2\</sc-MSBuildLibPathLocal>

To:

<sc-MSBuildLibPathLocal Condition=" '$(sc-MSBuildLibPathLocal)'=='' ">$(LocalAppData)\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.3\</sc-MSBuildLibPathLocal>

Why it was pointed to v2.5.10.2 is a mystery, but I'm definitely using v2.5.10.3! Looks like the nuget package itself has the bug in it.

Nailbrush

Answer 5

I resolved it like this:

1. Uninstall slowcheetah => Tools>Extensions and Updates
2. click OK when VS asks you to restart VS.
3. in "C:\Users\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah" remove the 'v1' folder (which windows automatically creates when restarting your VS) (here be dragons..)
4. reïnstall slowcheetah (see step 1) => a new folder v2.5.10.2 will be created.
5. Again, click OK when he asks to restart
6. Build your solution

Regards,

Peter

Handlebar

Answer 6

This problem went away for me after using the preview transformation feature in the context menu. Originally suggested here.

FYI this was on VS 2010 Premium.

Apopemptic

This is by far the simplest solution, and the one that I got to work. – Hearts

@Hearts don't suppose you remember what the simple solution was? Link 404s now. – Matz

The solution is, like he writes, right click the transform file and press 'preview transform' in visual studio. After that, it works during build as well. – Hearts

Answer 7

Having multiple versions can lead to conflicts.

In my case I have installed both Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah by Microsoft and SlowCheetah by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi. After uninstalling the package from Microsoft everything went well.

Tulley

Answer 8

I was able to fix this issue by doing the following:

1. Uninstalling the SlowCheetah extension from the TOOLS > Extensions and Updates... menu
2. Closing Visual Studio
3. Deleting all files in the "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\Extensions" folder
4. Opening Visual Studio
5. Reinstalling SlowCheetah from the TOOLS > Extensions and Updates... menu (which requires a Visual Studio restart)

This is using Visual Studio 2012 Premium with Update 4 and SlowCheetah version 2.5.10.

Heliport

Answer 9

I have deleted the old files in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v1. I also needed to upgrade Visual Studio 2012 to update 4 to make it work.

Anhanhalt

Answer 10

If you're getting this error on a TFS Build Server (in my case TFS Express 2013) then you will need to copy over the files from your local machine

C:\Users\SWEAVER\AppData\local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah

on your machine to whichever user your TFS build is running under

C:\users\TFSBuild\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah

Please note AppData is a hidden directory that you may not see, but just type the name and hit enter and it will come up.

I'm using VS2013 so I didn't copy v1 (I think v1 is for VS2012).

---

The original TFS error I got was :

C:\Builds\1\www.XXXXX.com\RRStore - XXXXX Silverlight\Sources\RRStore.AdminConsole\Properties\SlowCheetah\SlowCheetah.Transforms.targets (150): The "SlowCheetah.Xdt.TransformXml" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Users\TFSBuild\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.2\SlowCheetah.Xdt.dll. Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Users\TFSBuild\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\SlowCheetah\v2.5.10.2\SlowCheetah.Xdt.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. Confirm that the declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.

Fortunately this error told me exactly where to place the files.

Horrid

Answer 11

I had the same problem in Visual Studio 2013. Just install SlowCheetah NuGet package:

https://www.nuget.org/packages/SlowCheetah

Chinese

Answer 12

They've released a new version which brings the installation procedure up to date:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2017/05/25/whats-new-and-improved-with-the-slowcheetah-extension/

Tired of having to install your NuGet packages manually to get SlowCheetah to work? We’ve added automatic NuGet installation to help streamline your process. All you need to install is the latest extension and SlowCheetah will take care of the rest. When you use SlowCheetah for the first time in a project, it will prompt you to install or update NuGet packages. Agree and you’re ready to go!

• Close Visual Studio
• Install the VISX extension
• Open your project.
• This version detects if you already have it installed and offers to upgrade.

I would recommend checking in to source control and then doing a compare of your .csproj file to see what changes it made.

Horrid

This new version has proper support for VS2015 + VS2017 (retaining VS2012 + VS2013 support) – Horrid