Add-In says "Missing" - DLL did not install

[Corbinde_Bruin]

Hello all,

When my 10.1 Add-In is installed on a client's machine, it does not show up properly. It says "Missing" on the toolbar and clicking the button does absolutely nothing. When I check the user's AssemblyCache, I only see the .pbd and .xml files. The DLL isn't writing. I'm not getting errors messages of any kind. It works on all my office machines.

It doesn't work using either the network share or local install methods.

Any help is appreciated,
Corbin de Bruin

[RichardWatson]

You need to describe the installation process that you used.

What pieces did you install?

Where did you install them to?

How did you install them?

Did you build the add-in using Desktop Add-In template in Visual Studio?

http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/arcobjects_net/conceptualhelp/index.html#/Walkthrough_Building_cu...

Can you post your project?

[Corbinde_Bruin]

It is a custom vb.net Add-In I developed. I did develope using Visual Studio 2010 and the Desktop Add-In template. I would prefer not to post the project if avoidable.

We first attempted an install by copying the release compiled .esriaddin file to a folder on the C-drive of the client machine. Then we told ArcMap to look at that location with 'Customize>Add-In Manager>Options'.

When that did not work, we tried the same install process, only we copied the .esriaddin to a network share and told ArcMap to look in that folder for Add-Ins.

In both cases, we specified 'Load all Add-Ins without restrictions'.

To clarify the behavior, the Add-In appears to be loaded in 'Customize>Add-In Manager' (as MyAdd-Ins when locally installed or SharedAdd-Ins when installed via the network), however, the Add-In control on the toolbar appears as a red circle with a slash through it and the word "Missing" displayed in square brackets instead of the button text.

When I check the user's local Desktop AssemblyCache, I only see the .pdb and .xml files, not .dll file. I'm not really sure if that's important, but that's where I look when I'm having install problems on my development machine.

Please tell me if I have left out any more important details. I realize my first post was a bit vague.

[RichardWatson]

My assumption is the same exact add-in works on your machine but not theirs.  Correct?  If not then you know that the add-in file is a renamed zip file so you can look in it in order to confirm that the assembly/DLL is present.  Just copy to a file with the zip extension and open it using 7-Zip, WinZip, or a later Windows OS.

Assuming that the DLL is present in the add-in:

Perhaps your users have tighter security.  What is their setting for BlockAddIns?

http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/arcobjects_net/conceptualhelp/index.html#/Advanced_add_in_concept...

It it possible that your add-in is referencing an assembly which is not present on the customers machine, e.g. maybe you are using the .NET 4.0 framework but they have not loaded it.

It is possible that a virus scanner is blocking the assembly?

Perhaps you could post your project with all the business logic removed?

[ParitoshGupta]

Test addin on your office machines. The deployment is reported in Visual Studio's Output window when the project is built. The build's Output window reports information to diagnose the problem, if there are errors during the deployment process,.

[Corbinde_Bruin]

My assumption is the same exact add-in works on your machine but not theirs. Correct? If not then you know that the add-in file is a renamed zip file so you can look in it in order to confirm that the assembly/DLL is present. Just copy to a file with the zip extension and open it using 7-Zip, WinZip, or a later Windows OS.

Assuming that the DLL is present in the add-in:

Perhaps your users have tighter security. What is their setting for BlockAddIns?

http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/a...00004n7000000/

It it possible that your add-in is referencing an assembly which is not present on the customers machine, e.g. maybe you are using the .NET 4.0 framework but they have not loaded it.

It is possible that a virus scanner is blocking the assembly?

Perhaps you could post your project with all the business logic removed?

Yes the Add-In works on all my office machines.

I unzipped the .esriaddin and the DLL was present. This makes sense since the install works fine on my in-office machines.

Security is what I'm suspecting is causing the problem, but I can't seem to find out when or where it's an issue. I was hoping somebody had come across these symptoms before and knew the quick fix.

I didn't know about that BlockAdd-Ins setting. I will check it out and get back to you.

I'm targeting .NET 4.0 and the machines have it installed. There are no other dependencies.

Anti-virus is a possible roadblock. I'm hoping that's not the case as I may not get permission to turn it off.

Test addin on your office machines. The deployment is reported in Visual Studio's Output window when the project is built. The build's Output window reports information to diagnose the problem, if there are errors during the deployment process,.

The output just says successful. The deployment on my office machines has always been successful.

[RichardWatson]

If it is not security (ESRI, Microsoft, Virus) then my suggestion is to develop a massively trivial add-in based on the 3.5 framework which simply does something like display a message box.

How do you prove that it is security related?

I'd look at the various logs, e.g. NT Event Viewer, Virus logs, etc. in order to see if there is an entry related to this.  If that does not prove helpful then I'd run the SysInternals Process Monitor tool when installing the add-in in order to see if there are any failures.  The challenge here is that the volume of output can be overwhelming.  The key to success is filtering out entries not related to the process installing the add-in.

May the force be with you.