Exception running application when adding insights to application using Application Insights Status Monitor Preview - azure-application-insights

Question

I'm playing around with the preview, and tried adding insights to a IIS web application deployed locally on my machine. It's a .Net 4.5 application running in a nothing out of the ordinary application pool. When starting the application after adding insights, I get this exception:
Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x64.dll' or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest.
I tried "Enable 32-Bit Applications" to both true and false with no difference in result.
Has anyone experienced a similar error?

Answer 1

Unfortunately ASP.NET tries to load literally everything that is in \bin as managed assemblies
Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x64.dll is not a managed assembly, but ASP.NET Web App should not fail with yellow page in this case, you would see it only in FusLogvw.
Do you use any web publishing?
Did you precompile your web site on publish?
Could you provide full stack trace of the exception?

Answer 2

I've just come across this issue, and after a few hours found it was due to a conflict with FluentSecurity.
It's detailed here: https://github.com/kristofferahl/FluentSecurity/issues/70
The work-around was to add the following lines just before calling SecurityConfigurator.Configure():
SecurityDoctor.Current.EventListenerScannerSetup = scan =>
{
scan.ExcludeAssembly(file => Path.GetFileName(file).Equals("Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x64.dll"));
scan.ExcludeAssembly(file => Path.GetFileName(file).Equals("Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x86.dll"));
};
Hope this helps somebody else.

Answer 3

My inner exception pointed to WebActivator. So I Uninstall-Package WebActivator -Force, added the appropriate calls in Application_Start and all was good again.

Answer 4

I'm still testing this but I think I've resolved this problem....
The solution is based on the same solution as the SQL Spatial Types native .dll solution; if you know this you'll see the similarity between this and that package.
Step 1
Go Create a new subdirectory in the MVC project and under this two more sub-directories; I used :
MVCRoot ---> ApplicationInsights/x86
---> ApplicationInsights/x64
Under each directory add a linked item from the package directory, this was :
../packages\Microsoft.Diagnostics.Instrumentation.Extensions.Intercept.0.12.0-build02810\lib\native\x64\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x64.dll
and
../packages\Microsoft.Diagnostics.Instrumentation.Extensions.Intercept.0.12.0-build02810\lib\native\x86\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x86.dll
respectively.
I then add this code in a file in the 'root' of the AppplicationInsights folder called loader.cs which looked like this:
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
namespace ApplicationInsights
{
/// <summary>
/// Utility methods related to CLR Types for SQL Server
/// </summary>
internal class Utilities
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string libname);
/// <summary>
/// Loads the required native assemblies for the current architecture (x86 or x64)
/// </summary>
/// <param name="rootApplicationPath">
/// Root path of the current application. Use Server.MapPath(".") for ASP.NET applications
/// and AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory for desktop applications.
/// </param>
public static void LoadNativeAssemblies(string rootApplicationPath)
{
var nativeBinaryPath = IntPtr.Size > 4
? Path.Combine(rootApplicationPath, #"ApplicationInsights\x64\")
: Path.Combine(rootApplicationPath, #"ApplicationInsights\x86\");
CheckAddDllPath(nativeBinaryPath);
// LoadNativeAssembly(nativeBinaryPath,
// IntPtr.Size > 4
// ? "Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x64.dll"
// : "Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x86.dll");
}
public static void CheckAddDllPath(string dllPath)
{
// find path to 'bin' folder
var pathsToAdd = Path.Combine(new string[] { AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, dllPath });
// get current search path from environment
var path = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH") ?? "";
// add 'bin' folder to search path if not already present
if (!path.Split(Path.PathSeparator).Contains(pathsToAdd, StringComparer.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
{
path = string.Join(Path.PathSeparator.ToString(), new string[] { path, pathsToAdd });
Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", path);
}
}
private static void LoadNativeAssembly(string nativeBinaryPath, string assemblyName)
{
var path = Path.Combine(nativeBinaryPath, assemblyName);
var ptr = LoadLibrary(path);
if (ptr == IntPtr.Zero)
{
throw new Exception(string.Format(
"Error loading {0} (ErrorCode: {1})",
assemblyName,
Marshal.GetLastWin32Error()));
}
}
}
}
I then added this to the global.asax this so:
protected override void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ApplicationInsights.Utilities.LoadNativeAssemblies(Server.MapPath("~/bin"));
}
So far it seems to be passed events so far as I can tell. All come back and update this should I find a problem with what I've done.
At least the MVC application now starts :-)
UPDATE: This is not the end of the story :-(
I had to also modify the Microsoft.Diagnostics.Instrumentation.Extensions.Intercept.props file which is under the build directory of the package to make it not include the files into the bin directory.
When I was done it looked like this :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="12.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)\..\lib\native\x86\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x86.dll">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>None</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</None>
<None Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)\..\lib\native\x64\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensions.Intercept_x64.dll">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>None</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</None>
</ItemGroup>
</Project>
I've had to check in this package into my source control system as I think I'm now going to be faced with the problem with Continuous Build restoring a fresh copy of the package which I don't want.
I can't wait for MS to come up with a proper fix for this.

Answer 5

I've just deleted everything in my /bin folder and it seemed to have resolved the issue. Not sure what happen or anything, it's a project i haven't touched in ages. But it solved it :)