VS2017 Unable to start debugging. Could not load file or assembly

Question

Working with xamarin forms, I have recently updated my android version from 7.1 to 8.1 (even though I don't understand why this might have messed up anything) but I can't run the app anymore in debug mode (it compiles and runs perfectly in release).

Here is the error that I am getting:

Unable to start debugging. Could not load file or assembly 'libadb, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=___' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Any idea why this might be happening? I have tried looking for online solutions but couldn't find any that fits my problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

In my case, after also upgrading from 7.1 to 8.1 my settings were changed, apparently. So the fix was easy. Go to the android project, make sure your debugger is set to Xamarin, not C++ in debug mode. I am not sure why it was changed.

Hope it helps.