Azure DevOps Pipeline Build fails missing DLL reference in GAC

Question

We have upgraded our TFS server to Azure DevOps and I'm working on creating Pipeline builds for a solution that includes 3 projects, 2 of which compile to DLLs and one web service. Currently the build fails with this error:

> ##[error](XXX).sln\(XXXproject)\XXXpath\XXX.cs(8,30): Error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Common' does not exist in the namespace
> 'XXXX' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

That line references a DLL (compiled in another solution/project) that resides in the GAC so of course when it tries to build it doesn't find it.

I researched the error and one suggestion was to use the Download Build Artifact task to download the reference DLL from that other artifact prior to attempting to build the current solution...but I do not know what the Destination Directory should be for the Download Build Artifact task so that my current build will find it.

Or is there better way to solve this issue?

Thanks

Answer 1

For me, it was because the referenced dll was over 100mb and I was using git lfs. In the classic pipeline editor, there is a checkbox to checkout git lfs files on the sources tab. For YAML, it is an option when pulling.