LibGit2Sharp fails to find git2.dll

Question

I have built a tiny wpf app that manages a website I am working on. The key feature of this app is that it allows me to checkout different branches of a theme repository. This works perfectly in visual studio, but when I publish, install and run the app on my windows 8 machine it comes back with:

{"Unable to load DLL 'git2': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)"}

I have searched through the internet and stackoverflow. There are similar questions, such as Unable to load DLL 'git2.dll' The specified module could not be found but the answers provided (as well as the answers shown in the github issue described in the answer) bring up another error:

Unable to find an entry point git_reference_oid in git2.dll

I have tried installing the latest through nuget, including a compiled dll and adding the git2.dll, including the libgit2sharp project in my solution. Once again, it works perfectly when I run it all through visual studio, but fails when I publish, install and run it.

I was unsure what information needed to be included so please feel free to comment and let me know so I can update the question.

Thank you!

Answer 1

The computer you're running the installed executable on may lack MSVCR100.DLL or MSVCR110.DLL (depending if git2.dll has been compiled using Visual Studio 2010 or 2012).

A fix has been recently merged in libgit2 which removes the need for this dependency.

Indeed, running dumpbin /IMPORTS git2.dll against those binaries doesn't show any dependency against MSVCR1x0.dll any longer.

The latest tip of the vNext branch of the LibGit2Sharp project embeds those updated git2.dlls. It's recommended to compile the project (using the build.libgit2sharp.cmd tool and use this version (manged assembly + native binaries) instead).