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c#.netreflectionassembly-resolutionassembly.load

How to provide a fallback assembly instead of the one that can't be loaded?

At runtime, if a referenced assembly fails to load with e.g. "Strong name validation failed" (because it's test-signed), is there a way to provide a substitution assembly from another path that is real-signed?

I tried subscribing to AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve, but it doesn't get fired, because the "bad" assembly technically exists, it just can't be loaded.

Is there a generic way to provide a fallback assembly when an assembly can't be loaded?

Solution

  • I think you can just call assembly.LoadFrom to load the assembly of your choice with practically no security checks. We us this a lot at the start of our app so we can better deal with other assemblies version change.

    Also look at Assembly.LoadFrom Method (String, Evidence, Byte[], AssemblyHashAlgorithm) looks like you can control passing in the hash as well as the hash algorithm.