Category Archives: C#

C# Development

Visual Studio – no .NET SDKs were found

When trying to change a VS project to implement some new Azure function need by our Business Central implementation of certain feature Visual Studio was unable to detect dotnet SDKs although multiple versions were installed.

So running

dotnet --info

has given me the following output:

So I have tried running Visual Studio repair multiple times. Installed dotnet SDK for that exact version of Visual Studio 2020 CE. Checking PATH environment variables multiple times. Restarting machine multiple times to no avail.

Solution

However, the solution was right into my nose but… failing to see the obvious. I have suspected that it has something to do with both x86 and x64 versions of .NET installed but could not figured it out what is the difference.

Solution was quite easy. Running

where.exe dotnet

will give you the result of order in which paths of dotnet search is executed.

 If you’re on a x64 machine, you want to have C:\Program Files\dotnet listed first.

Now this is the output of the dotnet –info command:

Building and using MS Project 2010 proxy assembly for WCF PSI Service

To do the task of integrating Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 and MS Project Server 2010 I have decided to use WCF interface. WCF interface is provided by PSI (Project Server Interface) which has both ASMX object model and WCF object model implemented.

There are three options for communicating with WCF interface of MS Project Server:

  1. Compiling ProjectServerServices.dll PSI proxy assembly.
  2. Add a PSI proxy source code to the Visual Studio solution.
  3. Add a service reference by using Visual Studio.

I have decided to use the first option and compile ProjectServerServices.dll proxy assembly.

Project 2010 SDK

First you need to download and install Project 2010 SDK from Microsoft Download site (Project 2010 Reference: Software Development Kit).

After you have installed Project 2010 SDK you need to go to the installation folder. In my case that was folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Project 2010\Documentation\Intellisense\WCF. Unpack the Source.zip file, found in that folder, so you get the Source subfolder containing C# source files.

Next, you need to start CompileWCFProxyAssembly.cmd to create ProjectServerServices.dll file. The best way to do it is to open Command prompt with administrative privileges (Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command prompt then right click and select Run as administrator), then cd to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Project 2010\Documentation\Intellisense\WCF and then run CompileWCFProxyAssembly.cmd.

Note: You need to change the path of sn (sn.exe) to the location of Windows SDK in CompileWCFProxyAssembly.cmd. In my case that was C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\x64\sn.exe.

After the script has run you should have ProjectServerServices.dll in this folder.

Visual Studio

In Visual Studio you shoud add reference by clicking right mouse button on Reference folder in your C# project then select Add reference… option, then select Browse on the left hand side of the Reference Manager window and click Browse… button on the lower side of the window. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Project 2010\Documentation\Intellisense\WCF\ProjectServerServices.dll file and click Add button. Click OK to close the Reference Manager window.

Now have fun with connecting to the MS Project Server PSI using WCF interface.

Metadata for object of type CodeUnit with id ***** is in a failed state.

While developing Windows Embedded 6.5.3 application for WMS (Warehouse Management System) which relies on Dynamics NAV web services I have encountered rather “familiar” error:

Metadata for object of type CodeUnit with id ****** is in a failed state…. error CS1001: Identifier expected.

OK, I said, I will recompile the object and restart Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Web Services.

Recompile, restart… same error. What now? Hmm… restart Web Services Windows Service again. Nope!

Went into code and view the last function I have edited. Nothing suspicious. Compile – everything OK. Puf?!

Let’s go to error again (reading it whole this time). Whoa… Error details info:

…Error details: c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\60\Server\MicrosoftDynamicsNavServer\source\Codeunit\Codeunit50004.cs(498,163) : error CS1001: Identifier expected

Ok. Let’s open the error details file. It opens in Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications. Went to line 498 and position 163 and I can see the following line of my function (with source in C#) which ends like:

CS1001_identifier_expectedThere is Int32 param in my function without identifier (which the error clearly states)!

Went back to my codeunit in NAV and opened C/AL locals of the function I have edited and I have something to see. There is a parameter WITHOUT NAME of Integer Type.

dynamicsNAV_identifierexpectedSomehow, while editing parameter list I have, inadvertently, created new parameter row, never assigning a name to it. NAV thinks this is OK and allows the codeunit to be compiled, but the NAV Business Web Services doesn’t like this.

Resolution

Resolution was simple. Removed the “unintentional” parameter, recompiled codeunit, restarted NAV Web Service and everything was fine, again. 🙂