A foreign dll in the plugin folder breaks loading further plugins

[tmrt]

I am writing a plugin that uses external mediainfo.dll. The presence of the dll in the plugin folder results in:

Code:

2010-09-25 15:09:10.097    [DEBUG][1]    About to check for plugin interfaces in: C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Plugins\Files\MediaInfo.dll
2010-09-25 15:09:10.113    [ERROR][1]    Unexpected error loading plugins: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly '2580480 bytes loaded from NUtility, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.
File name: '2580480 bytes loaded from NUtility, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' ---> System.BadImageFormatException: Bad IL format.
   at System.Reflection.Assembly.nLoadImage(Byte[] rawAssembly, Byte[] rawSymbolStore, Evidence evidence, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean fIntrospection)
   at System.AppDomain.Load(Byte[] rawAssembly)
   at NUtility.PluginRegistry.LoadPluginsFromRoot(String pluginDirectoryBase)


2010-09-25 15:09:10.113    [DEBUG][1]    About to look for plugin directories in: C:\Program Files (x86)\NPVR\Plugins\

No further plugins from the the data folder are loaded afterwards.

[InVermont]

While it looks like more is going on( I'm not sure about the bad IL format), when using 3rd party dll's like Google.GData.Client.dll, I have found it necessary to put them in the C:\Program Files (x86)\NPVR folder
Under GBPVR, there was a common folder under plugins. I haven't poked around enough to see if there is similar behavior in NPVR

[sub]

You should be able to put DLLs in either the same directory as the plugin, or in the plugins\common directory. Like InVermont mentioned above though, that 'Bad IL format' doesnt sound right.

[InVermont]

You should be able to put DLLs in either the same directory as the plugin, or in the plugins\common directory.

I get an error if the DLL's are in the same directory as the plugin. along the lines of
Looking for assembly in (2) C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Plugins\common\Google.GData.Client.dll
Looking for assembly in (3) C:\Program Files (x86)\NPVR\Plugins\common\Google.GData.Client.dll
(this repeated a number of times. Then)
Unexpected error loading plugins: System.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException: Unable to load one or more of the requested types
but it works fine in the plugins\common directory.

Since it works in plugins\common, it isn't a problem (I just didn't like it in the NPVR program folder itself), but I can post more details and logs if you want.

[sub]

Yeah, maybe I only added the plugins\common, not the plugin directory. I cant remember exactly. Go with plugins\common though.

[tmrt]

You should be able to put DLLs in either the same directory as the plugin, or in the plugins\common directory. Like InVermont mentioned above though, that 'Bad IL format' doesnt sound right.

Maybe I was not clear enough. The plugin that uses that particular mediainfo.dll is able to load mediainfo.dll and works fine in the above case.

What I observe is that NPVR tries to load mediainfo.dll, which is unmanged library, to check for any plugin within it. Due to the exception however, it skips any further scanning for plugins in c:\Users\Public\NPVR\Plugins. As a result some other completely unrelated plugins in in c:\Users\Public\NPVR\Plugins are not loaded.

[sub]

Ah, right - I see what you mean. I've fixed this for the next release.

[mvallevand]

I guess the path isn't searched. What is the best way to use a UPNP.DLL from %WINDIR%\system32 ?

Martin

[sub]

I dont know off the top of my head, and probably depends how you're using the DLL. Probably start by googling 'pinvoke path'

[mvallevand]

Maybe there is no problem, I found a file called Interop.UPNPLib.dll I think I just need to distribute it. Sorry to bother you.

Martin