Google API nightmare: How I fixed the “Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Net.Http.Primitives, Version=1.5.0.0 …” exception

PS: This solution may or may not apply to your situation; my environment consisted of VS 2012, .NET 4.0, C#, Non-MVC web application, EPi Server CMS.

Well aren’t the Google API a joy uh? Spent way too much time figuring out how to make this shit work.

My most recent yellow screen of death happening went like this:
Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Net.Http.Primitives, Version=1.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The located assembly’s manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)

Here’s what I did to solve it:

You know how NuGet adds the binding redirects automatically to your Web.config yeah? All seems jolly right?

<!-- Snippet from web.config -->
<dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Threading.Tasks" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.6.9.0" newVersion="2.6.9.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Net.Http" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.2.22.0" newVersion="2.2.22.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Runtime" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.6.9.0" newVersion="2.6.9.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Net.Http.Primitives" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.2.22.0" newVersion="2.2.22.0" />
</dependentAssembly>

But you still get that frigging error right?

Turns out you have to copy those tags to the machine.config file located at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config.

In my machine.config file the <runtime/> tag was empty as such just illustrated.

Simply append to or replace it with your <dependentAssembly> tags from your web.config (the ones I listed just above).

<!-- Your <runtime> tag should look something like this now -->

<runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity name="System.Threading.Tasks" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
            <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.6.9.0" newVersion="2.6.9.0" />
        </dependentAssembly>
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity name="System.Net.Http" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
            <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.2.22.0" newVersion="2.2.22.0" />
        </dependentAssembly>
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity name="System.Runtime" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
            <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.6.9.0" newVersion="2.6.9.0" />
        </dependentAssembly>
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity name="System.Net.Http.Primitives" publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a" culture="neutral" />
            <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.2.22.0" newVersion="2.2.22.0" />
        </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

I know it doesn’t look pretty but right now I don’t care even the tiniest bit 🙂

If anyone know how to fix this more elegantly then feel free to share your solution in the comments below.