"Assembly with same name is already loaded"

Hi, so we use RegionOrebroLan.Transforming and have done for a while.

On Friday we noticed that things had stopped working in our azure pipeline wit the error below.

The 'New-AzSubscriptionDeployment' command was found in the module'Az.Resources', but the module could not be loaded due to the following error: [Assembly with same name is already loaded] For more information, run 'Import-Module Az.Resources'.

Today I started looking at this in anger, initially we assumed that it related to the fact the azure pipeline had updated their Az version.

It seemed like a poignant change between when we last knew this to work, and now.

The issue is tracked here: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/9445 With my notes and comments.

I was fully convinced that issue lay here - with a nuance of powershell Az version, and have tried just about everything you can think of.

Then I noticed - out output a variable from our scripts that is the path where there transformation output path is was suddenly 'capturing' additional output.

Where we were seeing this: "Deploying /home/vsts/work/1/s/Infrastructure/Deploy/Out\ResourceGroup\ResourceGroup.bicep"

we were now seeing this: "Deploying The transformation was successful: "/home/vsts/work/1/s/Infrastructure/Deploy/Out" /home/vsts/work/1/s/Infrastructure/Deploy/Out\ResourceGroup\ResourceGroup.bicep"

It was a total fluke spot - but it opened the door to the fact that it might not have just been the Azure Image that had changed - and low and behold RegionOrebroLan.Transforming 2.1 had been released.

I set this back to 2.0 and our error went away, I set it to 2.1 and 'squelched' the output like this

    New-PackageTransform `
        -Destination $destinationPath `
        -FileToTransformPatterns "**/*.json" `
        -Source $sourcePath `
        -TransformationNames "Specification.$($this.Specification)", "Platform.$($this.Platform.Name)", "Environment.$($this.Name)" `
        **| Out-Null # suppress output**

and sadly it returned.

So the issue is not purely that we were inadvertently capture the extra/new output from the script.

I have tried to skim the code and the changes, searched for obvious references to thing - nothing sticks out as a smoking gun.

Do you have any idea what might have changed between 2.0 and 2.1 that would cause our error?

In the mean we'll have to pin - but I am not a fan of doing this as we'd like to stay up-to-date with your awesome work.

Please let me know if anything comes to mind or if there is anything we can try?

Thanks.

Nice that you use this.

There has been a change from 2.0 to 2.1 regarding the output from the cmdlets. In 2.0 there was no output but in 2.1 there is an output: this.WriteObject($"The transformation was successful: \"{this.Destination}\"");

Here: https://github.com/RegionOrebroLan/PowerShell-Transforming/blob/main/Source/Project/Commands/NewPackageTransformCommand.cs#L59

It is a just a confirmation so you know it worked properly. Before it was silent.

If I run this, on my Windows-machine:

New-PackageTransform -Destination "C:\_Testing\Out" -Source "C:\_Testing\In"

I get this output:

The transformation was successful: "C:\_Testing\Out"

If I run this, on my Windows-machine:

New-PackageTransform -Destination "C:\_Testing\Out" -Source "C:\_Testing\In" | Out-Null

I get NO output.

If I run this, on my Windows-machine:

New-PackageTransform -Destination "C:\_Testing\Out" -Source "C:\_Testing\In" > $null

I also get NO output.

So as I see it, what you are trying to do should work. It should not give the extra output.

You say you try this:

    New-PackageTransform `
        -Destination $destinationPath `
        -FileToTransformPatterns "**/*.json" `
        -Source $sourcePath `
        -TransformationNames "Specification.$($this.Specification)", "Platform.$($this.Platform.Name)", "Environment.$($this.Name)" `
        **| Out-Null # suppress output**

I guess the "**" wildcards are there for clearity. But have you tried this:

    New-PackageTransform `
        -Destination $destinationPath `
        -FileToTransformPatterns "**/*.json" `
        -Source $sourcePath `
        -TransformationNames "Specification.$($this.Specification)", "Platform.$($this.Platform.Name)", "Environment.$($this.Name)" `
        | Out-Null

or this:

    New-PackageTransform `
        -Destination $destinationPath `
        -FileToTransformPatterns "**/*.json" `
        -Source $sourcePath `
        -TransformationNames "Specification.$($this.Specification)", "Platform.$($this.Platform.Name)", "Environment.$($this.Name)" `
        > $null

Maybe also try to put parantheses around:

    (New-PackageTransform `
        -Destination $destinationPath `
        -FileToTransformPatterns "**/*.json" `
        -Source $sourcePath `
        -TransformationNames "Specification.$($this.Specification)", "Platform.$($this.Platform.Name)", "Environment.$($this.Name)" `
        | Out-Null)

There are other changes to, but as you say it seems to be the output that gives the problems.

Other changes:

AvoidByteOrderMark
NuGet-reference updates:
- Microsoft.Extensions.FileSystemGlobbing Version 5.0.0 -> 8.0.0
- Microsoft.VisualStudio.Jdt Version 0.9.23 -> 0.9.83

Regards Hans

Hi again

So I read what you wrote more carefully.

PowerShell-Transforming uses .NET-Transforming. In .NET-Transforming we have added functionality for configuration/options, dependency-injection and logging. This means that more dll's are used in version 2.1 than was used in version 2.0. Some of the new ones:

Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Abstractions.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Binder.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Options.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives.dll

So your error: "Assembly with same name is already loaded"

I am pretty sure that when your PowerShell scripts load, [Ubuntu, Windows] Az Powershell module will be updated to v11.3.1 on March 18 #9445, some of the dll's listed above are already loaded in your "script-context" by some of the other ps-modules/scripts. Then they are being loaded again but with a different version and the exception is thrown.

I am not sure how your build tasks, actions, are set up, if it is a Azure DevOps pipeline or GitHub actions. I think you have to put the transformations in a separate task/action.

An example how we use it with Azure DevOps 2022 on premise:

jobs:
- job: "Some job"
  steps:
  - script ...
  - script ...
  - powershell: |
      $destination = "$(DEPLOY_SOURCE_DIRECTORY_PATH)";
      $source = "$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/Source/Application";
      $transformationName = "${{ parameters.Environment }}";
      Write-Host "Creating deploy-source '$($destination)' from soure '$($source)' with transformation-names 'Release' & '$($transformationName)' ...";
      New-PackageTransform `
        -Destination $destination `
        -FileToTransformPatterns "Resources/*.xml", "appsettings*.json" `
        -Source $source `
        -TransformationNames "Release", $transformationName;
      Write-Host "Deploy-source '$($destination)' from soure '$($source)' with transformation-names 'Release' & '$($transformationName)' created.";
  - script ...
  - script ...

Now we can use the transformed files in other tasks/actions.

Regards Hans

RegionOrebroLan / PowerShell-Transforming

"Assembly with same name is already loaded" #4