Question

HI folks,

I have a .net application (vb.net) and I’m using the ajax control toolkit. It works fine on my production machine but when I upload it to the host (fasthosts) i get this error:

Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Web.Ajax, Version=3.0.31106.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=28f01b0e84b6d53e’ or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Web.Ajax, Version=3.0.31106.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=28f01b0e84b6d53e’ or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Assembly Load Trace: The following information can be helpful to determine why the assembly ‘System.Web.Ajax, Version=3.0.31106.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=28f01b0e84b6d53e’ could not be loaded.

WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.
To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.
Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.
To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].

Stack Trace:

[BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Web.Ajax, Version=3.0.31106.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=28f01b0e84b6d53e’ or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest.]
AjaxControlToolkit.ToolkitScriptManager.ApplyAssembly(ScriptReference script, Boolean isComposite) +0
AjaxControlToolkit.ToolkitScriptManager.OnResolveScriptReference(ScriptReferenceEventArgs e) +167
System.Web.UI.ScriptManager.RegisterScripts() +191
System.Web.UI.ScriptManager.OnPagePreRenderComplete(Object sender, EventArgs e) +113
System.Web.UI.Page.OnPreRenderComplete(EventArgs e) +8698462
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +1029

Here is my web.conf file. Its very simple:

<system.web>
    <customErrors mode="Off"/>
    <compilation debug="true">
        <assemblies>
            <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
            <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions.Design, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
            <add assembly="System.Design, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B03F5F7F11D50A3A"/>
            <add assembly="System.Windows.Forms, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/></assemblies></compilation></system.web>

Does anyone know whats up?

— Billy

Answer 1

In order to use ASP.NET AJAX, you would have installed the ASP.NET AJAX framework on your machine, which includes this DLL that is causing the error.

The chances are that your hosting company doesn’t have ASP.NET AJAX installed.