XmlSerializer giving FileNotFoundException at constructor

Believe it or not, this is normal behaviour. An exception is thrown but handled by the XmlSerializer, so if you just ignore it everything should continue on fine.

I have found this very annoying, and there have been many complaints about this if you search around a bit, but from what I've read Microsoft don't plan on doing anything about it.

You can avoid getting Exception popups all the time while debugging if you switch off first chance exceptions for that specific exception. In Visual Studio, go to Debug -> Exceptions (or press Ctrl + Alt + E), Common Language Runtime Exceptions -> System.IO -> System.IO.FileNotFoundException.

You can find information about another way around it in the blog post C# XmlSerializer FileNotFound exception (which discusses Chris Sells' tool XmlSerializerPreCompiler).

Like Martin Sherburn said, this is normal behavior. The constructor of the XmlSerializer first tries to find an assembly named [YourAssembly].XmlSerializers.dll which should contain the generated class for serialization of your type. Since such a DLL has not been generated yet (they are not by default), a FileNotFoundException is thrown. When that happenes, XmlSerializer's constructor catches that exception, and the DLL is generated automatically at runtime by the XmlSerializer's constructor (this is done by generating C# source files in the %temp% directory of your computer, then compiling them using the C# compiler). Additional constructions of an XmlSerializer for the same type will just use the already generated DLL.

UPDATE: Starting from .NET 4.5, XmlSerializer no longer performs code generation nor does it perform compilation with the C# compiler in order to create a serializer assembly at runtime, unless explicitly forced to by setting a configuration file setting (useLegacySerializerGeneration). This change removes the dependency on csc.exe and improves startup performance. ^{Source: .NET Framework 4.5 Readme, section 1.3.8.1.}

The exception is handled by XmlSerializer's constructor. There is no need to do anything yourself, you can just click 'Continue' (F5) to continue executing your program and everything will be fine. If you're bothered by the exceptions stopping the execution of your program and popping up an exception helper, you either have 'Just My Code' turned off, or you have the FileNotFoundException set to break execution when thrown, instead of when 'User-unhandled'.

To enable 'Just My Code', go to Tools >> Options >> Debugging >> General >> Enable Just My Code. To turn off breaking of execution when FileNotFound is thrown, go to Debug >> Exceptions >> Find >> enter 'FileNotFoundException' >> untick the 'Thrown' checkbox from System.IO.FileNotFoundException.

In Visual Studio project properties ("Build" page, if I recall it right) there is an option saying "generate serialization assembly". Try turning it on for a project that generates [Containing Assembly of MyType].

There is a workaround for that. If you use

XmlSerializer lizer = XmlSerializer.FromTypes(new[] { typeof(MyType) })[0];

it should avoid that exception. This worked for me.

WARNING: Do not use multiple times, or you will have a memory leak

You will leak memory like crazy if you use this method to create instances of XmlSerializer for the same type more than once!

This is because this method bypasses the built-in caching provided the XmlSerializer(type) and XmlSerializer(type, defaultNameSpace) constructors (all other constructors also bypass the cache).

If you use any method to create an XmlSerializer that is not via these two constructors, you must implement your own caching or you'll hemorrhage memory.

This exception can also be trapped by a managed debugging assistant (MDA) called BindingFailure.

This MDA is useful if your application is designed to ship with pre-build serialization assemblies. We do this to increase performance for our application. It allows us to make sure that the pre-built serialization assemblies are being properly built by our build process, and loaded by the application without being re-built on the fly.

It's really not useful except in this scenario, because as other posters have said, when a binding error is trapped by the Serializer constructor, the serialization assembly is re-built at runtime. So you can usually turn it off.

Troubleshooting compilation errors on the other hand is very complicated. These problems manifest themselves in a FileNotFoundException with the message:

File or assembly name abcdef.dll, or one of its dependencies, was not found. File name: "abcdef.dll"
   at System.Reflection.Assembly.nLoad( ... )
   at System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad( ... )
   at System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(...)
   at System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerResults.get_CompiledAssembly() 

You may wonder what a file not found exception has to do with instantiating a serializer object, but remember: the constructor writes C# files and tries to compile them. The call stack of this exception provides some good information to support that suspicion. The exception occurred while the XmlSerializer attempted to load an assembly generated by CodeDOM calling the System.Reflection.Assembly.Load method. The exception does not provide an explanation as to why the assembly that the XmlSerializer was supposed to create was not present. In general, the assembly is not present because the compilation failed, which may happen because, under rare circumstances, the serialization attributes produce code that the C# compiler fails to compile.

Note This error also occurs when the XmlSerializer runs under an account or a security environment that is not able to access the temp directory.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302290.aspx

In Visual Studio project properties there is an option saying "generate serialization assembly". Try turning it on for a project that generates [Containing Assembly of MyType].

A custom class to serialise:

[Serializable]
public class TestClass
{
    int x = 2;
    int y = 4;
    public TestClass(){}
    public TestClass(int x, int y)
    {
        this.x = x;
        this.y = y;
    }

    public int TestFunction()
    {
        return x + y;
    }
}

I have attached the code snippet. Maybe this can help you out.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TestClass));

    MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
    XmlTextWriter xmlWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, Encoding.UTF8);

    TestClass domain = new TestClass(10, 3);
    xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, domain);
    memoryStream = (MemoryStream)xmlWriter.BaseStream;
    string xmlSerializedString = ConvertByteArray2Str(memoryStream.ToArray());

    TestClass xmlDomain = (TestClass)DeserializeObject(xmlSerializedString);

    Console.WriteLine(xmlDomain.TestFunction().ToString());
    Console.ReadLine();
}

Just as reference. Taking from D-B answer and comments, I came with this solution which is close to D-B solution. It works fine in all of my cases and it is thread safe. I don't think that using a ConcurrentDictionary would have been ok.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace HQ.Util.General
{
    public class XmlSerializerHelper
    {
        private static readonly Dictionary<Type, XmlSerializer> _dictTypeToSerializer = new Dictionary<Type, XmlSerializer>();

        public static XmlSerializer GetSerializer(Type type)
        {
            lock (_dictTypeToSerializer)
            {
                XmlSerializer serializer;
                if (! _dictTypeToSerializer.TryGetValue(type, out serializer))
                {
                    var importer = new XmlReflectionImporter();
                    var mapping = importer.ImportTypeMapping(type, null, null);
                    serializer = new XmlSerializer(mapping);
                    return _dictTypeToSerializer[type] = serializer;
                }

                return serializer;
            }
        }
    }
}

Usage:

        if (File.Exists(Path))
        {
            using (XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(Path))
            {
                // XmlSerializer x  = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
                var x = XmlSerializerHelper.GetSerializer(typeof(T));

                try
                {
                    options = (OptionsBase<T>)x.Deserialize(reader);
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    Log.Instance.AddEntry(LogType.LogException, "Unable to open Options file: " + Path, ex);
                }
            }
        }

Your type may reference other assemblies which cannot be found neither in the GAC nor in your local bin folder ==> ...

"or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified"

Can you give an example of the type you want to serialize?

Note: Ensure that your type implements Serializable.

Seen a lot of recommendations to use a ConcurrentDictionary, but no solid examples of it, so I'm going to throw my hat into this solution race. I'm not a thread-safe developer, so if this code isn't solid, please speak up for the sake of those who follow after.

public static class XmlSerializerHelper
{
    private static readonly ConcurrentDictionary<Type, XmlSerializer> TypeSerializers = new ConcurrentDictionary<Type, XmlSerializer>();

    public static XmlSerializer GetSerializer(Type type)
    {
        return TypeSerializers.GetOrAdd(type,
        t =>
        {
            var importer = new XmlReflectionImporter();
            var mapping = importer.ImportTypeMapping(t, null, null);
            return new XmlSerializer(mapping);
        });
    }
}

I've seen other posts involving ConcurrentDictionary and Lazy loading the value. I'm not sure if that's relevant here or not, but here's the code for that:

private static readonly ConcurrentDictionary<Type, Lazy<XmlSerializer>> TypeSerializers = new ConcurrentDictionary<Type, Lazy<XmlSerializer>>();

public static XmlSerializer GetSerializer(Type type)
{
    return TypeSerializers.GetOrAdd(type,
    t =>
    {
        var importer = new XmlReflectionImporter();
        var mapping = importer.ImportTypeMapping(t, null, null);
        var lazyResult = new Lazy<XmlSerializer>(() => new XmlSerializer(mapping), LazyThreadSafetyMode.ExecutionAndPublication);
        return lazyResult;
    }).Value;
}

Had a similar problem in one of my .Net Standard dlls.

I used Microsoft.XmlSerializer.Generator nuget, which pre-generating XmlSerializer on .Net Core and .Net Standard.