monodevelop 5.10.0.871-2 has broken asp.net support/addin

[Cody Pisto]

monodevelop 5.10.0.871-2 (Ubuntu 16.04 beta*) appears to have some of the xml files and manifests for the asp.net support addin, but its missing the actual dll assemblies, so it doesn't actually work.

Snippet from the monodevelop logs:

WARNING: [MonoDevelop.AspNet,5.10] Could not load some add-in assemblies: Could not find file "/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.Helpers.dll".
ERROR: Errors found in add-in '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/MonoDevelop.AspNet.dll:
ERROR: The file '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.Helpers.dll' referenced in the manifest could not be found.
ERROR: The file '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.Mvc.dll' referenced in the manifest could not be found.
ERROR: The file '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.Razor.dll' referenced in the manifest could not be found.
ERROR: The file '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.WebPages.Deployment.dll' referenced in the manifest could not be found.
ERROR: The file '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.WebPages.dll' referenced in the manifest could not be found.
ERROR: The file '/usr/lib/monodevelop/AddIns/AspNet/System.Web.WebPages.Razor.dll' referenced in the manifest could not be found.
WARNING: The add-in 'MonoDevelop.Debugger.Soft.AspNet,5.10' could not be updated because some of its dependencies are missing or not compatible:
  missing: MonoDevelop.AspNet,5.10

The monodevelop package (5.10.0.871-0xamarin2) direct from Xamarin, which the Ubuntu package closely resembles has the correct dll assemblies and asp.net support works correctly.

I'm guessing this is some form of package build failure and not a feature being disabled intentionally?

[Cody Pisto (cpisto)]

I see there is some documentation about removing these specific files in the packages README.debian, but there is no documentation about how to enable the addin? Its still included, just broken without these files.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Luca Osvaldo Mastromatteo (lukycrociato)]

THe bug is still there.

[William Ivanski (william-ivanski)]

I'm using monodevelop from Xamarin repository: http://www.mono-project.com/docs/getting-started/install/linux/#debian-ubuntu-and-derivatives

Had to pin the package to not install from ubuntu repo, which provides a higher version. Edit file /etc/apt/preferences and put the following:

Package: monodevelop
Pin: origin archive.ubuntu.com
Pin-Priority: -1

[Luca Osvaldo Mastromatteo (lukycrociato)]

The problems seems to happen also in debian testing, reported upstream.

[Ville Ilvonen (vilvo)]

In addition to what was proposed by william-ivanski with pinning and packages from Xamarin repository as a workaround, you need to downgrade with:
# sudo apt install monodevelop=5.10.0.871-0xamarin2

[William Ivanski (william-ivanski)]

Thank you, vilvo, I forgot to mention that.

[Rajasingh (rajasingh012)]

@vilvo Downgrade not working, E: Version '5.10.0.871-0xamarin2' for 'monodevelop' was not found

[William Ivanski (william-ivanski)]

@rajasingh012 Fist, you need to add the Mono Project GPG signing key and the package repository to your system, as seen here: http://www.mono-project.com/docs/getting-started/install/linux/#debian-ubuntu-and-derivatives

Then, you have to pin the package to not install from ubuntu repo, which provides a higher version. Edit file /etc/apt/preferences and put the following:

Package: monodevelop
Pin: origin archive.ubuntu.com
Pin-Priority: -1

Run apt-get update

Finally, you can downgrade with:

# sudo apt install monodevelop=5.10.0.871-0xamarin2

[Rajasingh (rajasingh012)]

Thanks @william-ivanski. It works

[William Ivanski (william-ivanski)]

I strongly suggest that you guys stop using MonoDevelop from Ubuntu or Mono repos. The developers of MonoDevelop won't be packaging as .deb or .rpm anymore. The current way to install is through FlatPak, as MonoDevelop page says: http://www.monodevelop.com/download/

I tested here and MonoDevelop 6.1, through FlatPak, is not affected by this bug.