[Bug]: Upgrade from 9.13.10 to 10.2.2 results in "Could not load file or assembly 'System.Memory' or one of its dependencies."

[kevinwolter]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

What happened?

Attempting to upgrade 9.13.10 to 10.2.2 results in "Could not load file or assembly 'System.Memory' or one of its dependencies." I am still testing things but it appears that an intermediate upgrade from 9.13.10 to 10.2.1 will allow a follow-up upgrade to 10.2.2 to work as expected. The tested site is a basic site with no extensions.

Steps to reproduce?

Standard upgrade method I use

1. Stop the existing site (9.13.10)
2. Recycle application pool
3. Copy over the upgrade files (10.2.2)
4. Start the site
5. Browse to site and error shows (attached)
   9.13.10 to 10.2.2 error.txt

Current Behavior

Immediate error upon accessing the site.

Expected Behavior

Site to show the standard DNN upgrade host login prompt.

Relevant log output

Anything else?

As a test, I also installed, from scratch, a new install of 10.2.2 and that worked as expected. As mentioned previously, an intermediate step of 9.13.10 to 10.2.1 then again to 10.2.2 does appear to work.

Affected Versions

10.2.0 (latest v10 release)

What browsers are you seeing the problem on?

Firefox

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[jeremy-farrance]

Same here with a starting point of v9.10.09. And since its me, I should prolly mention that 2sxc is NOT installed. No modules installed at all.

[jeremy-farrance]

Before the upgrade

After the upgrade

[jeremy-farrance]

For @kevinwolter :

[mitchelsellers]

Due to a number of reasons I do know that we have the suggested upgrade path of being 09.13.09 then to the latest 10.x - https://docs.dnncommunity.org/content/getting-started/setup/upgrades/suggested-upgrade-path/index.html

I believe some of the DLL issues were why

[valadas]

And we also have a new upgrade process starting from 10.2.0 which should handle some of the edge cases more gracefully. https://docs.dnncommunity.org/content/getting-started/setup/upgrades/post-10.2.0-steps.html

[jeremy-farrance]

To prevent further negative upgrade experiences, would you please consider updating the following two items?

1. Update the Release Notes

For the DNN 10.02.02 Release Notes - can we add a significant call out at the top of the page letting people know that for v10.02.02, they need to upgrade to v10.02.01 first.

Maybe something like:

⚠️ Upgrade to DNN 10.02.01 First ⚠️

• For upgrades, please upgrade to 10.02.01 first, and then upgrade to 10.02.02.

---

2. Update the Docs

For the DNN Suggested Upgrade Path in the docs and add another row FROM 10.02.01 TO 10.02.02.

[mitchelsellers]

To prevent further negative upgrade experiences, would you please consider updating the following two items?

I do NOT believe that step is required, the key thought is BEFORE going to 10.x getting to 9.13.9 is suggested.

@valadas, unless I'm wrong, there shouldn't be a NEED to go to 10.02.02 first.

[jeremy-farrance]

I do NOT believe that step is required...

If you use nvQuickSite, you can see this for yourself in under 5 mins.

• install a new DNN v9.13.09
• go through the normal upgrade process with the v10.02.02 upgrade zip
• after copying the files in and reloading the page, boom, yellow screen of details (see above)

If this is not happening for you, then the next step is to figure out what is different about our machines.

[mitchelsellers]

I have submitted this PR with a few proposed updates to the Docs - DNNCommunity/DNNDocs#778

[kevinwolter]

@bdukes, it is very possible I'm not understanding something, but I don't think removing the DLL alone will work, since the DLL itself doesn’t appear to be the issue. In my testing, taking the intermediate step of upgrading from 10.2.1 to 10.2.2 works as expected. Additionally, a completely new 10.2.2 installation also worked. This leads me to believe the DLL itself is not the issue, but it seems as if some adjustments are being made (I assume in web.config) during the 10.2.1 upgrade that allow it to continue working with the 10.2.2 upgrade and new DLL.

To also test your suggestion, I ran another test upgrade from 9.13.10 to 10.2.2 without copying the DLL, and it resulted in a similar but different error.

• Kevin

9.13.10 to 10.2.2 error without DLL.txt

[bdukes]

The issue appears to be that the web.config from DNN 9.x requires a specific version of System.Memory, and the upgrade package for DNN 10.2.2 includes a different version (DNN 10.2.1 and earlier do not include System.Memory in the upgrade package). This mismatch of versions is causing the "The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference" error you've recorded.

One of the tricky parts of the process is that the upgrade package contains extension packages which do include System.Memory, but DNN's installer is able to update the version in the web.config during their installation, bypassing this issue.

I still haven't had a chance to test my PR, so it's definitely possible that there's something else that it's missing.