Microsoft.ML NuGet package doesn't work with packages.config

[guivo]

Original Title

Impossible to run Iris classification test

System information

• OS version/distro:
  Windows 10.0.17134
• .NET Version (eg., dotnet --info):
  Product Information:
  Version: 2.1.200
  Commit SHA-1 hash: 2edba8d7f1

Issue

• What did you do?
  Try Iris tutorial

• What happened?
  Runtime error:

System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException
HResult=0x80131604
Message=Eccezione generata dalla destinazione di una chiamata.
Source=mscorlib
StackTrace:
at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor)
at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.UnsafeInvokeInternal(Object obj, Object[] parameters, Object[] arguments)
at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture)
at Microsoft.ML.Runtime.EntryPoints.EntryPointNode.Run()
at Microsoft.ML.Runtime.EntryPoints.EntryPointGraph.RunNode(EntryPointNode node)
at Microsoft.ML.Runtime.EntryPoints.JsonUtils.GraphRunner.RunAllNonMacros()
at Microsoft.ML.Runtime.EntryPoints.JsonUtils.GraphRunner.RunAll()
at Microsoft.ML.LearningPipeline.TrainTInput,TOutput
at IrsiExample.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\gvolpi\source\repos\MLNetTest1\IrsiExample\Program.cs:line 69

Inner Exception 1:
TargetInvocationException: Eccezione generata dalla destinazione di una chiamata.

Inner Exception 2:
DllNotFoundException: Impossibile caricare la DLL 'CpuMathNative': Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato. (Eccezione da HRESULT: 0x8007007E).

• What did you expect?

Source code / logs

Code copy/pasted from github

[eerhardt]

Hi @guivo,

Can you give some more insight in how you referenced ML.NET? Did you use a <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.ML" Version="0.1.0" /> in your .csproj?

Are you on the desktop .NET Framework? If so, you need to switch your project to be built for x64 architecture. Currently, ML.NET only supports x64 processes since we have some C++ native code (the "CpuMathNative" assembly from above) and are only building it for x64 currently.

[guivo]

Hi @eerhardt , I have done the test creating a desktop C# project for a CLI application. I have then inluded Microsoft.ML using NuGet and the csproj is slightly different but I am not sure this is relevant:

<Reference Include="Microsoft.ML, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=cc7b13ffcd2ddd51, processorArchitecture=MSIL"> <HintPath>..\packages\Microsoft.ML.0.1.0\lib\netstandard2.0\Microsoft.ML.dll</HintPath> </Reference>

More lines are there, to refence other ML modules (Api, Core, CpuMath....)

I can confirm that I am targeting x64 (visual studio fails if try a different architecture).

[glebuk]

@guivo, Thanks for checking. Looks like the process fails to find the cpuMathNative.dll. Can you check that the file is in the same location as other managed DLLs and the exe? If it is not in the target directory, then it's likely a problem with our NuGet definition. To unblock yourself, you can copy that file there manually for now.

Regards.

[eerhardt]

@guivo - I get your issue now. The problem is that you are using packages.config. Can you switch it to use <PackageReference> instead? This blog shows how easy it is to switch:

https://blog.nuget.org/20180409/migrate-packages-config-to-package-reference.html

You can also make PackageReference your default experience in VS following this blog.

[eerhardt]

Renaming the issue to best reflect the problem.

Guidance from the NuGet team is:

Packages.config doesn’t support native assets in runtimes\RID,
folks typically write targets to deal with this.
For an example look at https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.DiaSymReader.Native/1.7.0.

[guivo]

@eerhardt migrating to PackageReference fixed the issue, thanks!

Should I however expect a more flexible approach in the next release of the package?

[eerhardt]

I haven't tried getting it to work, but it seems simple enough to fix Microsoft.ML to work with packages.config. So I'd hope we can fix it in the next release.

[guivo]

With regard to this thread, I would to mention that in the case a solution with 3 projects, the recipe I have used (Migrating to PackageReference) didn't have positive effect in the last project. Where the migration seemed successful but the runtime error about not finding CpuMathNative appears.

Same code, in a solution with only that project, everything worked.

[eerhardt]

@guivo - if you could share a .zip (or push to a repo) of a solution that reproduces the issue, I can take a look.

BTW - #165 will fix this issue and allow ML.NET to work with packages.config. So the next release won't require PackageReference.