Revit cannot run the external application

[rwelchKT]

I am working on a Revit Addin with a number of beta testers, each of whom I have sent a zip file containing an add-in manifest and dll.

Everyone seems to be able to install the Addin without issue provided they right-click and unblock the zip file prior to extracting. With one exception: one of our users tried the add-in using Service Pack 3 of Revit Building Design Suite 2013 and got the error message below.

I tried to reproduce the error on my end using the same settings of Revit Building Design Suite, but my version seems to work just fine. It also works for all of our other beta testers, including those using Revit Structure and Revit Architecture.

My initial inclination was that the dlls were being blocked by Windows, because this is the same error we found pops up if one does not unblock the zip file prior to extracting to the add-ins folder. However, when we held a GoTo meeting with our beta tester, we could clearly see that Windows did not place a block on the zip file (nor the dlls).

Without any ability to reproduce the error internally, I’m a bit mystified how to debug it. I have heard mention of dependency walker as a possible troubleshooting tool, but have no prior experience with it. Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Ryan

[Anonymous]

Hello, ryanxwelch

I may suggest that the reason in the 32 and 64 bits.

Probably you built your add-in for x86 Platform target and tried to run it on Revit for x64 platform or vice versa.

Where your add-in works fine, the addin platform is the same as Revit platform.

In your addin Visual Studio projects check the Platform and platform target settings.  They have to be Any CPU.

Regards,

Victor

[Joe.Ye]

Hi Ryan,

The possible reason is that that test user put the dll file in the network location. Revit cannot load it for the reason of scurity.

Hope this artile in Kean's blog helps to solve the issue.

http://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interface/2011/07/loading-blocked-and-network-h...

If this doesn't help, hope this article in our Devblog helps.

http://adndevblog.typepad.com/aec/saikat-bhattacharya/