"Assembly with same name is already loaded"

[abbgrade]

Hello,

maybe you know the problem already: if you use modules in a script, that rely on the same dotnet assembly, you will sooner or later get the error Assembly with same name is already loaded. Not always, since if both instances of the assembly are in the same version, it's fine. If not, then it depends on the order of loading the assemblies. If the newer version is loaded first, then it will work as well. If the older one is loaded first, you cannot import the second module.
The longer you maintain the script, the higher the error probability becomes, since new versions of assemblies will be released and the modules may be updated. So the required order of loading the modules may change.
There are popular assemblies like Microsoft.Identity.Client, Azure.Identity and some more that are used by many modules and tend to produce issues.

Have you a workaround or solution for this, that you could share?

In general, I think this is a dotnet / powershell issue and should be fixed. But unfortunately I don't have a working solution approach.

Thanks

[ThomasNieto]

You'll want to have the module developers implement an Assembly Load Context for their dependencies so they are not loaded into the default. Here is a PowerShell talk on implementation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV3D2wP_Uug

[jborean93]

I've got a few example repos as well that uses an ALC https://github.com/jborean93/PowerShell-ALC. Unfortunately as a user this doesn't help as it's up to the module author to structure their module to use with an ALC.

[abbgrade]

thank you both. I will take some time, that I can have a deeper look, but it looks promising. Maybe I start PRs in my current case: platyPS and powershell-yaml rely on YamlDotNet.

[jborean93]

If you are ok with an alternative to powershell-yaml you could have a look at my Yayaml module which loads YamlDotNet in an ALC avoiding any conflicts there. It can be used in conjunction with platyPS as that will continue to load in the normal context while Yayaml uses an ALC to avoid any conflicts with any other module.

[abbgrade]

Thanks for the tip. The issue cloudbase/powershell-yaml#121 was already accepted.