Can't instantiate COM component in C# - error 80070002

Question

I'm attempting to instantiate a Windows Media Player COM object on my machine:

Guid mediaPlayerClassId = new Guid("47ac3c2f-7033-4d47-ae81-9c94e566c4cc");
Type mediaPlayerType = Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(mediaPlayerClassId);
Activator.CreateInstance(mediaPlayerType); // <-- this line throws

When executing that last line, I get the following error:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException was caught
  Message="Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {47AC3C2F-7033-4D47-AE81-9C94E566C4CC} failed due to the following error: 80070002."
  Source="mscorlib"
  StackTrace:
       at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandle& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
       at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean fillCache)
       at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean fillCache)
       at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
       at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type)
       at MyStuff.PreviewFile(String filePath) in F:\Trunk\PreviewHandlerHosting\PreviewHandlerHost.cs:line 60
  InnerException:

This same code works on other developer machines and end user machines. For some reason, it only fails on my machine. What could be the cause?

Answer 1

Well, 0x80070002 means File not found, so I'd check to see whether the DLL pointed to in the COM registration actually exists on your machine

Answer 2

80070002 is a File Not Found error.

My guess is your machine is missing a dependency. Try running the com component through depends.exe to see if you have all of the required libraries installed.

Answer 3

If application pool crashes this error can happen. You can check your code if there is any function or object initialization repeating more eventually. This can cause memory leakage and at last application pool crash