weird C# compiler error: cyclic inheritance

Question

I came across the following error a few days ago, in one of our C# applications here at work. Here's how the error message looks like:

"Inherited interface '...ResourceManager.ResourcesManager' causes a cycle in the interface hierarchy of '...ResourceManager.IResourcesManagerView' in D:...\Common\ResourceManager\IResourcesManagerView.cs"

This always happens on my machine, but on the build machine there's a 50-50 chance the build will succeed. My class 'ResourceManager' implements an interface 'IResourcesManagerView', which also implements several interfaces, One of which is a generic interface named IInitializable. I have found the following workaround: declare a dummy interface IDummy implementing IInitializable.

But this doesn't make any sense to me. Has anyone come across this issue? I use Windows XP, Visual Studio 2005.

Answer 1

You are probably referencing the same, but different version assembly containing the interface. Make sure you reference common assemblies from the same location.