Visual Studio: LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot

Question

I've been encountering a strange bug in Visual Studio 2010 for some time now.

I have a solution consisting of a project which compiles to a static library, and another project which is really simple but depends on this library.

Sometimes, in the last days extremely frequent, after Rebuilding the Solution or just compiling it with 1-3 changed source files, I get the following error:

2>LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'thelibrary.lib'
========== Rebuild All: 1 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 skipped ==========

Where compiling thelibrary.lib was a success without any errors or warnings.

I have tried cleaning the solution, but that doesn't always work.

• What is wrong here?

Answer 1

You can also fix the spaces-in-path problem by specifying the library path in DOS "8.3" format.

To get the 8.3 form, do (at the command line):

DIR /AD /X

recursively through every level of the directories.

Answer 2

I had the same problem. Solved it by defining a macro OBJECTS that contains all the linker objects e.g.:

OBJECTS = target.exe kernel32.lib mylib.lib (etc)

And then specifying $(OBJECTS) on the linker's command line.

I don't use Visual Studio though, just nmake and a .MAK file

Answer 3

I'm stumbling into the same issue. For me it seems to be caused by having 2 projects with the same name, one depending on the other.

For example, I have one project named Foo which produces Foo.lib. I then have another project that's also named Foo which produces Foo.exe and links in Foo.lib.

I watched the file activity w/ Process Monitor. What seems to be happening is Foo(lib) is built first--which is proper because Foo(exe) is marked as depending on Foo(lib). This is all fine and builds successfully, and is placed in the output directory--$(OutDir)$(TargetName)$(TargetExt). Then Foo(exe) is triggered to rebuild. Well, a rebuild is a clean followed by a build. It seems like the 'clean' stage of Foo.exe is deleting Foo.lib from the output directory. This also explains why a subsequent 'build' works--that doesn't delete output files.

A bug in VS I guess.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution to the problem as it involves Rebuild. A workaround is to manually issue Clean, and then Build.

Answer 4

I created a bin directory at the project_dir level, then created a release/debug directory inside the bin folder, which solved the problem for me.

Answer 5

I can see only 1 things happening here: You did't set properly dependences to thelibrary.lib in your project meaning that thelibrary.lib is built in the wrong order (Or in the same time if you have more then 1 CPU build configuration, which can also explain randomness of the error). ( You can change the project dependences in: Menu->Project->Project Dependencies )

Answer 6

I solved it with the following:

Go to View-> Property Pages -> Configuration Properties -> Linker -> Input

Under additional dependencies add the thelibrary.lib. Don't use any quotations.