Linux smoke test crashes on 1.22.7: Mono.Cecil cannot resolve VintagestoryAPI for VSCreativeMod and VSEssentials

[Zaldaryon]

Stratum version

indev at HEAD, clean checkout. Not tied to a pending pull request.

Base game version

1.22.7

OS and .NET runtime

Linux and WSL, .NET 10

Stack trace

[Server Error] [VSCreativeMod.dll] An exception was thrown trying to load the ModInfo:
[Server Error] [VSCreativeMod.dll] Exception: Failed to resolve assembly: 'VintagestoryAPI, Version=1.22.7.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'
   at Mono.Cecil.BaseAssemblyResolver.Resolve(AssemblyNameReference name, ReaderParameters parameters)
   ...
   at Vintagestory.Common.ModContainer.LoadModInfoFromCode(...)

The same failure hits VSEssentials.dll. With both unresolved, survival's game dependency is reported missing, no mod systems load, and the server then throws an unhandled NullReferenceException in WorldConfig.loadWorldConfigValuesFromPlaystyle(), called from SaveGame.SetNewWorldConfig during ServerSystemModHandler.OnLoadAssets, which kills the process before it reaches RunGame.

What was happening

The server was loading assets during scripts/smoke-test.sh on a clean indev build. VintagestoryAPI.dll is present in the build output next to the mod DLLs, so this is Mono.Cecil's own resolver, used only for the IsModSystem metadata scan at ModContainer.cs:524, not being given the search path the normal .NET loader uses. It is not a missing file.

Reproduction steps

bash scripts/bootstrap.sh
dotnet build VintageStory.slnx -c Release
bash scripts/smoke-test.sh

On a clean indev checkout, Linux or WSL, .NET 10, base version 1.22.7.

Mods loaded

Stock bundled mods only: VSCreativeMod, VSEssentials, VSSurvivalMod. No third-party mods.

Note

This blocks the smoke-test half of the pre-PR gate in docs/agent/stratum.md and CONTRIBUTING.md for every branch, not one pull request. Likely fix area: give the Cecil resolver the mod output directory as an extra search path in the IsModSystem scan.

[Zaldaryon]

Root cause found, and it is not the Cecil resolver: the server in that run was executing vanilla VintagestoryLib.dll, which has no resolver at all.

The repro's second line is dotnet build VintageStory.slnx -c Release with no -p:EmbedPatchedFiles=true. Without that flag StratumServer.csproj embeds no overlay resources, PatchedFileOverlay.Apply returns without a word when it finds none, and VanillaBootstrap's downloaded VintagestoryLib.dll is what runs. scripts/smoke-test.sh only auto-builds when the binary is missing, so its own -p:EmbedPatchedFiles=true fallback never fired.

Vanilla ModAssemblyLoader.LoadAssemblyDefinition is AssemblyDefinition.ReadAssembly(path) with no ReaderParameters. Mono.Cecil 0.11.6's BaseAssemblyResolver then searches only { ".", "bin" }, relative to the process working directory, which was repo_root when this was filed. VintagestoryAPI.dll is in the server output directory, which is neither.

Reproduced against the real Lib/Mono.Cecil.dll and the built Mods/VSCreativeMod.dll:

cwd = <repo root>
mod = Mods/VSCreativeMod.dll  (references VintagestoryAPI 1.22.7.0)
[vanilla  ReadAssembly(path)]        -> AssemblyResolutionException: Failed to resolve assembly:
    'VintagestoryAPI, Version=1.22.7.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'
[Stratum  resolver, BaseDir + Lib]   -> OK modsystems=4

The vanilla path succeeds only from the server's own output directory. The Stratum resolver (1fe074b) succeeds from every directory tested.

Two corrections to the original diagnosis: the resolver is not version-strict (resolving VintagestoryAPI, Version=9.9.9.9 from a directory holding 1.22.7.0 returns the 1.22.7.0 assembly), and the mod is not dropped silently, ModContainer.LoadModInfo's catch logs it, which is where the stack trace above came from. What was missing was any signal that the build was unpatched.

A correctly built tree (make build, or dotnet build ... -p:EmbedPatchedFiles=true) reaches RunGame from a neutral working directory with zero resolve errors on current indev.

PR #299:

• warns when a StratumServer build carries no embedded patched files, instead of starting the server on the vanilla assemblies without a word;
• drops the cd "$server_dir" workaround from scripts/smoke-test.sh so the resolver is exercised from a neutral directory on every run;
• brings scripts/smoke-test.ps1 in line: it still preferred VintagestoryServer.exe and still built without the flag, so Windows boot-tested unpatched vanilla whenever that binary existed;
• adds a ResolveFailure re-probe to the Cecil resolver for a directory that appears after the loader is built;
• fixes the bare dotnet build command in docs/BUILDING.md and CONTRIBUTING.md, including the pre-PR gate step.

The WorldConfig NRE downstream of "no mods loaded" is left alone deliberately and is worth its own issue.