Fuslogvw.exe aka Fusion Log Viewer aka Assembly Binding Log Viewer troubleshooting

What do you do when you have problems with assembly binding? Exceptions don’t tell very much (failed to load for some reason is all you get). You call Fuslogvw.exe to the rescue of course.

But what do you do when Fuslogvw.exe doesn’t work? You delete IE’s temporary internet files. Of course.

You might wonder what do IE’s temporary internet files have to do with fuslogvw? Here is straight from the documentation:

The Fuslogvw.exe (Assembly Binding Log Viewer) uses the Internet Explorer (IE) cache to store its binding log.

And here is the kicker

Due to occasional corruption in the IE cache, the Fuslogvw.exe (Assembly Binding Log Viewer)can sometimes stop showing new binding logs in the viewing window. As a result of this corruption, the .NET binding infrastructure (fusion) cannot write to or read from the binding log. (This issue is not encountered if you use a custom log path.) To fix the corruption and allow fusion to show binding logs again, clear the IE cache by deleting temporary internet files from within the IE Internet Options dialog.

I won’t even start how stupid the decision to use anything from IE for such a core functionality is. Besides fuslogvw will silently do nothing in case of temporary internet files corruption – instead of notifying user of a problem. Excellent and very friendly behaviour.

Anyway, clear temporary files and run fuslogvw under Administration privileges and it should work. If it still doesn’t then block a few people on Twitter, check privacy settings on Facebook and uninstall Chrome. It can’t fail!