MonoDevelop reports Build Successful but there is no exe file

In MonoDevelop, I create a new solution (C# console application). It gives me a simple hello world program. I press the run button. I see "Build Successful" The terminal comes up and says:

Cannot open assembly '/home/beauxq/MonoProjects/cstest/cstest/bin/Debug/cstest.exe': No such file or directory.

Press any key to continue...

I look in that bin/Debug directory and it is empty.

The build output:

Building: cstest (Debug|x86)

Build started 7/28/2016 9:29:40 AM.
__________________________________________________
Project "/home/beauxq/MonoProjects/cstest/cstest/cstest.csproj" (Build target(s)):

    Target PrepareForBuild:
        Configuration: Debug Platform: x86

    Target GenerateSatelliteAssemblies:
    No input files were specified for target GenerateSatelliteAssemblies, skipping.

    Target GenerateTargetFrameworkMonikerAttribute:
    Skipping target "GenerateTargetFrameworkMonikerAttribute" because its outputs are up-to-date.
Done building project "/home/beauxq/MonoProjects/cstest/cstest/cstest.csproj".-- FAILED

Build FAILED.
     0 Warning(s)

---------------------- Done ----------------------

Build successful.

The same happens when I select "Build" from the menu. "Build Successful" but the directory is empty.

Solution 1:

I just stumbled upon this too. Clean, Build, Rebuild all report successful, but nothing really happens.

To fix this, you must install package mono-devel, which is also in the recommends tag

Recommends: libglade2.0-cil-dev, libgtk2.0-cil-dev, mono-devel

Maybe you installed monodevelop with option --no-install-recommends, or have APT::Install-Recommends "false"; somewhere in your apt.conf(.d), as I do.

See also How to not install recommended and suggested packages? about recommended packages and no-install-recommends.

Solution 2:

I have encountered the same issue. In my case, all required packages were installed, so I had to look further.

All I had to do is perform a "Clean All" before building / debugging the project.

It was probably due to the MonoDevelop project which was started on a different machine with quite an older version of MonoDevelop.

Hope this might help someone in the same situation.