What does Object Reference not set to an instance of an object mean?

Pre-Beta 1

This error has been known to be emitted by the ""ResolveAssemblyReference"" task in the ""Pre-Beta 1"" drop. There is a known issue with ""Pre-Beta 1"", caused by a reference to an assembly that has a null or empty public key token (PKT). There were two ways to have an "absent" public key token in an assembly's full name.
* The first and more common way was that the PKT was empty. That is, a zero length byte array.
* The second, less common way, was for the PKT to be null.

One way to work around the issue in ""Pre-Beta1"" is to sign or partially sign the assembly that is being referenced. We don't know what causes some assemblies to have null ""PKTs"" and others to have zero length byte array ""PKTs"".

Beta 1 and Beyond

The bug has been fixed in subsequent releases.