Workaround: Xamarin.Android long paths on Windows
Quick answer (TL;DR) Create a symbolic link from your deeply-nested folder to a shorter path using one of the following commands in an Administrator prompt. Command Prompt mklink /D {desired-path-location} {actual-path-location} PowerShell [Core] New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path {desired-path-location} -Value {actual-path-location} After you create the symbolic link, drag the desired solution into Visual Studio rather than navigating through the link in the Open dialog, which will override to the original path. Background If you like to keep all your code in a user directory on Windows, there’s a very good chance you’ve cloned a repo or started a new Xamarin.Android project that ran into issues on the first build. Most likely you have run into a path length issue. Sometimes a project is just so nested, even putting the repo in a low-level folder will still have trouble. If you read the error messages, sometimes they explicitly say there is a path length issue. Sometimes, though, it will be something unusual like this JavaTypeInfo error. I don’t know enough of the Android build process to explain the issue here, but it’s definitely looking for a file at a path location that is 269 characters long. Failed to create JavaTypeInfo for class:… Continue reading