I think I'm having an assembly binding / loading order problem

[AbsolutelyFreeWeb]

I'm having a major problem with my .net maui app that I need your help and expertise with.

My task is to add push notifications to an existing app. The app has many sub projects.

I made a proof of concept for the push notification using firebase following a tutorial and it worked great.

I then added it to my larger app. First problem was to have to divide it into parts, syncing assembly versions etc.

Now that all that is done, it is still not working. My only lead as to why is this:

In the working app, when firebase is loaded I get this output (and this happens several pages down the output):

[monodroid-assembly] open_from_bundles: failed to load assembly Microsoft.Maui.dll
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.maui7_helloworld/files/.__override__/Microsoft.Maui.dll [External]

[monodroid-assembly] open_from_bundles: failed to load assembly System.Memory.dll
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.maui7_helloworld/files/.__override__/System.Memory.dll [External]
[monodroid-assembly] open_from_bundles: failed to load assembly System.Reflection.Emit.Lightweight.dll
[monodroid-assembly] open_from_bundles: failed to load assembly System.Reflection.Emit.ILGeneration.dll
[monodroid-assembly] open_from_bundles: failed to load assembly System.Reflection.Primitives.dll
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.maui7_helloworld/files/.__override__/System.Reflection.Emit.Lightweight.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.maui7_helloworld/files/.__override__/System.Reflection.Emit.ILGeneration.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.maui7_helloworld/files/.__override__/System.Reflection.Primitives.dll [External]

[FirebaseApp] Device unlocked: initializing all Firebase APIs for app [DEFAULT]
[FirebaseInitProvider] FirebaseApp initialization successful

when maui loads, it is the first time it is loading. The mechanism that makes it load and initialize is using Xamarin.GooglePlayServices.Base and having the credential file google-services.json tagged with GoogleServicesJson

	<ItemGroup Condition="'$(TargetFramework)' == 'net8.0-android'">
	  <PackageReference Include="Xamarin.AndroidX.Fragment.Ktx">
	    <Version>1.8.2</Version>
	  </PackageReference>
	  <PackageReference Include="Xamarin.Firebase.Messaging">
	    <Version>124.0.0.1</Version>
	  </PackageReference>
	  <PackageReference Include="Xamarin.Google.Dagger">
	    <Version>2.52.0</Version>
	  </PackageReference>
	  <PackageReference Include="Xamarin.GooglePlayServices.Base">
	    <Version>118.5.0.1</Version>
	  </PackageReference>
		<GoogleServicesJson Include="Platforms\Android\google-services.json" />
	</ItemGroup>

The tutorial adds Google Dagger although I never saw it used. I'm not sure if that is part of the missing piece.

Now on to the app that is not working:

What happens is that, as soon as it deploys it loads maui. So the first lines of output is this:

> am start -D -a "android.intent.action.MAIN" -c "android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" -n "com.company.appname/crc64ec6434329d08ff60.MainActivity"
> Starting: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] cmp=com.company.appname/crc64ec6434329d08ff60.MainActivity }
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Private.CoreLib.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/ScanPayGo.dll
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/Mono.Android.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Runtime.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/Java.Interop.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Runtime.InteropServices.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Collections.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/Mono.Android.Runtime.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Threading.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Threading.Thread.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Diagnostics.StackTrace.dll [External]

Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/Microsoft.Maui.dll [External]

Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Memory.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.ComponentModel.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Reflection.Emit.Lightweight.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Reflection.Emit.ILGeneration.dll [External]
Loaded assembly: /data/data/com.redimart.scanpaygo/files/.__override__/System.Reflection.Primitives.dll [External]

when it eventually comes down to the place it wants to load firebase I get this:

[Mono] Request to load Microsoft.Maui in alc 0x7ce021d31630
[Mono] Assembly already loaded in the active ALC: 'Microsoft.Maui'.
[FirebaseApp] Default FirebaseApp failed to initialize because no default options were found. This usually means that com.google.gms:google-services was not applied to your gradle project.
[FirebaseInitProvider] FirebaseApp initialization unsuccessful

The initialization of firebase fails seemingly because Maui is already loaded when it tries to initialize.

I have tried to move things around, but I really lack understanding of how this works and how I can fix it.

I really would appreciate any help... Thank you!