Exception in static constructor

Once a type initializer has failed once, it is never retried. The type is dead for the lifetime of the AppDomain. (Note that this is true for all type initializers, not just for types with static constructors. A type with static variables with initializer expressions, but no static constructors, can exhibit subtle differences in the timing of the type initializer execution – but it’ll still only happen once.)

Demonstration:

using System;

public sealed class Bang
{
    static Bang()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("In static constructor");
        throw new Exception("Bang!");
    }

    public static void Foo() {}
}

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
        {
            try
            {
                Bang.Foo();
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(e.GetType().Name);
            }
        }
    }
}

Output:

In static constructor
TypeInitializationException
TypeInitializationException
TypeInitializationException
TypeInitializationException
TypeInitializationException

As you can see, the static constructor is only called once.