Why does dotnet build on a .NET Framework 4.5 project throw "This project references NuGet package(s) that are missing"?

Question

The sample NotepadAndCalculatorTest project built in VS Code using the terminal command do.net build throws the following errors:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.401\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(820,5): error : The BaseOutputPath/OutputPath property is not set for project 'NotepadCalculatorTest.csproj'.  Please check to make sure that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and Platform for this project.  Configuration='Debug'  Platform='AnyCPU'.  You may be seeing this message because you are trying to build a project without a solution file, 
and have specified a non-default Configuration or Platform that doesn't exist for this project. [C:\Users\<username>\VSCode Projects\WinAppDriverTryout\Test\Samples\C#\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\NotepadCalculatorTest.csproj]

Or:

NotepadCalculatorTest.csproj(109,5): error : This project references NuGet package(s) that are missing on this computer. Use NuGet Package Restore to download them.  For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=322105. The missing file is packages\MSTest.TestAdapter.1.2.0\build\net45\MSTest.TestAdapter.props.

Could someone point me towards a possible way to get rid of the errors?

Answer 1

do.net build carries out an implicit restore as part of the command.

This uses do.net restore which does not support project references in packages.config & is exactly what this project is using.

do.net restore only supports .csproj package references.

That's why, this project builds perfectly fine in Visual Studio but do.net build throws errors.

You can migrate packages.config to package references by right-clicking on the file within Visual Stduio and clicking migrate, however that still won't fix your problem as do.net cli works properly with .NET Framework only if the project was created using the do.net new command.

I assume this project was created in Visual Studio since it has a Visual Studio solution file - .sln - and so commonly have a differently structured .csproj format.

This then usually breaks some CLI commands, even if you migrate the references in this case.

You have 2 workarounds.

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1. Use nuget restore

The easiest option is to download the NuGet CLI executable from here , taken from the downloads page .

If you are not on Windows, use this guide by Microsoft .

Add it to your PATH or place it in the root folder of the project.

Run nuget restore , which is compatible with packages.config (run .\nuget restore if you're inside PowerShell to trust the command as PowerShell does not does not load commands from the current location by default for security).

Your should get output similar to this:

PS C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest> .\nuget restore
MSBuild auto-detection: using msbuild version '16.9.0.16703' from 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\bin'.
Restoring NuGet package Microsoft.WinAppDriver.Appium.WebDriver.1.0.1-Preview.
Restoring NuGet package Selenium.Support.3.8.0.
Restoring NuGet package Selenium.WebDriver.3.8.0.
Restoring NuGet package Castle.Core.4.2.1.
Restoring NuGet package MSTest.TestFramework.1.2.0.
Restoring NuGet package Newtonsoft.Json.10.0.3.
Restoring NuGet package MSTest.TestAdapter.1.2.0.
Adding package 'MSTest.TestFramework.1.2.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Adding package 'Selenium.Support.3.8.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Adding package 'Castle.Core.4.2.1' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Adding package 'Microsoft.WinAppDriver.Appium.WebDriver.1.0.1-Preview' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Adding package 'Selenium.WebDriver.3.8.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Adding package 'Newtonsoft.Json.10.0.3' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Adding package 'MSTest.TestAdapter.1.2.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'Microsoft.WinAppDriver.Appium.WebDriver.1.0.1-Preview' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'Selenium.Support.3.8.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'Selenium.WebDriver.3.8.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'Castle.Core.4.2.1' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'Newtonsoft.Json.10.0.3' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'MSTest.TestAdapter.1.2.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'
Added package 'MSTest.TestFramework.1.2.0' to folder 'C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\packages'

NuGet Config files used:
    C:\Users\StackOverflow\AppData\Roaming\NuGet\NuGet.Config
    C:\Program Files (x86)\NuGet\Config\Microsoft.VisualStudio.FallbackLocation.config
    C:\Program Files (x86)\NuGet\Config\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Offline.config

Feeds used:
    C:\Users\StackOverflow\.nuget\packages\
    https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\NuGetPackages\

Installed:
    7 package(s) to packages.config projects

Then run do.net build .

It won't try to run do.net restore as the packages have already been restored by NuGet already so you won't get any errors:

PS C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest> dotnet build 
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.9.0+57a23d249 for .NET
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

  Determining projects to restore...
  Nothing to do. None of the projects specified contain packages to restore.
  NotepadCalculatorTest -> C:\Users\StackOverflow\NotepadAndCalculatorTest\bin\Debug\NotepadCalculatorTest.dll

Build succeeded.
    0 Warning(s)
    0 Error(s)

Time Elapsed 00:00:01.08

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2. Port the project

The 2nd workaround is to create a new project using do.net new & port the code over so that your .csproj file works with do.net restore and subsequently, do.net build .

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I would recommend option 1 unless you don't want to restore via NuGet.