Azure CI pipeline for Blazor .NET 5 doesn't work

Question

I have an existing Azure CI pipeline for a WebAssembly Blazor application, that works with .NET Core 3.1.

I upgraded the application to use .NET 5 RC, and the pipeline doesn't work anymore.

Following suggestions, I removed the NuGet task, and I inserted two new tasks:

- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: 'Use .NET Core sdk 5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10'
  inputs:
    version: '5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10'
    includePreviewVersions: true

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
  displayName: 'dotnet restore'
  inputs:
    command: restore
    projects: '**/*.csproj'

that work.

But the build task fails with:

...
ValidateSolutionConfiguration:
  Building solution configuration "release|any cpu".
  It was not possible to find any installed .NET Core SDKs
  Did you mean to run .NET Core SDK commands? Install a .NET Core SDK from:
      https://aka.ms/dotnet-download
##[error]Test1\Server\Server.csproj(0,0): Error : Unable to locate the .NET Core SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.
D:\a\1\s\Test1\Server\Server.csproj : error : Unable to locate the .NET Core SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.
##[error]Test1\Server\Server.csproj(0,0): Error MSB4236: The SDK 'Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web' specified could not be found.
Project "D:\a\1\s\FluidTickets.sln" (1) is building "D:\a\1\s\Test1\Server\Server.csproj" (2) on node 1 (default targets).
D:\a\1\s\Test1\Server\Server.csproj : error MSB4236: The SDK 'Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web' specified could not be found.
Done Building Project "D:\a\1\s\Test1\Server\Server.csproj" (default targets) -- FAILED.
...

In another answer here in StackOverflow, I read about adding a new variable:

MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\agent\_work\_tool\dotnet\sdk\5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10\Sdks

But if I do this, it's the restore task to fail, before the build one. So it looks like the SDK is 'reachable', in some way...
Any other idea?
Thanks in advance.

Murex

The net5 SDK preview is only supported in the Visual Studio preview. In your UseDotNet task, you have to specify which version of VS to use – Attestation

Oh, right, it makes sense... Could you please know how to do it? Thanks. – Murex

I mean: you say UseDotNet, but I think you are referring to the VSBuild@1 task, where I can only specify 'Visual Studio 2019', and not also the exact version... – Murex

Answer 1

Change your UseDotNet task to the following in order to make sure that the Visual Studio 2019 preview is used in conjunction with .NET5 preview:

- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: 'Use .NET 5 SDK (preview)'
  inputs:
    packageType: 'sdk'
    version: '5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10'
    vsVersion: '16.8.0'
    includePreviewVersions: true

Full YAML pipeline for your reference (this is working for my Blazor WASM .Net 5 project):

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

steps:

- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: 'Use .NET 5 SDK (preview)'
  inputs:
    packageType: 'sdk'
    version: '5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10'
    vsVersion: '16.8.0'
    includePreviewVersions: true

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
  displayName: 'NuGet restore'
  inputs:
    command: 'restore'
    projects: 'MyProject/MyProject.csproj'
    verbosityRestore: 'Normal'

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
  displayName: 'Build'
  inputs:
    zipAfterPublish: true
    command: publish
    publishWebProjects: false
    projects: 'MyProject/MyProject.csproj'
    arguments: '-c $(Build.Configuration) -o $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory) --no-restore'

- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  displayName: 'Publish'
  inputs:
    PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
    ArtifactName: 'drop'
    publishLocation: 'Container'

Attestation

Thank you Akinzekeel, it's a good suggestion, although now I have another error: Error : Version 5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10 of the .NET Core SDK requires at least version 16.8.0 of MSBuild. The current available version of MSBuild is 16.7.0.37604. – Murex

Which build agent / image are you using? Mine is working fine with ubuntu-latest – Attestation

Things got worse. if I use ubuntu-latest, when it comes to the VSBuild@1 task I get the error :The current operating system is not capable of running this task. That typically means the task was written for Windows only – Murex

Please see my updated answer. I don't use the VSBuild task btw, are you sure you really need that? – Attestation

Really thank you again for your time. But I must have something different, in my setup, because with just your pipeline I get another very strange error: /opt/hostedtoolcache/dotnet/sdk/5.0.100-rc.1.20452.10/Sdks/Microsoft.NET.Sdk/targets/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.DefaultItems.props(33,62): error MSB4184: The expression """.Configuration" cannot be evaluated. Method 'System.String.Configuration' not found. [/home/vsts/work/1/s/Test1/DbLibrary/DbLibrary.csproj] – Murex

I tried to google it, but I cannot find anything... I'm getting crazy. I can use a 'manual' publish from inside Visual Studio to Azure, so I can anyway see that the application, and server controllers, works perfectly, but I would like to setup a proper pipeline, for it... – Murex

Ah, and same exact error on all 5 projects of my solution. – Murex

Ok, my fault! I had a problem with my local variables. Now it works, apparently! :-) Thank you again!!! :-) – Murex

...I tried in every way, all day: I couldn't find the way to deploy the build result to an App Service on Azure... :-( I'm using a YAML pipeline with two stages (Build and Release, of course), but whatever I try I always get different errors. Would you mind to share your release pipeline, for the sample we are talking about? Thanks again! – Murex

Where are you trying to deploy this to? The build pipeline will output a zip file, so you may have to unzip this in your release pipeline – Attestation

You can now use the official version like so: - task: UseDotNet@2 displayName: 'Use .NET 5 SDK' inputs: packageType: 'sdk' version: '5.0.100' – Holocene

Answer 2

It's also worth noting that once you upgrade your api to use NET 5 you need to go into Azure Portal > App Services > Your api > Configuration > General Settings & switch Stack to NET and switch NET framework version to NET 5.

Carabiniere