Your project does not reference ".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2" framework. Add a reference to ".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2" in the "TargetFrameworks"

Question

I can't run my unit tests.

I have the next error:

Your project does not reference ".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2" framework. Add a reference to ".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2" in the "TargetFrameworks" property of your project file and then re-run NuGet restore.

In app.config:

<startup>
  <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2"/>
</startup>

In Project > Properties > Application > TargetFramework (.NET Framework 4.6.2)

How can I fix it?

Harriman

#43239247 – Piazza

Answer 1

Please make the next steps

1. Clean solution
2. Clean folder "packages"
3. Delete folder "bin"
4. Delete folder "obj"

Ardrey

#3 and #4 solved the issue. I had a branch that was an upgrade task to 4.7.2 however I had to switch to another branch that was targeting 4.7.1. Do these steps to solve that issue. – Electrolier

Had to do one more step, from the solution directory: del /S project.assets.json – Concomitance

After doing this clean I found out that I had another error in the project which was displayed the .Net Framework error. Fixing it solved the issue. – Concede

https://mcmap.net/q/75178/-i-want-to-delete-all-bin-and-obj-folders-to-force-all-projects-to-rebuild-everything has batch scripts for deleting these. – Johnette

no 3 and 4 reslove my issue but I have to exit from the visual studio. – Amerce

after deleting /packages I had to also run nuget restore – Ornamental

I wonder why the Clean button doesn't clean the obj folder. That would solve this problem. – Arias

You can use this powershell script to delete all bin&object gist.github.com/alikrc/f6c08b77d5c58c5b196368169ad24777 – Epiphora

I upgraded from 4.7.2 to 4.8, and it was sufficient for me to delete the obj/ folders. – Subarctic

any idea of why this annoying bugs happen on a product like vs? – Takeo

For Mercurial users (after closing your IDE): hg purge --all (beware: this deletes all files that are not under version control what just is what you expect in most cases of clean solution) – Weatherboard

It's almost 2022, and it's still happening! $MSFT, please fix it. – Constitutionality

Maybe also delete the hidden .vs/ folder – Mauretania

@Arias After I deleted the obj folder it suddenly during build could not find the projects.assets.json (this is probably why clean does not clean that folder) #48440723 I needed to switch to another minor version of the framework of that project that was complaining (it then generated the file (NPM restore did not do that) then I switched back and the build worked fine again – Nameplate

@Nameplate I've had it break NuGet packages too. So clean needs to delete obj, then do a NuGet restore. I think the point is that Microsoft could figure this out and fix it. – Arias

In my case I had to remove obj and bin folders from all the projects that composed my solution. Including test projects. – Irritable

it's now 2024 and this happened to me again. # 3 and #4. Clean does nothing to fix. – Aksum

I got it after trying to upgrade an old project, then rolling back. Of course the related files aren't in git... – Irrevocable

Answer 2

The file that was causing issue for me was obj/project.assets.json inside project folder. Deleting it and rebuilding the project worked.

Avarice

This is probably the question's answer. Wonderful fact: clean/rebuild does not works. – Tautologism

Great: worked fine for me. – Doykos

Deleting the Obj folder fixed the issue. Thanks – Ulrick

For me, this was caused by switching from .NET Core to .NETFrameworks, and this solution worked for me. – Amandaamandi

I added "del $(ProjectDir)\obj\*.json" to the pre-build event to prevent this from happening again. – Amandaamandi

Answer 3

I experienced similar issue, but with v4.7.2. Namely, I kept getting build log message like this:

error : Your project does not reference ".NETFramework,Version=v4.7.2" framework. Add a reference to ".NETFramework,Version=v4.7.2" in the "TargetFrameworks" property of your project file and then re-run NuGet restore.

Despite the fact that it looked similar, none of the above proposed steps worked for me. I kept seeing this message after each build. Nothing seemed to be able to help.

In fact, the problem was related to that, due to migration, I had to put two projects in one folder of code. One of them was targeted at .Net Core, another at .Net Framework, both referenced same .Net Standard libraries. Apparently, they share the same obj folder where Core projects put project.assets.json file. Actually, exactly this file interferres with the Framework project preventing its normal build. Seems even if you performed Migrate from packages.config to PackageReference... which was recommended as one of possible solution.

You can try to fix the issue by putting the following snippet into your Framework project file:

<Project>
  ...
  <PropertyGroup>
    <BaseOutputPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)/out/$(MSBuildProjectName)/bin</BaseOutputPath>
    <BaseIntermediateOutputPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)/out/$(MSBuildProjectName)/obj</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>
  </PropertyGroup>
  ...
</Project>

It immediately worked for me, it was only later when I attentively read why we need it and why it works. I unexpectedly found it in part 2 of Migrating a Sample WPF App to .NET Core 3 under Making sure the .NET Framework project still builds section. BaseOutputPath and BaseIntermediateOutputPath msbuild variables can be found there, not sure if they are documented well anywhere.

Giaimo

In VS2019 I found that the properties you mention need to be before the OutputPath. I initially just dropped them at the bottom of the csproj with no success. This post has some additional details and implies that this might get fixed at some point: github.com/dotnet/msbuild/issues/2070 – Okeechobee

I was trying to migrate a solution from .Net Framework 4.7.2 to Net Core 5 and ran into some issues with a dependency. When I reverted, I was getting this error. Build Clean didn't do anything, but deleting all obj (and bin for good measure) directories got me back on track. – Artificiality

I solved a similar issue by moving the projects to their separate folders. Having multiple csproj files in the same folder seems to cause problems. – Erne

Likewise this solved my problem. Had a flat folder structure where sln and project were in the same root folder. Moved the project to src\ and this fixed the build errors on Azure pipelines. – Saudra

Answer 4

git clean -xdf

That should do the trick. It worked for us also in Jenkins. (we simply replayed the failed build with a modified script that ran git clean first).

For some reason MSBuild / Visual Studio get confused when switching between branches that target different versions of .NET Framework, so I had to do git cleans regularly while switching between branches.

Manriquez

that was the solution in my case! thank you ! – Lianeliang

Beware that this command will remove all untracked files from the working tree, including those defined in .gitignore file. – Buttonhole

Worked for me when I was setting up UE4 and switched to another version branch. – Mclellan

Answer 5

That happened to me when opening a VS2015 project in VS2017. Deleting the project.assets.json from the obj folder did the trick.

Anyway, the Framework from the message was missing in the file, I did not add it there though, went with deleting it.

Colonel

Simplest solution of all. Just search for the file in solution and delete them at once :) – Throat

The Pre-build command "IF EXIST $(ProjectDir)obj\project.assets.json del /F $(ProjectDir)obj\project.assets.json" in the common library worked for me. Thanks. – Buddha

Answer 6

I had deleted the obj folder and rerun the build after choosing the target framework required in the property window it worked for me.

Intension

Deleting bin and obj folders for both the EXE and DLL projects worked for me. – Manvell

Answer 7

I up-voted Larissa but I thought it might be helpful to know how I got into this. I added a .net standard project file to my build (we target lots of platforms) and it produced the debris found in the obj folder. When the android sanity build came around, it threw up on the obj folder. My solution was to clean that folder out as a pre-build step. This is a difficult problem because it was working just fine for years...needle meet haystack.

Candlenut

Answer 8

For my case, delete the .pkgrefgen/ folder under the project folder works, it contains a file project.assets.json that refer to old .net framework

Selfoperating

Mine was a project.assets.json file in the obj folder. Deleted bin and obj folders and the issue went away. – Courtnay

Answer 9

I ran into the same thing with .net 4.71. In my case, I simply migrated from packages.config to "package references" per

Migrate from packages.config to PackageReference

... and it fixed my issue. For me, I was going to do this anyway, so if you're going this way already, I'd just skip the above and migrate to package references.

Grinder

Answer 10

For whatever reason, I got this build error in VS2022.

The same build in VS2019 was successful.

Steve

This should be a comment, doesn't really answer the OP's question. – Ramon

I can see it both ways - it doesn't explain the cause, but does offer a solution. I did consider a comment but as none of the answers cured the issue for me I opted to post an answer for others in the same boat as me. – Steve

Answer 11

Renaming the project solved the error for me. The issue happened after I created .NET Core project, then I deleted it and created a .NET Standard one with the same name. Obj folder was not present at all. Deleting bin folder, packages, clean and rebuild solution and getting latest with override did not help.

I have not tried this, but this thread proposed workaround is to include into csproj tag:

<ResolveNuGetPackages>false</ResolveNuGetPackages>

Flybynight

Answer 12

I am using a very old .NET project, and it was working fine until it stopped all of a sudden. Upgrading Visual Studio fixed for me thou.

Crowson

Answer 13

On VS2019 I had to follow the error message and edit the project.json file that was in the project directory.

was ".NETFramework,Version=v4.0": {} // whatever the copied project was set to
now ".NETFramework,Version=v4.7.2": {} // set to whatever the current build is set to

Hula

Answer 14

Problem: In VS2017. Missing reference to .netframework 4.5.2, even though it was referenced as the target framework.

My solution: Verified framework was installed and restarted machine. After a git clean and simply right clicking on the solution in the explore and 'Restore nuget packages' did the trick.

Schweinfurt

Answer 15

I had the same issue in CI/CD process, when i had upgraded .net framework version from 4.6.1 to 4.7.2 which worked fine locally without any other modification.

However, the jenkins 'slave' node where the build was actually getting generated had some issue with nuget restore and it was not able to pick the latest build for some reason.

Logged into jenkins slave machine/node (basically the machine which jenkins uses to create the build/artifact), go to deployment path and then try deleting projects old builds along with .nugets folder and trigger CI/CD process again worked for me.

Redintegration

Answer 16

This error also occurs if you have removed an old SDK that provided nuget packages, but it is still referenced in your package sources list under Nuget manager/settings. Remove the nuget package source no longer in use to fix this. Otherwise, Visual studio on building will create the project.assets.json file with a reference to the old sdk and if the path is not there, you get the OP's error. In my case, I had DevExpress 20.2 in my list which I removed to resolve this issue.

Fizz

Answer 17

Shut down and restart of visual studio 2022 solved it for me. (when I cleaned the folders per the #1 post here... the error didn't go away until a restart)

Series