Visual Studio 2017 build error for .net core 2.1

Facing this issue while publish/Build of the project

Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State

Error MSB4018 The "GenerateDepsFile" task failed unexpectedly.

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: C:\Users\rkaushik\.nuget\packages\microsoft.teamfoundationserver.client\15.131.1\lib\net45\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.dll

at System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(String fileName)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.FileUtilities.GetFileVersion(String sourcePath)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.CreateRuntimeFile(String path, String fullPath)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.CreateRuntimeFile(LockFileTargetLibrary library, LockFileItem item)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.<>c__DisplayClass40_0.b__0(LockFileItem a)

at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectListIterator`2.MoveNext()

at System.Linq.Buffer`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 source)

at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.CreateRuntimeAssemblyGroups(LockFileTargetLibrary targetLibrary, SingleProjectInfo referenceProjectInfo)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.GetLibrary(LockFileTargetLibrary export, LockFileLookup libraryLookup, IDictionary`2 dependencyLookup, Boolean runtime)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.<>c__DisplayClass36_0.b__0(LockFileTargetLibrary export)

at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectArrayIterator`2.MoveNext()

at System.Linq.Enumerable.d__97`1.MoveNext()

at System.Linq.Enumerable.d__59`1.MoveNext()

at System.Linq.Buffer`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 source)

at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)

at Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyModel.DependencyContext..ctor(TargetInfo target, CompilationOptions compilationOptions, IEnumerable`1 compileLibraries, IEnumerable`1 runtimeLibraries, IEnumerable`1 runtimeGraph)

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.DependencyContextBuilder.Build()

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.GenerateDepsFile.ExecuteCore()

at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.TaskBase.Execute()

at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute()

at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.d__26.MoveNext() TFSBusinessLogicAPI C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.1.500\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.targets 129

1 Reply

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Logesh Palani7y ago
I've managed to fix this issue myself and would like to document the solution here for future reference.

The following error was caused by an empty XML element in the project file:
- MSB4018: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
The empty element was accessed by the 'Link' task, which just failed:
- MSB4018: 'The "Link" task failed unexpectedly.
Removing the respective element fixed the issue:
Hint: As it can be seen in other posts, many of the MSB4018 errors seem to be related to project files containing unexpected values.
Refer this conversion - https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/364