Develop Reference

Newtonsoft.Json dependency not publishing with the right version on "dotnet publish -o <other folder>"

Problem
So basically, i'm in DLL hell.
I have a dotnet 5.0 + react project where a C# dependency (I assume Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.NewtonsoftJson) needs another one Newtonsoft.Json.
When building and publishing in release or debug in the bin folder, the project runs perfectly fine and all the dependencies and .dll are loaded correctly. But as soon as I use the option -o for dotnet publish, the Newtonsoft.Json.dll created in the published folder is of version 9.0.0.0, which throws an error when trying to run the server in production, since it expects it to be of version 12.x.x.x.
What I've tried
Currently I have a fix, which is to build independently the correct version (12.x.x.x or higher) of the dll file of Newtsoft.Json and put it in the published folder when going in production, but obviously I would like to know of other possible fixes or more direct ones without needing to do extra steps when deploying in production and help people who face the same problem with this dependency or another in the future.
I have tried including the dependency explicitely with the correct version in the .csproj but the dependency still was outputing at version 9.0.0.0.
Another fix would be to downgrade the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.NewtonsoftJson to a version that accepts 9.0.0.0 but that opens up a whole other can of worms
I have tried clearing my nuget packages, that did not work either.
I have tried this very recent stack overflow solution where the OP faced a similar issue, but their fix of adding False to their test project didn't work for me, since my test project does not use Newtonsoft.Json.
Files
dependencies listed in the .csproj
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.JsonPatch" Version="5.0.11" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.NewtonsoftJson" Version="5.0.10" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.SpaServices.Extensions" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.ApiAuthorization.IdentityServer" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Diagnostics.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity.UI" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools" Version="5.0.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="13.0.1" />
<PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json.Bson" Version="1.0.2" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Data.SqlClient" Version="4.8.3" />
</ItemGroup>
Outputed Newtonsoft.Json.dll
// C:\Users\***\published\Newtonsoft.Json.dll
// Newtonsoft.Json, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=30ad4fe6b2a6aeed
// Global type: <Module>
// Architecture: AnyCPU (64-bit preferred)
// Runtime: v4.0.30319
// This assembly is signed with a strong name key.
// Hash algorithm: SHA1
// Public key: 0024000004800000940000000602000000240000525341310004000001000100f561df277c6c0b497d629032b410cdcf286e537c054724f7ffa0164345f62b3e642029d7a80cc351918955328c4adc8a048823ef90b0cf38ea7db0d729caf2b633c3babe08b0310198c1081995c19029bc675193744eab9d7345b8a67258ec17d112cebdbbb2a281487dceeafb9d83aa930f32103fbe1d2911425bc5744002c7
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Resources;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using System.Runtime.Versioning;
[assembly: CompilationRelaxations(8)]
[assembly: RuntimeCompatibility(WrapNonExceptionThrows = true)]
[assembly: Debuggable(/*Could not decode attribute arguments.*/)]
[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("9.0.1")]
[assembly: NeutralResourcesLanguage("en-US")]
[assembly: TargetFramework(".NETStandard,Version=v1.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyTitle("Json.NET .NET Standard 1.0")]
[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("Newtonsoft.Json.Schema, PublicKey=0024000004800000940000000602000000240000525341310004000001000100f561df277c6c0b497d629032b410cdcf286e537c054724f7ffa0164345f62b3e642029d7a80cc351918955328c4adc8a048823ef90b0cf38ea7db0d729caf2b633c3babe08b0310198c1081995c19029bc675193744eab9d7345b8a67258ec17d112cebdbbb2a281487dceeafb9d83aa930f32103fbe1d2911425bc5744002c7")]
[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("Newtonsoft.Json.Tests, PublicKey=0024000004800000940000000602000000240000525341310004000001000100f561df277c6c0b497d629032b410cdcf286e537c054724f7ffa0164345f62b3e642029d7a80cc351918955328c4adc8a048823ef90b0cf38ea7db0d729caf2b633c3babe08b0310198c1081995c19029bc675193744eab9d7345b8a67258ec17d112cebdbbb2a281487dceeafb9d83aa930f32103fbe1d2911425bc5744002c7")]
[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("Newtonsoft.Json.Dynamic, PublicKey=0024000004800000940000000602000000240000525341310004000001000100cbd8d53b9d7de30f1f1278f636ec462cf9c254991291e66ebb157a885638a517887633b898ccbcf0d5c5ff7be85a6abe9e765d0ac7cd33c68dac67e7e64530e8222101109f154ab14a941c490ac155cd1d4fcba0fabb49016b4ef28593b015cab5937da31172f03f67d09edda404b88a60023f062ae71d0b2e4438b74cc11dc9")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("Json.NET is a popular high-performance JSON framework for .NET")]
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("Newtonsoft")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("Json.NET")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © James Newton-King 2008")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("9.0.1.19813")]
[assembly: CLSCompliant(true)]
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("9.0.0.0")]

Wish I could give an explanation WHY it happens but I actually don't get it. One clue is to check your project.assets.json in the /obj folder for which dependency actually requires Newtonsoft in the version 9 (do a full-text search on the exact version number).
Then if you have identified the package(s) - in our case it was Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyModel - you can upgrade the package so that it uses a newer Newtonsoft version. In our case we explicitely added this package in the upgraded version. Alternatively, setting "PrivateAssets=true" onto the dependency seems to work too.
If there are some packages with version 9 and some with other packages we actually noticed that the behavior not deterministic, so the published DLL will sometimes be version 9 and sometimes version 13.

The type or namespace name 'Specflow_xxx_XUnitAssemblyFixture' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

After I installed this nuget package in my specflow demo C# .NET Core 3.1 project, I got this error:
Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error CS0246 The type or namespace name
'Specflow_Demo_XUnitAssemblyFixture' could not be found (are you
missing a using directive or an assembly
reference?) Specflow.Demo ...\Specflow.Demo\Features\LoggedInDiscount.feature.cs\LoggedInDiscount.feature 3 Active
This is my csproj file:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.1</TargetFramework>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="FluentAssertions" Version="6.1.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="16.11.0" />
<PackageReference Include="SpecFlow.Tools.MsBuild.Generation" Version="3.9.22" />
<PackageReference Include="SpecFlow.xUnit" Version="3.9.22" />
<PackageReference Include="SpecRun.SpecFlow" Version="3.9.7" />
</ItemGroup>
</Project>
After I close all the files in Visual Studio and rebuild, I got another error:

There is an open issue with SpecFlow related to this: Type or namespace [TestNamespace]_XunitAssemblyFixture could not be found. Are you still able to run your test cases? The above link says its an intellisense only issue.
From a comment on the GitHub issue discussion:
The generated assemblyFixture file (e.g.: [TestNamespace]_XunitAssemblyFixture) can be found in the obj folder (obj\Debug\targetframework\xUnit.AssemblyHooks.cs).
We realized that this is IntelliSense related "issue" (IntelliSense of VisualStudio itself, not R#).
As you all noticed, the build was successful, but the error was still there. This is because the generated code behind file (*.feature.cs) is opened in your editor. If you close them, and build again, the error will disappear.
...
BTW there is an ongoing PR which will move the generated files to the obj folder, so this problem will disappear when it'll be merged.

I had a quick look through the types in the referenced nuget packages. None of them uses the naming style that you have there 'Specflow_Demo_XUnitAssemblyFixture' - and none of them has a type with a similar name.
So, as the error says, the type doesnt exist.

Entity Framework Core 3 raw SQL missing methods

I'm trying to use EF Core 3 to delete all rows from a table like:
db.MyTable.ExecuteSqlRaw("delete from MyTable;");
But I get the error:
DbSet' does not contain a definition for 'ExecuteSqlRaw' and no accessible extension method 'ExecuteSqlRaw' accepting a first argument of type 'DbSet' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
The Microsoft breaking changes page for EF Core 3 does not offer any advice on if there are special packages required to enable this:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/what-is-new/ef-core-3.0/breaking-changes#fromsql-executesql-and-executesqlasync-have-been-renamed
These are the Nuget packages I have installed:
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="3.0.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer" Version="3.0.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="12.0.2" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Linq" Version="4.3.0" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Linq.Expressions" Version="4.3.0" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Linq.Queryable" Version="4.3.0" />
Using statements:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
Note that FromSqlRaw is available, but ExecuteSqlRaw, ExecuteSqlRawAsync , etc are not.
EDIT: I added a using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore and the error has changed to:
'DbSet' does not contain a definition for 'ExecuteSqlRaw' and the best extension method overload 'RelationalDatabaseFacadeExtensions.ExecuteSqlRaw(DatabaseFacade, string, params object[])' requires a receiver of type 'DatabaseFacade'

My edit about the new error led me to an answer:
The Microsoft Breaking Changes documentation is just not providing examples for the Execute methods. To get that to work you have to go through the "Database" property instead. So in short, to use those:
Make sure you have using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
If using an execute use myContext.Database.ExecuteSqlRaw(#"...sql to excxute...")

I had similar issue with dbContext.Database.ExecuteSqlRaw() and it has been fixed by installing package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer without even using the package.
try install-package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer in your current project.

You need to add NuGet package reference Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.RelationalDatabaseFacadeExtensions to your project.

TypeLoadException with VisualStudioConfiguration.SetupConfigurationClass asp.net core

Suddenly I got this error after building my asp.net core application.
I did not change any things of c# code ( only script calls in 3 cshtml ), I was working on my scss and typescripts with webpack.
This is the error :
Could not load type 'VisualStudioConfiguration.SetupConfigurationClass' from
assembly 'Askmethat.Askmycar.WebApp,
Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.
If someone have an idea...
EDIT :
One of my nom-package (node-gyp) have a file with a lot of warning in Find-VS2017.cs
EDIT 2 :
The error comes from node-sass... So I need to find the way to exclude a directory from compilation with MSBuild
Thanks :D

For me, I made it so that the node_modules folder is ignored. I added this to my .csproj file:
<ItemGroup>
<Compile Remove="node_modules/**" />
<Content Remove="node_modules/**" />
<EmbeddedResource Remove="node_modules/**" />
<None Remove="node_modules/**" />
</ItemGroup>

How to reference assemblies using Visual Studio Code?

I would like to reference the System.Drawing.dll in a console app I am writing using Visual Studio Code on OSX. i.e. I want to use these using statements
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
to avoid this build error
Program.cs(56,20): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Bitmap' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?
I can't find a tutorial on this, I don't even know if the dll is available in .net core or mono or whatever visual-studio-code uses.

In your .csproj file, add your dependency as a PackageReference in an ItemGroup, then run dotnet restore or nuget restore. Example:
<ItemGroup>
<Reference Include="System" />
<Reference Include="System.Xml" />
<Reference Include="System.Core" />
<Reference Include="Xamarin.iOS" />
<PackageReference Include="Realm" Version="2.1.0" />
<PackageReference Include="xunit">
<Version>2.3.1</Version>
</PackageReference>
</ItemGroup>
Take a look at this article for a full explanation.

The new .NET Core SDK restore command is dotnet restore
To add any asssembly reference in Visual Studio Code, please refer to my post.

Mono offers a WinForms pipeline implementation that you can leverage, that includes support for System.Drawing.