I recently successfully switched all of our projects over to automatic NuGet restore. To do this I followed this guide. Everything worked great, I was able to delete my /packages folder and restore to my heart's content.
One of the steps in that guide says to edit your .csproj file and remove the EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports related element.
The problem I am having now is that, after going in and downgrading one of my projects libraries, NuGet seems to have automatically added the EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports related element back into my .csproj file.
Is there some other setting I should be changing to prevent NuGet from doing this? I would rather not have to edit my .csproj file every time I make a NuGet related change.
Is there some other setting I should be changing to prevent NuGet from doing this?
I`m afraid the answer is not if you going in and downgrading one of your projects libraries.
The target "EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports" is used to ensures that the imported .props or .targets files are indeed imported in the old way "Enable Package Restore". NuGet has supported NuGet MSBuild support since NuGet 2.5.
Since Nuget 2.7+, Microsoft has dropped support for the 'Enable NuGet Package Restore' in VS2015 and you need to do some manual changes to either migrate old solutions or add the feature to new solutions. Nuget Automatic Package Restore has changed in Nuget 2.7+. Unfortunately, it looks like a non-backward compatible change. We have some developers on 2.7 and before who will now need to upgrade to 2.7+. In this case, NuGet will automatically added the EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports related element back into your .csproj file when you going in and downgrading one of your projects libraries.
To resolve this, we advice that do not mix 'old' and new methods for automatic package restoration(Remove that files when you use automatic package restoration).
Besides, if going in and downgrading one of your projects libraries is unavoidable, there is a PS script can help you remove it more convenient:
DisableNuGetPackageRestore.ps1
Related
I am finding it a common issue where when I download a .NET repo from Github, the solution has missing references. See an example below. When using Nuget Package Manager, it says the packages are installed already. The packages folder is missing.
I tried using 'Update-Package -reinstall' and got a bunch of lines with 'No package updates are available from the current package source for project 'project name'.... That's probably due to the missing package files.
I can fix each reference manually but it's a time consuming process. Is there a way to force fix all these references in all the projects in one swoop using a command or a tool that 'cleverly' knows what to do? I am using Visual Studio 2019 16.3 preview 1
In VS2019, those .net core projects or .net standard projects use PackageReference instead of packages.config format to manage nuget packages. And in this way, the content in xx.csproj looks similar to this:
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="FluentValidation" Version="8.1.3" />
<PackageReference Include="MediatR" Version="6.0.0" />
<PackageReference Include="AutoMapper" Version="8.0.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="2.2.3" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions" Version="2.2.0" />
</ItemGroup>
Every time you download a project which uses packageReference format, you only get the xx.csproj and related source files but without nuget packages. So when you open and load the solution or project in VS IDE, it will display the nuget packages name in solution explorer but with yellow warning triangle since now VS can't find those packages locally.
Is there a way to force fix all these references in all the projects
in one swoop using a command or a tool that 'cleverly' knows what to
do?
Just like what zivkan said in his answer, NuGet is normally configured to restore packages automatically if you've enabled those two options. Every time when we load the soultion in IDE, it will automatically restore the packages for us. Not sure the reason why it seems not to work in your machine, but you can check and try:
1.Go Nuget Package Manager=>Package Sources, make sure you've set https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json as one the Available Package sources.
2.Right-click the solution in Solution Explorer, choose the Restore Nuget Packages to restore packages for whole solution.
3.Or you can Unload and reload the project to check if it helps.
4.By default, the packages are stored at C:\Users\xxx\.nuget\packages folder, you can check if those folders exists there.
(I delate all packages in that folder, so it's clear when I open the git solution in VS, the nuget is installing those necessary packages automatically, I'm not sure if there's any possibility that cause too many packages are being installed,so it will take some time? I check and find, to restore necessary packages for NorthWind solution, it require packages for over 370 MB)
I tried using 'Update-Package -reinstall' and got a bunch of lines
with 'No package updates are available from the current package source
for project 'project name'.... That's probably due to the missing
package files.
And for the reason why Update-Package -reinstall not work well in the project, maybe it's a similar issue like nuget issue #4103, for the packagereference in xx.csproj, several commands for now are not supported.
And after my check in my machine, the command obviously do not work for a PackageReference-format .net standard project. When I've installed related packages successfully, I run this command but only get No package updates are available from the current package source for project xxx, then I delete the installed packages, clean the cache and run the command again, I still get same message!
So I think this command can't recognize PackageRefernece format in .csproj, no matter whether I install related packages or not, it will always throw message No package updates are available ...
NuGet is normally configured to restore packages automatically. See the options page. The second Package Restore option, "Automatically check for missing packages during build in Visual Studio" is enabled by default on clean installs.
Here's a little video I recorded of what happens on my machine when I open the solution. Keep an eye out on the status bar at the bottom left of the window.
If your installation of Visual Studio does not behave in the same way with the automatic restore option enabled, then there is some other issue on your machine, but we don't have enough information from your question, as of the time I wrote this.
I'm training 5 people on using Visual Studio. They've mapped their drives and have "downloaded" the solution from TFS which contains 10 projects. All located at the same depth in TFS folder structure. When the new folks download the solution there's one project that doesn't get the NUGET references even though the Package folder (created by NUGET) is at the same depth of the other 10 projects when viewed in TFS.
We know how to add these manually but is there a way to automatically have VS do it? Why would only one project lose it's reference with the Package Folder right there?
It seems you are still using MSBuild-Integrated package restore approach. If NuGet recognizes that the MSBuild-Integrated package restore approach is enabled for the solution, Automatic Package Restore is skipped.
You need to migrating MSBuild-Integrated solutions to use Automatic Package Restore, then the packages will be restored automatically.
In addition, you need to update you NuGet manager to the latest version in VS Tools--Extensions and Updates. And make sure Visual Studio is configured to 'Allow NuGet to download missing packages' and 'Automatically check for missing packages during build in Visual Studio' in VS Tools--Options--NuGet Package Mnager--General.
To Fix:
Unload all projects first, then right click and select edit project.
Find this line:
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" />
Comment it out.
Reload all the projects and compile.
This applies to Nuget api version 2.
Note you may configure all projects for Nuget at the solution level.
The package manager for the solution presents a set of check boxes for every project along with the buttons (Install or Uninstall).
We have a solution which contains several projects. Some projects have NuGet packages installed, for example Json.NET. The whole solution is checked in to TFS Version Control, without the packages folder. We have set up Automatic Package Restore according to the "Nuget 2.7+ method" as described in the Nuget documentation (actually we didn't set up that much since all this is enabled by default).
When we build this solution on another computer, all packages are getting restored.
When we build this solution on our TFS 2013 Build server, all packages are also getting restored.
Now here comes the problem:
When we create a build on our TFS 2013 Build Server which should build only one of the projects in the solution (so targeting the .csproj file instead of the .sln file) the nuget packages are NOT getting restored!
Can anyone tell me why this is happening, or tell me if this is by design? I really don't want to build the whole solution, since it is a release build for only a single small project, but i do want the packages getting restored automaticly...
I believe the Automatic Package Restore hooks into the Build Solution event. Since there's no solution, it's not triggering the restore.
To build a single project, you may need to create a new solution that references just that project.
When other developers get the vs.net 2013 solution from TFS, Nuget doesn't seem to work as expected and many of the individual projects in the solution do not have the required dll's downloaded (although they are defined in the packages.config file).
If I go to view the installed packages, it shows up as they are installed and the correct projects are selected.
I went into console and ran:
Update-Package -Reinstall
After doing this, my packages.config file was truncated for whatever reason and 80% of my packages were removed from the config file!
What should I be looking into as it is either I have setup the solution incorrectly or nuget just isn't reliable.
Thoughts?
First of all make sure that NuGet Packages Restore is turned ON.
This forces to restore missing binaries directly from NuGet server. You can right click on Solution and enable this option as follow:
Make sure that .nuget folder that contains nuget.exe is created under your Solution.
You'll want to make sure that you have automatic package restore turned on in VS 2013. You can do this in the options.
Then, when you build, VS should grab the packages for you. If you want to manually restore the packages or do it from powershell, you'll want to use the command nuget.exe restore in the folder your solution lives in.
If you're using custom package sources, you'll want to make sure you specified them in your nuget.config file.
With newer versions of NuGet it is possible to configure a project to automatically restore NuGet packages so that the packages folder doesn't need to be included in the source code repository. Good.
However, this command adds a new .nuget folder and there is a binary there, NuGet.exe. This can also be re-created automatically by Visual Studio and so it doesn't feel correct to add that to version control. However, without this folder Visual Studio won't even load the solution properly.
How do you people deal with this? Add .nuget to source control? Run some command line script before opening the solution?
This post is old, you should not be using solution level NuGet package restore anymore. As of version 2.7+ there is an option in the NuGet setup to automatically restore packages on build.
So the .nuget folder can be deleted and the option removed from your projects.
http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/package-restore
UPDATE: With the release of NuGet 4.x and .NET Standard 2.0, when you use the new csproj format you can now use package references, ironically reintroducing the dependency on msbuild to restore packages, but now packages are a first class citizen of msbuild. The link above also makes mention of the PackageReference, but the following announcement details it better:
https://blog.nuget.org/20170316/NuGet-now-fully-integrated-into-MSBuild.html
And the NuGet 4.x RTM announcement, which ironically isn't as useful:
https://blog.nuget.org/20170308/Announcing-NuGet-4.0-RTM.html
UPDATE 2: Apparently with VS2017 you can even use package references with classic csproj projects, but they aren't backwards compatible anymore, and there have been some problems with restoring package sub-dependencies. I'm sure that will all be resolved.
#Richard Szalay's answer is right - you don't need to commit nuget.exe. If for some reasons Visual Studio does not automatically download the nuget.exe, make sure you have the following set to true in the nuget.targets file:
<!-- Download NuGet.exe if it does not already exist -->
<DownloadNuGetExe Condition=" '$(DownloadNuGetExe)' == '' ">true</DownloadNuGetExe>
Close the VS solution, reopen it and build it. Visual Studio should download nuget.exe automatically now.
According to this thread, the .nuget folder should be version controlled.
You need to commit .nuget\nuget.targets, but not nuget.exe. The targets will download the exe if it doesn't exist, as long as you change DownloadNuGetExe to true in nuget.targets
Although I usually don't like the idea of adding exe's to source control, I would suggest that source control should contain anything that is required in order to open, build and execute the project.
In this case it sounds like the .nuget folder is a required dependency. Therefore it ought to be under source control.
The only question left, that you need to research, is how NuGet is going to react if that folder is marked read-only, which TFS will do once it has been checked in.
Update:
I did a little more research on this as I've never used NuGet before. http://blog.davidebbo.com/2011/03/using-nuget-without-committing-packages.html
I would suggest that probably what you want to do is make NuGet a requirement that has to be installed on every developers workstation.
Further, you should place in source control the batch file required to get a workstation ready to start editing the project. The batch file is going to run the commands necessary to get and install the dependency packages.
Beyond that I'd say you might want to contact NuGet directly to ask them how, exactly, this is supposed to work.
Now that nuget supports package restoration we're looking at it more closely.
We use Subversion for source control, and my initial thoughts are that .nuget should be added to our repository, but added using svn:externals so that it points to a single location.
That way we can automatically push out new versions to all developers and projects. For projects on release branches, rather than HEAD, we can specify the revision of svn:externals reference if we want to leave nuget alone.
We have a lot of projects, so it also means not duplicating nuget.exe multiple times in the repo.
We have the nuget.config file in the folder, as it has the references to our internal Nuget server, using the Package Sources area:
https://docs.nuget.org/consume/nuget-config-settings
Apart from this reason, you should let Visual Studio handle the downloading of packages.