NuGet Package Restore Not Working

Question

I checked in a project on one computer  checked out on another  and find that the binaries installed by NuGet are missing   I could check them in to source control as well  but it looks like there s a better solution   http   docs nuget org docs workflows using-nuget-without-committing-packages  I followed those instructions  now have a  nuget folder where one should be  have the following entries in my  csproj file    lt RestorePackages gt true lt  RestorePackages gt   lt Import Project    SolutionDir   nuget nuget targets    gt    and yet when I rebuild my solution  the missing packages are not restored    What am I missing   How can I diagnose this problem

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Just for others that might run into this problem  I was able to resolve the issue by closing Visual Studio and reopening the project  When the project was loaded the packages were restored during the initialization phase

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The best workaround that I found creating a new Project from scratch  then import all the source files with the code  My project was not so complicated so I had no problem from there

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I had NuGet packages breaking after I did a System Restore on my system  backing it up about two days    The NuGet packages had been installed in the meantime    To fix it  I had to go to the  nuget packages folder in my user profile  find the packages  and delete them   Only then would Visual Studio pull the packages down fresh and properly add them as references

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There is a shortcut to make Nuget restore work   Make sure internet connection or Nuget urls are proper in VS Tools options menu  Look at  nuget or nuget folder in the solution  else - copy from any to get nuget exe  DELETE packages folders  if exists  Open the Package manager console execute this command    paste full path of nuget exe  RESTORE  full path of  sln file    use Install-pacakge  command  if build did not get through for any missing references

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I have run into this problem in two scenarios    First  when I attempt to build my solution from the command line using msbuild exe   Secondly  when I attempt to build the sln and the containing projects on my build server using TFS and CI    I get errors claiming that references are missing  When inspecting both my local build directory and the TFS server s I see that the  packages folder is not created  and the nuget packages are not copied over  Following the instructions listed in Alexandre s answer http   nuget codeplex com workitem 1879 also did not work for me    I ve enabled Restore Packages via VS2010 and I have seen builds only work from within VS2010  Again  using msbuild fails My workaround is probably totally invalid  but for my environment this got everything working from a command line build locally  as well as from a CI build in TFS   I went into   nuget and changed this line in the  nuget NuGet targets file   from    lt RestoreCommand gt   NuGetCommand  install    PackagesConfig   -source    PackageSources   -o    PackagesDir   lt  RestoreCommand gt    to   notice  without the quotes around the variables    lt RestoreCommand gt   NuGetCommand  install   PackagesConfig  -source   PackageSources  -o   PackagesDir  lt  RestoreCommand gt    I understand that if my directories have spaces in them  this will fail  but I don t have spaces in my directories and so this workaround got my builds to complete successfully   for the time being   I will say that turning on diagnostic level logging in your build will help show what commands are being executed by msbuild  This is what led me to hacking the targets file temporarily

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For me  I had an empty tag NuGetPackageImportStamp in  csproj  lt NuGetPackageImportStamp gt       lt  NuGetPackageImportStamp gt   It should ideally contain some valid GUID  Removing this tag and then  quot Restore Nugets quot  worked for me

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vs2015 no enable nuget restore problem  My solution    add folder  nuget  add file NuGet Config and NuGet targets  in Directory  nuget each project file add  build        lt RestorePackages gt true lt  RestorePackages gt      lt Import Project    SolutionDir   nuget NuGet targets  Condition  Exists    SolutionDir   nuget NuGet targets      gt     lt Target Name  EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports  BeforeTargets  PrepareForBuild  gt       lt PropertyGroup gt         lt ErrorText gt This project references NuGet package s  that are missing on this computer  Enable NuGet Package Restore to download them   For more information  see http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkID 322105  The missing file is  0   lt  ErrorText gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt Error Condition   Exists    SolutionDir   nuget NuGet targets    Text     System String   Format    ErrorText       SolutionDir   nuget NuGet targets       gt     lt  Target gt

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You have to choose one way of the following    Re-installing a package by it s name in all solution s projects   Update-Package    reinstall  lt packageName gt    Re-installing a package by it s name and ignoring it s dependencies in all solution s projects   Update-Package    reinstall  lt packageName gt  -ignoreDependencies   Re-installing a package by it s name in a project   Update-Package    reinstall  lt packageName gt   lt projectName gt    Re-installing all packages in a specific project   Update-Package -reinstall -ProjectName  lt projectName gt    Re-installing all packages in a solution   Update-Package -reinstall

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For others who stumble onto this post  read this   NuGet 2 7  introduced us to Automatic Package Restore   This is considered to be a much better approach for most applications as it does not tamper with the MSBuild process   Less headaches   Some links to get you started    The right way to restore NuGet packages Migrate away from MSBuild-based NuGet package restore Migrating MSBuild-Integrated solutions to use Automatic Package Restore

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If anything else didn t work  try    Close Project  Delete packages folder in your solution folder  Open Project again and restore Nugget Packages again    Worked for me and it s easy to try

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If the error you are facing is  unable to connect to remote server  as was mine  then it would benefit you to have this check as well in addition to the checks provided in the above comments   I saw that there were 2 NUGET Package Sources from which the packages could be downloaded  within Tools- Nuget Package Manager- Packager Manager Settings   One of the Package Source s was not functioning and Nuget was trying to download from that source only   Things fell into place once I changed the package source to download from  https   www nuget org api v2  EXPLICTLY in the settings

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Sometimes something strange happens and using Visual Studio to automatically restore doesn t work   In that case you can use the NuGet Package Manager Console   That is opened within Visual Studio from Tools -  NuGet Package Manager -  Package Manager Console   The commands within the console are simple   And to get context help while typing a command just press the  button and it will give you all options that start with the letters you re typing   So if a package isn t installed  for example log4net  type the following command   Install-Package log4net  You can do a whole lot more  like specify the version to install  update a package  uninstall a package  etc   I had to use the console to help me when Visual Studio was acting like a weirdo

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Note you can force package restore to execute by running the following commands in the nuget package manager console     Update-Package -Reinstall   Forces re-installation of everything in the solution        Update-Package -Reinstall -ProjectName myProj   Forces re-installation of everything in the myProj project    Note  This is the nuclear option  When using this command you may not get the same versions of the packages you have installed and that could be lead to issues  This is less likely to occur at a project level as opposed to the solution level   You can use the -safe commandline parameter option to constrain upgrades to newer versions with the same Major and Minor version component  This option was added later and resolves some of the issues mentioned in the comments      Update-Package -Reinstall -Safe

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In my case  an aborted Nuget restore-attempt had corrupted one of the packages configfiles in the solution  I did not discover this before checking my git working tree  After reverting the changes in the file  Nuget restore was working again

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If none of the other answers work for you then try the following which was the only thing that worked for me   Find your  csproj file and edit it in a text editor   Find the  lt Target Name  EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports  BeforeTargets  PrepareForBuild  gt  tag in your  csproj file and delete the whole block   Re-install all packages in the solution   Update-Package -reinstall   After this your nuget packages should be restored  i think this might be a fringe case that only occurs when you move your project to a different location

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In VS2017  right-click on the solution    Open CommandLine    Developer Command Line   Once thats open  type in  and press enter after   dotnet restore   That will restore any all packages  and you get a nice console output of whats been done

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Did you enable package restore mode in the project that has the missing packages binaries   There s a known issue that requires the packages to be correctly installed when enabling the restore mode     http   nuget codeplex com workitem 1879    Original link is dead  this might be a replacement  https   github com NuGet Home issues 1968

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VS 2017  Tools NuGet Package Manager Package Manager Settings General Click on  Clear All NuGet Cache s

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None of the other solutions worked in my situation   AspNetCore dependencies had been installed uninstalled and were being cached   AspNetCore All  would refuse to properly update reinstall remove  And regardless of what i did  it would use the cached dependencies  that it was not compatible with   because they were a higher version    Backup Everything  Note the list of Dependencies you ll need to reinstall  Exit VisualStudio  Open up all  proj files in a text editor and remove all PackageReference  In each project  delete the bin  obj folders Delete any  packages  folders you find in the solution   Open solution  go into Tools  gt  Nuget Package Manager  gt  Package Manager Settings and Clear all Nuget caches  Check the console because it may fail to remove some items - copy the folder path and exit visual studio   Delete anything from that folder Reopen solution and start installing nuget packages again from scratch    If that still doesn t work  repeat but also search your drive in windows explorer for nuget and delete anything cachey looking

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Automatic Package Restore will fail for any of the following reasons    You did not remove the NuGet exe and NuGet targets files from the solution s  nuget folder  which can be found in your solution root folder  You did not enable automatic package restore from the Tools    Options    Nuget Package Manager    General settings  You forgot to manually remove references in all your projects to the Nuget targets file You need to restart Visual Studio  make sure the process is killed from your task manager before starting up again     The following article outlines in more detail how to go about points 1-3   https   docs nuget org consume package-restore migrating-to-automatic-package-restore

[nuget] NuGet Package Restore Not Working

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