Version 2.0.0 causes error : MSB4801: The task factory "CodeTaskFactory" is not supported on the .NET Core version of MSBuild.

[ManfredLange]

Problem

We have a library project (SDK csproj file format) that targets net462. It uses PackageReference, not packages.config.

When we add nuget package microsoft.codedom.providers.dotnetcompilerplatform version 2.0.0 to this project it builds fine within VS2017 v15.7.3. However, we get the following error when compiling the project with command dotnet build from a command line (e.g. PowerShell):

error : MSB4801: The task factory "CodeTaskFactory" is not supported on the .NET Core version of MSBuild

The project also references package Microsoft.Net.Compilers version 2.8.2. PowerShell is version 5.1.17134.48. We have installed dotnet SDK version 2.1.300. This is reported both in VS and in the PowerShell. This is also the version we have in the solution's global.json file.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Install .NET SDK 2.1 (v2.1.300)
2. Using Visual Studio 2017, version 15.7.3, create empty solution
3. Add a sample netstandard 2.0 class library, e.g. SampleLib.csproj
4. Edit the csproj file to target net462 instead of netstandard2.0
5. Add nuget package Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform version 2.0.0
6. Build project within VS => success
7. Open Powershell in folder containing the csproj file
8. Execute dotnet build SampleLib.csproj => build fails with the error reported in this issue

The only workaround we found is falling back to using msbuild instead of dotnet build. We would prefer the latter. Note that our actual project is one of a set of about 75 projects. All others build fine with dotnet build.

Is there a workaround / resolution for this? What else can we try/test to diagnose/resolve this?

[Jinhuafei]

@ManfredLange Thanks for reporting the issue. A new task which relies on CodeTaskFactory was added to make sure Roslyn compiler service is terminated before copying Roslyn bits. The DotNetCompilerPlatform package currently doesn't work dotnet build yet, but here is a hacky way to workaround the issue. You can add following target to the samplelib.csproj.

<Target Name="CheckIfShouldKillVBCSCompiler" />

BTW, all the targets used in DotNetCompilerPlatform nupkg are for Roslyn bits deployment(copying to bin folder) and I don't think they are working with packagereference currently. How do you deploy the Roslyn bits? Also how DotNetCompilerPlatform is used in your project?

[ManfredLange]

Yes, I can confirm your workaround resolves the problem in the sample project. It didn't resolve it in our actual production project where it perhaps never gets to the target due to compile errors caused by other issues when mixing new/old project file formats.

We have converted all of our projects from packages.config to PackageReference and that works just fine. It is my understanding that this is the recommended way to references nupkg'es. PackageReference has also been backported to the old format csproj (of which we still have one left).

In the sample project PackageReference also works in that we can manually delete the roslyn folder in the output directory and the rerun dotnet build successfully. The roslyn folder will be recreated with your workaround in place.

To answer your questions: In our case the latest version (2.0.0) of DotNetCompilerPlatform nupkg copies the Roslyn binaries to $(TargetDir)/roslyn. We use DotNetCompilerPlatform in an ASP.NET MVC (old style, target full .NET framework, i.e. net462). We are using new C# features in the Razor views/partials. The challenge begins with rendering partials to string containing HTML that are part of AJAX call responses. We want to test those in isolation by instantiating the controller then invoking the method that handles the AJAX request. Obviously there is not proper Razor engine so we use Westwind.RazorHosting for rendering partials. This package has just been amended to work with Roslyn thanks to @RickStrahl. To make it work, though, the following needs to be added to the config file of the assembly using Roslyn - Web.config - in our case as well as in the config file for the project containing the tests (app.config on our case):

   <system.codedom>
      <compilers>
         <compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs"
           type="Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.CSharpCodeProvider, Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
           warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/langversion:default /nowarn:1659;1699;1701"/>
         <compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb"
           type="Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.VBCodeProvider, Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
           warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/langversion:default /nowarn:41008 /define:_MYTYPE=\&quot;Web\&quot; /optionInfer+"/>
      </compilers>
   </system.codedom>

This addition is a suggestion by Rick Strahl @RickStrahl. See this issue for details.

In addition to that in the old style ASP.NET MVC project we also had to reference Microsoft.Net.Compilers (version 2.8.2 as of writing) which - theoretically - should not be required as building it would not create the Roslyn folders and binaries in the output folder. By having the reference to this package the Roslyn binaries will be deployed, too.

Bottom line: We want to test rendering of partials by instantiating the controller and then invoking the appropriate method from a unit test. The same method therefore needs to run both within ASP.NET MVC hosting (i.e. valid HttpContext) as well as outside of it. Using Westwind.Razorhosting allows us to do just that. Roslyn is required because we use new C# features within views/partials, e.g. string interpolation.

I'm sure there are ways to do all of this better. However, we have a fairly large code base and for many changes we need incremental approaches, e.g. converting 77 projects in a single solution from old to new project file format, from packages.config to PackageReference or moving from net462 to netstandard2.0/netcoreapp2.1, or moving from "ASP.NET MVC 5" to "ASP.NET Core MVC".

[ManfredLange]

@Jinhuafei Further to this: We experience this issue at the moment in two project of our code base. We were able to resolve it in one case with your workaround. As mentioned in my previous post, it didn't seem to work for the other one. We'll continue to experiment.

[Jinhuafei]

Thanks for the detail. If you can provide build log(-v diag), I can take a look.

[CZEMacLeod]

@Jinhuafei Since there is now a RoslynCodeTaskFactory in the latest SDK is it possible/worth switching to use that?

[Jinhuafei]

@CZEMacLeod haven't tried this yet. This may be an option. But we can't just swtich to that, since there are tons of developers still using older version.

[BobMaurer]

I encountered the same issue and your workaround has fixed me.

Will there ever be a non hacky solution to this?

[WeihanLi]

Any update here?

[StephenMolloy]

I believe #92 will address this issue.