The "ResolvePackageAssets" task failed unexpectedly.

Using ncrunch 5.22.0.5 in Visual Studio 2026 (18.8.2) on Win 11.


System.Exception: An exception was thrown in the remote environment: System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> nCrunch.Common.UserException: Errors occurred while trying to load the project file:
The "ResolvePackageAssets" task failed unexpectedly.
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at NuGet.ProjectModel.LockFile.<>c__DisplayClass39_0.<GetTarget>b__0(LockFileTarget t)
at System.Linq.Enumerable.FirstOrDefault[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source, Func`2 predicate)
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.LockFileExtensions.GetTargetAndReturnNullIfNotFound(LockFile lockFile, String frameworkAlias, String runtimeIdentifier)
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.LockFileExtensions.GetTargetAndThrowIfNotFound(LockFile lockFile, String frameworkAlias, String runtimeIdentifier)
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.ResolvePackageAssets.CacheWriter..ctor(ResolvePackageAssets task)
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.ResolvePackageAssets.CacheReader.CreateReaderFromDisk(ResolvePackageAssets task, Byte[] settingsHash)
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.ResolvePackageAssets.CacheReader..ctor(ResolvePackageAssets task)
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.ResolvePackageAssets.ReadItemGroups()
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.ResolvePackageAssets.ExecuteCore()
at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.TaskBase.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.<ExecuteInstantiatedTask>d__26.MoveNext()
at nCrunch.Compiler.ComponentAnalysisContext.queryValuesFromMSBuild()
at nCrunch.Compiler.ComponentAnalysisContext.AnalyseComponentBuild()
at nCrunch.Compiler.RemoteBuildRunner.AnalyseComponentBuild(ComponentLoadParameters parameters)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor)
at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.UnsafeInvokeInternal(Object obj, Object[] parameters, Object[] arguments)
at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture)
at nCrunch.TaskRunner.Ipc.IpcMessageProcessor.processCallMethodMessage(CallMethodMessage callMethodMessage)
at nCrunch.TaskRunner.Ipc.IpcMessageProcessor.ProcessMessageReturningResult(Byte[] data)
at nCrunch.TaskRunner.Ipc.RemoteProxyCommunicator.readMessage(Byte[] returnedData)
at nCrunch.TaskRunner.Ipc.RemoteProxyCommunicator.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] args)
at nCrunch.Compiler.RemoteBuildRunnerProxy.AnalyseComponentBuild(ComponentLoadParameters parameters)
at nCrunch.Core.BuildManagement.BuildProcessLauncher.<>c__DisplayClass4_0.<AnalyseComponentBuildInExternalProcess>b__0(IRemoteBuildRunner remoteBuildRunner)
at nCrunch.Core.BuildManagement.BuildProcessLauncher.executeTaskUsingExternalProcess(Action`1 task, EffectiveProcessorArchitecture processorArchitecture, GridClientId client, BuildSystemParameters buildSystemParameters, IList`1 customEnvironmentVariables, Nullable`1 taskId, GridClientDescription clientDescription, DotNetCoreSdkVersion dotNetCoreSdkVersion)
at nCrunch.Core.BuildManagement.BuildProcessLauncher.AnalyseComponentBuildInExternalProcess(ComponentLoadParameters parameters, IList`1 customEnvironmentVariables)
at nCrunch.Client.ComponentLoader.SnapshotComponentLoader.analyseComponentBuild(EffectiveProcessorArchitecture buildProcessorArchitecture, String targetFrameworkForMSBuild)
at nCrunch.Client.ComponentLoader.SnapshotComponentLoader.CreateComponentFromXml(FilePath projectFilePath, ParsedBuildXml projectXml, FilePath solutionFilePath, String[] additionalFilesToIncludeAtSolutionLevel, Boolean isLoadedFromFile, IDEVersion ideVersion, BuildEngineId buildEngineId, ComponentUniqueName componentName, TaskSettings componentTaskSettings, Exception parseException, String targetFrameworkForMsbuild, String visibleTargetFramework)

Hi, thanks for sharing this.

The first thing you should check here is to try adjusting your Build SDK configuration setting to set the SDK manually.

An issue exists where MSBuild can sometimes resolve to the wrong SDK when preview tools are installed. This creates a mismatch between the Nuget lockfile and the build system used by NCrunch, which gives weird errors.

Thanks, that helped. I adjusted the SDK in our global.json to the latest version.