Publishing with win-x64 RID doesn't include runtime-specific Nuget libraries

[nxtn]

Steps to reproduce

Reference a Nuget package with runtime-specific libraries.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.1</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure" Version="2.0.0" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

• dotnet publish

\publish
  \runtimes
    \win7-x64
      \lib\netstandard1.6\Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
      ...
    \win7-x86
      \lib\netstandard1.6\Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
      ...
    \win10-x64
      \lib\netstandard1.6\Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
      ...
    \win10-x86
      \lib\netstandard1.6\Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
      ...
    ...
  ...

• dotnet publish -r win10-x64

\publish
  \Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
  ...

• dotnet publish -r win-x64

No library from the Nuget package is copied to /publish directory.

Expected behavior

• dotnet publish -r win-x64

\publish
  \runtimes
    \win7-x64
      \lib\netstandard1.6\Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
      ...
    \win10-x64
      \lib\netstandard1.6\Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
      ...
    ...
  ...

Actual behavior

dotnet publish -r win-x64 succeeds, but the produced program will definitely crash.

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'. The system cannot find the file specified.

Environment data

.NET Core SDK (reflecting any global.json):
 Version:   3.1.200-preview-014883
 Commit:    4e2a0ee959

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     Windows
 OS Version:  10.0.19041
 OS Platform: Windows
 RID:         win10-x64
 Base Path:   C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\3.1.200-preview-014883\

Host (useful for support):
  Version: 3.1.0
  Commit:  65f04fb6db

.NET Core SDKs installed:
  3.1.200-preview-014883 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]

[davedx]

I think we have the same issue with SqlClient dll's and dotnet publish. I actually made an issue on their repo but it probably should be here too.
dotnet/SqlClient#445

I made a reproduction repo for the issue here: https://github.com/davedx/sqlclient-repro

Edit: I narrowed this down some.

If you have do dotnet build first without specifying --runtime, then do dotnet publish with --runtime, it doesn't work. But if you specify --runtime when you do the dotnet build then it works correctly.

This behaviour is new for us

Another edit: I downgraded my repro project to dotnet 2.1 and the behaviour above does not happen. It appears this is because the build command in 2.1 did not do a "restore" automatically? So maybe this isn't a bug but a very subtle breaking change...

Final edit: here it is, the breaking change, documented: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/whats-new/dotnet-core-3-0#build-copies-dependencies

Seems like a nice quality of life improvement, but for platform specific builds it can cause a lot of pain...

[richlander]

I just tried to repro this with the .NET 6 SDK. This is what I see. Does that resolve the issue?

root@a1e6b08d8845:/app# dotnet publish -r win10-x64
root@a1e6b08d8845:/app# find bin/Debug/net6.0/win10-x64/publish/ | grep Microsoft.Man
bin/Debug/net6.0/win10-x64/publish/Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.Native.dll
bin/Debug/net6.0/win10-x64/publish/Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
bin/Debug/net6.0/win10-x64/publish/Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.Native.Unmanaged.dll
root@a1e6b08d8845:/app# 

[PatrickKunz]

I publish with the following command on my Apple arm computer with dotNet arm installed:

dotnet publish -c Release --runtime win-x64 --no-self-contained

I wasn't able to make it work on a Windows x64 system. There is no runtime folder in the publish folder.

[nxtn]

It is recommended to use portable RIDs, such as win-x64, instead of version-specific RIDs, such as win10-x64, since .NET 8.

For more information, see Using RIDs and .NET SDK uses a smaller RID graph.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure" Version="3.0.0" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

• dotnet publish

\publish
  \runtimes
    \win-x64
      \lib\netstandard1.6\microsoft.management.infrastructure.dll
      ...
    \win-x86
      \lib\netstandard1.6\microsoft.management.infrastructure.dll
      ...
    ...
  ...

• dotnet publish -r win-x64

\publish
  \Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
  ...

• dotnet publish -r win10-x64 -p:UseRidGraph=true

\publish
  \Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll
  ...