Skip to main content

dotnet publish error - The "TransformWebConfig" task failed unexpectedly.

When trying to publish an ASP.NET Core web application through the dotnet publish command on our build server, it failed with the following error message:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: The "TransformWebConfig" task failed unexpectedly. [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: System.Exception: In process hosting is not supported for AspNetCoreModule. Change the AspNetCoreModule to at least AspNetCoreModuleV2. [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.WebConfigTransform.SetAspNetCoreHostingModel(String aspNetCoreHostingModelValue, String aspNetCoreModuleName, XElement aspNetCoreElement) [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.WebConfigTransform.Transform(XDocument webConfig, String appName, Boolean configureForAzure, Boolean useAppHost, String extension, String aspNetCoreModuleName, String aspNetCoreHostingModel, String environmentName, String projectFullPath) [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.TransformWebConfig.Execute() [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute() [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.201\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\targets\TransformTargets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.TransformFiles.targets(50,5): error MSB4018: at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.ExecuteInstantiatedTask(ITaskExecutionHost taskExecutionHost, TaskLoggingContext taskLoggingContext, TaskHost taskHost, ItemBucket bucket, TaskExecutionMode howToExecuteTask) [D:\b\3\_work\222\s\SOFACore\Example\eShopExample\eShopExample.csproj] ##[error]Error: The process 'C:\Program Files\dotnet\dotnet.exe' failed with exit code 1

What is the issue?

The dotnet publish command will apply a web.config transformation as part of the web deploy. This transformation fails because the web.config is not correct to be used with an in process ASP.NET Core application.

Here is our incorrect web.config file:

Notice the AspNetCoreModule value for the module attribute. That explains the following error:

In process hosting is not supported for AspNetCoreModule. Change the AspNetCoreModule to at least AspNetCoreModuleV2.

To fix this, we have to update our web.config and set the module attribute correctly to AspNetCoreModuleV2:

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Podman– Command execution failed with exit code 125

After updating WSL on one of the developer machines, Podman failed to work. When we took a look through Podman Desktop, we noticed that Podman had stopped running and returned the following error message: Error: Command execution failed with exit code 125 Here are the steps we tried to fix the issue: We started by running podman info to get some extra details on what could be wrong: >podman info OS: windows/amd64 provider: wsl version: 5.3.1 Cannot connect to Podman. Please verify your connection to the Linux system using `podman system connection list`, or try `podman machine init` and `podman machine start` to manage a new Linux VM Error: unable to connect to Podman socket: failed to connect: dial tcp 127.0.0.1:2655: connectex: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. That makes sense as the podman VM was not running. Let’s check the VM: >podman machine list NAME         ...
Read more

Azure DevOps/ GitHub emoji

I’m really bad at remembering emoji’s. So here is cheat sheet with all emoji’s that can be used in tools that support the github emoji markdown markup: All credits go to rcaviers who created this list.
Read more

VS Code Planning mode

After the introduction of Plan mode in Visual Studio , it now also found its way into VS Code. Planning mode, or as I like to call it 'Hannibal mode', extends GitHub Copilot's Agent Mode capabilities to handle larger, multi-step coding tasks with a structured approach. Instead of jumping straight into code generation, Planning mode creates a detailed execution plan. If you want more details, have a look at my previous post . Putting plan mode into action VS Code takes a different approach compared to Visual Studio when using plan mode. Instead of a configuration setting that you can activate but have limited control over, planning is available as a separate chat mode/agent: I like this approach better than how Visual Studio does it as you have explicit control when plan mode is activated. Instead of immediately diving into execution, the plan agent creates a plan and asks some follow up questions: You can further edit the plan by clicking on ‘Open in Editor’: ...
Read more