The “GetReferenceNearestTargetFrameworkTask” task was not found

Question

I have problem with autocompletion in VS 2017 Community.

Previously I had VS 2017 Enterprise from school, but key expired. So I moved to community.

Before,

Answer 1

I had the same error message but for a different problem.

So, I'm using MSBuild to automate build/deploy process for Azure Functions. Everything was working fine until I updated both Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio Build Tools 2017 at which point I started getting this error. To be precise I got this error only when using MSBuild, building project manually from VS was working fine.

In my case I already had everything set as per @Programmer's answer. But as I was using MSBuild it turned out that I also had to install NuGet targets and build tasks which are part of Visual Studio Build Tools.

Answer 2

I'm reporting an answer from a Microsoft techician

This usually indicates one of two things:

• A failed VS installation. If that's the case, I would recommend running a repair on your VS install.
• You have msbuild assemblies in the GAC. If that's the case, please ungac them.

Livar Cunha [MSFT]

Answer 3

Follow these to fix that error. This applies to VS 2017:

Fix 1:

1.Install Nuget PackageManager from here.

2.Restart Visual Studio.

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If the problem is still there, continue below

Fix 2:

1.Download and start/run the Visual Studio Installer again.

2.While the Visual Studio Installer is still running, go to the "Individual Components" tab

3.Tick the "NuGet package manager" check-box that is under "Code tools" option.

4.Click Install to install it.

Screenshot of where this is located:

That should fix the error you see in this question. Restart Visual Studio and test the auto-completion function. If it's not working, see the answers from this question as that is a whole different issue.

Answer 4

I was seeing this issue with msbuild 15.6.82 on a build environment that does not have VisualStudio 2017, only VS Build Tools.

Here's a PowerShell script that resolves this issue, it pretty much does the equivalent of previous answers in the VS Installer, but silently and waiting for completion.

Start-Process "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vs_installer.exe" -ArgumentList 'modify --installPath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools" --quiet --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.NuGet.BuildTools --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.5.TargetingPack --norestart --force' -Wait -PassThru

Answer 5

I'm working with a headless build server on server core, resolved by installing chocolatey package choco install visualstudio2017-workload-webbuildtools from here:

https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=msbuild