Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.1 upgrade "Blocked by project"

I'm trying to upgrade a .net core 2.1 project to the latest version of Nuget packages such as Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions 2.1.1.

However this is blocked by the package reference Microsoft.NETCore.App, when I try to upgrade the "meta" package Microsoft.NETCore.App I see "Blocked by project" similar to this question. That was resolved by switching to the newer version of the SDK, however that isn't an option here... because there isn't a newer version of the SDK (yet?).

I've also seen this answer to upgrade specific packages by editing the .csproj file manually with an Update package reference but I doubt that's the intended method of doing this.

How should I go about this? For now I've just manually included the package references I actually use and dropped the meta package but I can't imagine that's the intended way to go about this.

Easy. Was looking for a resolution for this earlier and I all I had to do was just add this in the projects affected.

  <PropertyGroup>
    <RuntimeFrameworkVersion>2.1.1</RuntimeFrameworkVersion>
  </PropertyGroup>

Additionally for .NET Core 3 and beyond,

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

There was also an answer posted by Patrick below pointing out that certain projects require the .NET Core App NuGet Package. You won't need that anymore after .NET Core 3.

In my case it was caused by missing Version attribute on Microsoft.AspNetCore.App.

For some reason when the WebApi project was created the package was referenced like this:

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" />

Adding the missing attribute resolved all issues with updates and builds on the build server.

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" Version="2.1.1" />

I had only Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.1 installed and couldn't update to Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.2 in Manage NuGet Packages... window because it showed "Blocked by project":

In the the image above it shows I'm on the latest version already because I did the following...

1 - download the latest version (v2.1.302 as of now) of .NET Core SDK here:

https://www.microsoft.com/net/download

2 - install it and run the following command in Visual Studio Package Manager Console or in Windows PowerShell. It should show the following:

PM> dotnet --info
.NET Core SDK (reflecting any global.json):
 Version:   2.1.302
 Commit:    9048955601

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     Windows
 OS Version:  10.0.17134
 OS Platform: Windows
 RID:         win10-x64
 Base Path:   C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.1.302\

Host (useful for support):
  Version: 2.1.2
  Commit:  811c3ce6c0

.NET Core SDKs installed:
  1.0.0-rc4-004771 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  1.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  1.0.3 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  1.0.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  1.1.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.0.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.100 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.101 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.104 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.105 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.200 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.201 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.202 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.300-preview2-008533 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.300-rc1-008673 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.300 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.301 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.302 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]

.NET Core runtimes installed:
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.0-preview2-final [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.0-rc1-final [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.0-preview2-final [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.0-rc1-final [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.0.3 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.0.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.0.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.1.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.1.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.3 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.6 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.9 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.0-preview2-26406-04 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.0-rc1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]

To install additional .NET Core runtimes or SDKs:
  https://aka.ms/dotnet-download
PM> 

Editing my .csproj file and adding the following line worked for me:

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NetCore.App" Version="2.1.1" />

In my case, @Patrick's answer is correct. At least for VS 2017 (15.8.9) with SDK file "dotnet-sdk-2.1.403-win-x64.exe" installed.

Symptoms: Creating a new Web project sets the Aspnetcore.App version to 2.1 even though the latest SDK is installed. Attempting to change the version via the NuGet Manager responds with 'project blocked'.

Resolution: Add Version="2.1" to the reference in CSPROJ like this:

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" Version="2.1" />

After save/reopen, the NuGet manager will allow selecting other versions of the SDK. Note that adding Version="2.1.5" directly then saving the CSProj file should trigger the upgrade/restore automatically.

Thanks @Patrick

For me, I had the following line twice in the csproj file

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.StaticFiles " Version="2.2.0" />

Simply removing the duplicate resolved the issue

You can install using the Package Manager Console with the command. for an example:

> Install-Package Microsoft.AspNetCore.App -Version 2.2.8

1. Right click on your project
2. Click on "Properties"
3. Change "Target Framework" accordingly
4. Save and close the properties window. This will resolve issue auto, else you can go to Nuget and upgrade the assemblies by yourself.

As @Simon_Weaver said this happens when no version specified and 2.1.301 SDK is not present in a system