After upgrading an project from .NET 6.0 to .NET 8.0, you may encounter the following error when trying to publish the project to IIS:

‘.\obj\project.assets.json’ doesn’t have a target for ‘net6.0’. Ensure that restore has run and that you have included ‘net6.0’ in the TargetFrameworks for your project.

This error indicates that the project.assets.json file contains an outdated reference to .NET 6.0, which conflicts with the new target framework version.

Solution

To resolve this issue, update the target framework in the publish settings. Here’s how:

• Open the «Publish» tab in Visual Studio.
• Go to the publish profile settings (.pubxml) for your project.
• Locate the «Target Framework» setting.
• Change it from .NET 6.0 to the version your project now targets, such as .NET 8.0 or another version.

Save the changes and try publishing the project again.

Conclusion

Updating the target framework in the publish settings resolves version conflicts in project.assets.json, allowing you to publish the project to the correct framework version.