Could not copy the file deps.json because it was not found. Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets 4919

I updated VS 2019 to 16.9.4 version. Sometimes I am getting three errors on rebuilding solution:

Could not copy the file deps.json because it was not found. Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets 4919
Could not copy the file runtimeconfig.json because it was not found. Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets 4919 
Could not copy the file runtimeconfig.dev.json because it was not found. Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets 4919

To reprodue this issue, get this project: https://github.com/komdil/MyProject/tree/reproduceSDKIssue Rebuild twice

The project strcuture like:

MyProject project and MyProject.Model have the same output path

I created issue on Visual Studio support: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/could-not-copy-the-file-depsjson-because-it-was-no/1400396 They mantion that it is started happening after this PR: https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/pull/14488

For workarround I removed these lines from Microsoft.NET.Sdk.targets:

    <ItemGroup Condition="'$(GenerateDependencyFile)' == 'true'">
      <AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath Include="$(ProjectDepsFilePath)"
                                      TargetPath="$([System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($(ProjectDepsFilePath)))"
                                      CopyToOutputDirectory="PreserveNewest" />
    </ItemGroup>
    
    <ItemGroup Condition=" '$(GenerateRuntimeConfigurationFiles)' == 'true'">
      <AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath Include="$(ProjectRuntimeConfigFilePath)"
                                TargetPath="$([System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($(ProjectRuntimeConfigFilePath)))"
                                CopyToOutputDirectory="PreserveNewest" />
      <AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath Include="$(ProjectRuntimeConfigDevFilePath)"
                                TargetPath="$([System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($(ProjectRuntimeConfigDevFilePath)))"
                                CopyToOutputDirectory="PreserveNewest" />
    </ItemGroup>

[komdil]

@dsplaisted Currently we have more than 30 projects in solution. Most of them have the same output and some of them not. That’s why UseCommonOutputDirectory will not help us. We cannot saparate project outputs becasue of several reasons. One of them is som,e projects output will take more than 1 gb memory. The project depedencies is complex and when I saparate output, all outputs will take more than 30gb memory. Another thing is I am running some commands in BuildEvent. This command is expecting common output. And there are many other reasons. I didn’t understand what are you mean here: If each project builds to the same output folder, then the referenced project may try to write files to the shared output folder, and then the referencing project will try to copy the file from the same source to the same destination. When trying to do a clean / rebuild, it can end up deleting a file and then trying to copy that file, resulting in the errors you are seeing. When trying rebuild it will delete file and why it will try to copy it? Maybe it should build referenced project first, and then copy?

Maybe do you need copy files in different condition (instead of HasRuntimeOutput) because it is working when I clean solution and then rebuild

[jaytonic]

We also encounter this issue on a 400+ project solution, we just cannot afford to build everything and copy everything in separate directory. This really need to be adressed