NETSDK1139: The target platform identifier android was not recognized on windows-2022 image version 20241113.3.0

[jamescrosswell]

Describe the bug

We started getting this error when running dotnet restore on our Windows runners for any projects targeting net8.0-android 2 days ago:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\8.0.404\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets(117,5): error NETSDK1139: The target platform identifier android was not recognized. [D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry\Sentry.csproj::TargetFramework=net8.0-android]

To Reproduce

We don't consistently get this error for the same commit. For example in this build run you can see that in Attempt 1, dotnet restore succeeded. However dotnet restore failed a second attempt on exactly the same commit.

As @bdach pointed out, the difference appears to be in the specific image version:

	Successful Run	Failed Run
Runner image version	20241021.1.0	20241113.3.0

Expected behavior

I'd expect the build runs to be deterministic. If we run the same GitHub Actions workflow with the same commit on the same runner, we should get the same result.

.NET 8 is definitely installed on the runner as are the maui workloads. So the error itself seems erroneous and misleading.

Runner Version and Platform

windows-latest version: '2.320.0'`

What's not working?

Here's an example of a run that (would have) succeeded... you can see the Restore .NET dependencies step has succeeded. This just runs dotnet restore against our solution (which has some projects that target net8.0-android).

After I saw that step had succeeded, I cancelled the run and tried again. Here's a retry of exactly the same commit that failed:

And here's a small sample of the log output for that step on the failed attempt:

Run dotnet restore Sentry-CI-Build-Windows.slnf --nologo
  dotnet restore Sentry-CI-Build-Windows.slnf --nologo
  shell: C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\pwsh.EXE -command ". '{0}'"
  env:
    XCODE_VERSION: 16
    DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT: 1
    DOTNET_NOLOGO: 1
    JAVA_HOME: C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\Java_Temurin-Hotspot_jdk\11.0.[2](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:2)5-9\x64
    JAVA_HOME_17_X64: C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\Java_Temurin-Hotspot_jdk\17.0.1[3](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:3)-11\x64
    ANDROID_HOME: C:\Android\android-sdk
    ANDROID_SDK_ROOT: C:\Android\android-sdk
    JAVA_HOME_11_X6[4](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:4): C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\Java_Temurin-Hotspot_jdk\11.0.2[5](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:5)-9\x64
    DOTNET_ROOT: C:\Program Files\dotnet
    JAVA_HOME_11: C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\Java_Temurin-Hotspot_jdk\11.0.25-9\x[6](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:6)4
  Determining projects to restore...
  Downloading from "https://downloads.sentry-cdn.com/sentry-cli/2.38.2/sentry-cli-Windows-x86_64.exe" to "D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\tools\sentry-cli\2.38.2\sentry-cli-Windows-x86_64.exe" (8[7](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:7)79264 bytes).
  Downloading from "https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/io/sentry/sentry-android-core/7.17.0/sentry-android-core-7.17.0.aar" to "D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry.Bindings.Android\obj\sdks\Sentry\Android\7.17.0\sentry-android-core-7.17.0.aar" (279716 bytes).
  Downloading from "https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/io/sentry/sentry-android-ndk/7.17.0/sentry-android-ndk-7.17.0.aar" to "D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry.Bindings.Android\obj\sdks\Sentry\Android\7.17.0\sentry-android-ndk-7.17.0.aar" (1632731 bytes).
  Downloading from "https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/io/sentry/sentry-android-replay/7.17.0/sentry-android-replay-7.17.0.aar" to "D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry.Bindings.Android\obj\sdks\Sentry\Android\7.17.0\sentry-android-replay-7.17.0.aar" (253397 bytes).
  Downloading from "https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/io/sentry/sentry/7.17.0/sentry-7.17.0.jar" to "D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry.Bindings.Android\obj\sdks\Sentry\Android\7.17.0\sentry-7.17.0.jar" (924646 bytes).
Error: C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\[8](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:8).0.404\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets(117,5): error NETSDK113[9](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:9): The target platform identifier android was not recognized. [D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\samples\Sentry.Samples.Maui\Sentry.Samples.Maui.csproj::TargetFramework=net8.0-android]
Error: C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\8.0.404\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets([11](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:11)7,5): error NETSDK1139: The target platform identifier android was not recognized. [D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\test\Sentry.Testing\Sentry.Testing.csproj::TargetFramework=net8.0-android]
Error: C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\8.0.404\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets(117,5): error NETSDK1[13](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:13)9: The target platform identifier android was not recognized. [D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry.Maui\Sentry.Maui.csproj::TargetFramework=net8.0-android]
Error: C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\8.0.404\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets(1[17](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-dotnet/actions/runs/11883719343/job/33112101638#step:11:18),5): error NETSDK1139: The target platform identifier android was not recognized. [D:\a\sentry-dotnet\sentry-dotnet\src\Sentry\Sentry.csproj::TargetFramework=net8.0-android]

[bdach]

For example in this build run you can see that in Attempt 1, dotnet restore succeeded. I assumed at that point that the most recent change I had made was significant. This turned out to be false - dotnet restore failed a second attempt on exactly the same commit.

For reference, the difference between the two seems to be the "runner image" specifically. The fail happened on 20241113.3.0, while the pass happened on 20241021.1.0.

This is visible both in the "setup job" step after you expand the "Runner Image" subhead, or when viewing the raw logs.

See also: actions/runner-images#10978

[jamescrosswell]

For reference, the difference between the two seems to be the "runner image" specifically. The fail happened on 20241113.3.0, while the pass happened on 20241021.1.0.

Awesome, thanks @bdach - I didn't spot that. That at least gives me a path to explore.

As is pointed out in the other issue you referenced, it's a bit frustrating that the runners aren't versioned and we can't pin a specific version to ensure deterministic builds. Ideally I'd like every change in the build system to be reflected by a corresponding change in our repository. The runners themselves seem to change frequently and in major ways however, so sometimes things work and sometimes things break, without our having made any changes.

[albyrock87]

Does anyone have a workaround for this?

I even tried using a specific version of dotnet SDK, but it still complains about android not being recognized.

https://github.com/nalu-development/nalu/actions/runs/11950637082/job/33312535560

      - name: "Setup .NET SDK"
        uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v3
        with:
          dotnet-version: '8.0.401'
      - name: "Ensure all workloads are installed" # https://github.com/actions/runner/issues/3578
        run: dotnet workload install maui
        shell: pwsh