.NET MAUI app completely broken after Visual Studio 17.14.17 update - .NET 8 project no longer builds or deploys (was working fine before)

Question

Updated to Visual Studio 17.14.17, and my previously working .NET 8 MAUI project is now broken — random build errors, IntelliSense failure, and runtime issues. CLI works, VS doesn’t. How can an IDE update break a stable MAUI setup like this, and how can I fix or roll back?

I’ve been maintaining a .NET MAUI app (targeting .NET 8) that was building and deploying perfectly to both Android and iOS before updating Visual Studio to Version 17.14.17. After the update, my project is now completely broken — it won’t build, IntelliSense is red everywhere, and I’m getting random, inconsistent errors that weren’t present before.

Here’s the background and what I’ve already verified:

SDKs installed:

5.0.402
6.0.404
8.0.415
9.0.306

<TargetFrameworks>net8.0-android;net8.0-ios;net8.0-maccatalyst</TargetFrameworks>

After updating to Visual Studio 17.14.17

Everything fell apart:

Visual Studio marks every file red — namespaces like Microsoft.Maui.Controls, Android.App, and UIKit are no longer recognized.

Random build errors like:

Using directives must be placed outside of a namespace declaration
The type or namespace name 'MauiApp' could not be found
Assets file doesn't have a target for net8.0-android
SupportedOSPlatformVersion 13.1 cannot be higher than TargetPlatformVersion 1.0

CLI build started throwing:

Runtime list file 'Microsoft.NETCore.App.Runtime.Mono.android-x64\data\RuntimeList.xml' was not found.

Android build later failed with:

resource xml/maui_file_paths not found

iOS crashes at runtime with:

PlatformSetColor is only supported on iOS and Android 23 and later

Even after fixing the workloads and rebuilding the MAUI 8 setup, Visual Studio still refuses to recognize project references and shows platform-specific code as errors in the editor.

I reinstalled and repaired all .NET 8 MAUI workloads. Pinned the SDK via global.json

{ "sdk": { "version": "8.0.415" } }

This was a production-ready MAUI project that worked for months without issue. Simply updating Visual Studio broke the build chain.

It’s baffling that an IDE update can fundamentally change how a project builds — especially when the SDK, workloads, and code haven’t changed!!!

How can a routine Visual Studio update (17.14.17) invalidate existing, stable .NET 8 MAUI projects like this? IDE updates shouldn’t introduce breaking changes to project fundamentals.

dotnet workload list

Installed Workload Id      Manifest Version       Installation Source
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
aspire                     8.2.2/8.0.100          SDK 8.0.400, VS 17.14.36603.0
android                    34.0.79/8.0.100        VS 17.14.36603.0
maui-windows               8.0.61/8.0.100         VS 17.14.36603.0
maccatalyst                17.2.8022/8.0.100      VS 17.14.36603.0
ios                        17.2.8022/8.0.100      VS 17.14.36603.0

Did you already try closing VS, removing all bin and obj folders + the .vs folder and reopening the solution? Perhaps you can try using VS2026 Insiders pre-release — Pieterjan
– Pieterjan, Commented Oct 19 at 8:04
@Pieterjan yes I tried deleting all temp files but no luck. How do you think a beta version of IDE will fix that problem? — Teoman shipahi
– Teoman shipahi, Commented Oct 19 at 14:53
I had similar issues when going into .NET 7, and .NET 8. When .NET 9 came, I didn't even wait for this to happen. You have to upgrade. One of the most important breaking changes is that you will have to set the binding context to all your behaviors in the XAML files. Or the bindings wont work and they will do nothing. Still complete nonsense and pain to deal with, but I found it to be the lesser evil. Btw I tested one of my old .NET 8 projects (that I do not plan to upgrade because discontinued) and I found that I am getting the same errors as you do. — H.A.H.
– H.A.H., Commented Oct 20 at 3:47
I have the same problem, nothing works. It´s incredible how could Microsoft do this mesh — Smeagol75
– Smeagol75, Commented Oct 22 at 15:39
Had the same problem(s) not with those exact versions but with earlier ones. The first time I decided to roll back immediately (successfully). Nevertheless, at some point I had had to built for iOS using a newer macOS version and that meant installing 17.14.16. At that point, I also changed the target .NET version from 8.0 to 9.0 and everything worked. — dpant
– dpant, Commented Oct 24 at 18:27

Teoman shipahi · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-26 04:24:31Z

1

This might not be the most obvious fix, but what finally worked for me was upgrading the entire stack:

Migrated the app to .NET 10 workloads for both Android and iOS.
Updated Xcode to version 26.
Installed Visual Studio 2026 Insiders Edition.

Once everything was aligned with the newer toolchain, the app started building and deploying again without issue.

Granted, I was able to do this because I’m the sole developer on the project, so I didn’t have to worry about team-wide compatibility or rollout delays. But I wanted to share this in case anyone else is stuck and has the flexibility to try the same path. It’s not ideal, but it got me unblocked.

Hope this helps someone in a similar spot!

answered Oct 26 at 4:24

Teoman shipahi

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