title: dotnet core 3.0 unable to locate the dotnetcore sdk when opening solution in vs
body: <p>I am trying to load the source code for ASP.NET Core MVC at <a href="https://github.com/aspnet/aspnetcore" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/aspnet/aspnetcore</a>. However, when I cloned the project, checked out v3.0.0, and tried to open the solution in Visual Studio 2019 (v16.3.4), I got the following error for all the projects</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Unable to locate the .NET Core SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I have ensured the .net core 3.0 sdk has been downloaded on my computer, and running <code>dotnet --info</code> yields the following data:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Microsoft.NETCore.App 3.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Looking in the <code>.csproj</code> file, they are all targeting  </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;TargetFramework&gt;netcoreapp3.0&lt;/TargetFramework&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Additionally, I have ensured that the path to the SDK 'C:\Program Files\dotnet' is included in my PATH variable. I tried adding a global.json file specifying the sdk, but it didn't seem to make a difference.  </p>
  
  <p>Any idea what could be causing this issue?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit</strong> </p>
  
  <p>Below is an example of the csproj file</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk"&gt;
  
    &lt;PropertyGroup&gt;
      &lt;Description&gt;ASP.NET Core metadata.&lt;/Description&gt;
      &lt;TargetFramework&gt;netstandard2.0&lt;/TargetFramework&gt;
      &lt;IsAspNetCoreApp&gt;true&lt;/IsAspNetCoreApp&gt;
      &lt;IsShippingPackage&gt;true&lt;/IsShippingPackage&gt;
      &lt;NoWarn&gt;$(NoWarn);CS1591&lt;/NoWarn&gt;
      &lt;GenerateDocumentationFile&gt;true&lt;/GenerateDocumentationFile&gt;
      &lt;PackageTags&gt;aspnetcore&lt;/PackageTags&gt;
    &lt;/PropertyGroup&gt;
  
  &lt;/Project&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>, and here is the folder with all the SDKs on my machine. 
  <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qRgxy.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qRgxy.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>