.NET MAUI Android Emulator Cannot Execute dll Visual Studio Mac

Question

I am running Visual Studio on a Mac for .NET MAUI. I was playing around with some package versions following a Visual Studio update about a week ago, and now when I try to run my project on the Android Emulator, I get a message that says Cannot execute "[my directory path]/bin/Debug/net7.0-android/[my project name].dll. The project still runs on the iOS Simulator without issue.

When I open Project Properties, I see the Android Target is now missing. It was previously shown on this screen.

I think this started when I tried to change the Target .NET Runtime to .NET 8.0 for Android before I had .NET 8.0 installed. The Deploying to Device output appears to be normal, although I admit I don't usually pay much attention to it and probably wouldn't recognize an anomaly.

I have attempted the following and none seemed to solve the problem:

1. Restart Visual Studio
2. Restart Android Emulator
3. Restart Computer
4. Install new additional Android Device in Android Device Manager

Answer 1

I just had this problem with a Xamarin Android App and I solved it by deleting all of my user settings located under /Users/[USER]/Library/Preferences/VisualStudio
Not an optimal solution (all keybindings gone etc) but at least i can debug again.

The problem started after enabling the setting Other/Preview features/Use .NET 8 but didn't go away after disabling this.

Answer 2

I was able to solve my problem by following steps outlined in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lZldOqg5i0&t=525s

Before making any changes, when I ran dotnet workload search in a Terminal window, I got this result which is missing maui-android.

So I ran sudo dotnet workload install maui and sudo dotnet workload install maui-android and now I have this list:

I restarted Visual Studio and I was able to debug again with the Android Emulator and also publish for Android again.