Unable to install dotnet on Windows using vfox plugin

[dggsax]

Clarifier: I am new to the mise/vfox/asdf ecosystem, so apologies if I misunderstand something

Looking at issue #3 which was supposed to be fixed by #4, I think there is more to the fix.

On windows, when I run mise install dotnet using mise version 2025.8.7 windows-x64 (2025-08-06) I get the following output:

mise ERROR Failed to install tool: dotnet@latest

Individual error details:
  1. dotnet@latest:
     Error {
         msg: "failed to install vfox:dotnet@9.0.304",
         source: LuaError(
             FromLuaConversionError {
                 from: "table",
                 to: "PreInstall",
                 message: Some(
                     "no version returned from vfox plugin",
                 ),
             },
         ),
     }

I did some debugging into this, for example if we look at pre_install.lua below:

vfox-dotnet/hooks/pre_install.lua

Lines 9 to 19 in da580ed

	function PLUGIN:PreInstall(ctx)
	local releases = util:getAvailableByUserVersion(ctx.version)
	for _, release in ipairs(releases) do
	if strings.has_prefix(release.version, ctx.version) then
	return release
	end
	end
	return {}
	end

The properties of a release (as populated by util:getAvailableByChannelReleaseUrl) are:

• Download URL: https://builds.dotnet.microsoft.com/dotnet/Sdk/9.0.304/dotnet-sdk-9.0.304-win-x64.zip
• Note: secure, 2025-08-05
• SHA512: 252db975bca487d1f5abca021ba79a067d42072464f7b336651a74f623b47cefc898d635f799ae0a63bafb823a5dd741b0c7bcd9078d0467235e8b57e0101f02
• Addition (name): dotnet-sdk-win-x64.zip
• Addition (version): 9.0.304
• Version: 9.0.7

If we change the logic on line 13 to the following:

function PLUGIN:PreInstall(ctx) 
     local releases = util:getAvailableByUserVersion(ctx.version) 
  
     for _, release in ipairs(releases) do 
-         if strings.has_prefix(release.version, ctx.version) then 
+         if strings.has_prefix(release.addition[1].version, ctx.version) then 
             return release 
         end 
     end 
  
     return {} 
 end 

Then the installation works. I'm happy to submit a PR to fix this, and maybe make it so that rather than indexing the property by release.addition[1].version it's set as release.sdk-version, but wanted to open the issue to confirm that this is the correct path forward first.

[HalvorNygaard]

I also stumbled upon this issue through the mise dev tool since it uses vfox-dotnet. Thoughts on this @aooohan?

[JayBazuzi]

Here's the error when running vfox directly:

> vfox add dotnet
...
> vfox install dotnet@latest
plugin [PreInstall] method error: no version number provided
failed to install dotnet

[airtonix]

I get :

~\Projects via 🐍
❯ mise use -g vfox:version-fox/vfox-dotnet
mise Downloading https://builds.dotnet.microsoft.com/dotnet/Sdk/10.0.100/dotnet-sdk-10.0.100-win-x64.zip
mise Verifying "%APPDATA%\Local\\mise\\downloads\\vfox-version-fox-vfox-dotnet-10.0.0\\dotnet-sdk-10.0.100-win-x64.zip" checksum
mise Extracting "%APPDATA%\Local\\mise\\downloads\\vfox-version-fox-vfox-dotnet-10.0.0\\dotnet-sdk-10.0.100-win-x64.zip" to "%APPDATA%\Local\\mise\\installs\\vfox-version-fox-vfox-dotnet\\10.0.0"
mise ERROR Failed to install vfox:version-fox/vfox-dotnet@latest:
   0: Access is denied. (os error 5)
      File: %APPDATA%\Local\mise\installs\vfox-version-fox-vfox-dotnet\dotnet-sdk-10.0.100-win-x64.zipWx14UE

Location:
   src\backend\vfox.rs:121

Backtrace omitted. Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable to display it.
Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=full to include source snippets.
mise ERROR Run with --verbose or MISE_VERBOSE=1 for more information

(i've modified it to show %APPDATA% here instead of real info)

~\Projects via 🐍
❯ mise use -g dotnet
mise ERROR Failed to install vfox:dotnet@latest:
   0: error converting Lua table to PreInstall (no version returned from vfox plugin)

Location:
   src\backend\vfox.rs:121

Backtrace omitted. Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable to display it.
Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=full to include source snippets.
mise ERROR Run with --verbose or MISE_VERBOSE=1 for more information

and

~\Projects via 🐍
❯ mise use -g dotnet@10.0.100
mise ERROR Failed to install vfox:dotnet@10.0.100:
   0: error converting Lua table to PreInstall (no version returned from vfox plugin)

Location:
   src\backend\vfox.rs:121

Backtrace omitted. Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable to display it.
Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=full to include source snippets.
mise ERROR Run with --verbose or MISE_VERBOSE=1 for more information