NetCore project does not publish, keeps giving error of versioning mismatch - visual-studio-2017

Question

I have a asp.net core project and it's supporting libraries all in .net core version 2.2. They run, I can debug, they also work in release mode. However when I try to publish them, I get a list of errors. The main cause is shown as the web project:
Error NU1202: Package Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.0 is not compatible with netcoreapp2.1 (.NETCoreApp,Version=v2.1). Package Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.0 supports: netcoreapp2.2 (.NETCoreApp,Version=v2.2)
after which this error keeps repeating for every project that the web project references/uses in the solution.
I have verified the dependencies and here's what I see in the web project:
and this:
as you can see the project references the latest version 2.2.0. So I have no idea where is it picking this netcoreapp2.1?
if that is the problem with configuration, why this error does not show up during debug and release build or even debugging. Just to note my publish is based on Release build and it uses netcore 2.2 as framework dependent.
This is what I get if I run dotnet --list-runtimes
Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.8 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.2.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.2.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.2.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.8 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.2.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.2.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.2.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 3.0.0-preview-18579-0056 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.9 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.8 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.NETCore.App 3.0.0-preview-27122-01 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 3.0.0-alpha-27128-4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]

Answer 1

The issue is likely to do with your publish settings in Visual Studio. You have two ways of fixing the issue.
Option A. Edit the file FolderProfile.pubxml under the folder \Properties\PublishProfiles directly and change the target framework from 2.1 to 2.2 under:
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.2</TargetFramework>
or
Option B. Go to publish menu and click Configure... It appears that just going to menu and clicking save will fix the issue since the menu defaults to the the project default 2.2.
Hope this fixes your problem.

Answer 2

I think that your installed runtime is .net core hosting 2.1.
You should download the dotnet runtime 2.2 or higher version.