Could not load file or assembly 'WebGrease' one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference

I met this issue on a prod server, while everything worked fine on developer machine. These lines helped:

<configuration>
  <runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="WebGrease" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-1.5.2.0" newVersion="1.5.2.14234"/>
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
  </runtime>
</configuration>

Finally, the issue was in <configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">. It caused the Render method to load wrong WebGrease assembly.

Removing the xmlns solved the issue for me.

I modified my web.config file so that the newVersion="1.0.0.0" matched my Referenced file version:

<dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="WebGrease" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.3.0.0" newVersion="1.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>