Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation, in jenkins' groovy script - jenkins

Question

I need to maintain a jenkins groovy script (we are not sure however if it ever worked).The script for a pipeline build has multiple stages ('revision' and 'build' stages before 'unit tests' have succeeded), one of which is the following:
stage('Unit Tests')
{
stages
{
stage('Tests')
{
parallel
{
stage('TRKengineTest')
{
steps
{
bat '"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\NUnit.org\\nunit-console\\nunit3-console.exe" TRKengine\\TRKengine.Test\\bin\\Release\\netcoreapp3.1\\TRKengine.Test.dll --result=TRKengine.Test.xml;format=nunit2 --timeout=180000 --workers=1'
echo "Something to do?"
}
}
stage('TRKengineGUItest')
{
steps
{
//bat '"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\NUnit.org\\nunit-console\\nunit3-console.exe" TRKengine\\TRKengineGUI.Test\\bin\\Release\\netcoreapp3.1\\TRKengineGUI.Test.dll --result=TRKengineGUI.Test.xml;format=nunit2 --timeout=180000 -v --workers=1'
echo "Nothing to do"
}
}
}
}
stage('Testresults')
{
steps
{
nunit testResultsPattern: 'TRKengine.Test.xml, TRKengineGUI.Test.xml'
}
}
}
}
The bat command returns a -100 error. More precisely:
C:\Jenkins\workspace\TRKengine_trunk>"C:\Program Files (x86)\NUnit.org\nunit-console\nunit3-console.exe" TRKengine\TRKengine.Test\bin\Release\netcoreapp3.1\TRKengine.Test.dll --result=TRKengine.Test.xml;format=nunit2 --timeout=180000 -v --workers=1
NUnit Console Runner 3.6.1
Copyright (C) 2017 Charlie Poole
Runtime Environment
OS Version: Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.14393.0
CLR Version: 4.0.30319.42000
Test Files
TRKengine\TRKengine.Test\bin\Release\netcoreapp3.1\TRKengine.Test.dll
Errors, Failures and Warnings
1) Error :
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
Server stack trace:
at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor)
at System.Reflection.RuntimeConstructorInfo.Invoke(BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(String assemblyString, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityInfo, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityInfo)
at System.AppDomain.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityAttributes)
at System.AppDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(String assemblyName, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityAttributes)
at System.AppDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(String assemblyName, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityAttributes)
at NUnit.Engine.Drivers.NUnit3FrameworkDriver.Load(String testAssemblyPath, IDictionary`2 settings)
at NUnit.Engine.Runners.DirectTestRunner.LoadPackage()
at NUnit.Engine.Runners.DirectTestRunner.EnsurePackageIsLoaded()
at NUnit.Engine.Runners.DirectTestRunner.RunTests(ITestEventListener listener, TestFilter filter)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink._PrivateProcessMessage(IntPtr md, Object[] args, Object server, Object[]& outArgs)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink.SyncProcessMessage(IMessage msg)
Exception rethrown at [0]:
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
at NUnit.Engine.ITestEngineRunner.Run(ITestEventListener listener, TestFilter filter)
at NUnit.Engine.Runners.ProcessRunner.RunTests(ITestEventListener listener, TestFilter filter)
Test Run Summary
Overall result: Failed
Test Count: 0, Passed: 0, Failed: 0, Warnings: 0, Inconclusive: 0, Skipped: 0
Start time: 2020-07-15 11:32:42Z
End time: 2020-07-15 11:32:43Z
Duration: 0.556 seconds
Results (nunit2) saved as TRKengine.Test.xml
script returned exit code -100
I have tried a couple of things:
1)First of all, it seems like the path of nunit-console.exe is wrong but as I found out, it can be used in recent releases of nunit.
2)The path of the test.dll is correct, as I manually navigated there and ..netcoreapp3.1\TRKengine.Test.dll is indeed there.
3)I have spotted --result=TRKengine.Test.xml;format=nunit2 in other exampels across the internet.
4)I experimented with removing any combinations of the remaining parameters, workers/timeout -v etc, without success.
So the line where the error appears, seems to be correct, and my intuition is that probably the mistake has already happened somewhere else.
I am not sure what "invocation" means. I have also checked How do you run NUnit tests from Jenkins? that seems related and it feels like Winston33 's proposition is exactly like what is happening here.
Something that is a bit worrying is that my machine is 64 bits but the path is ..x86.
I also have access to code and all projects inside the solution build successfully
I am a total beginner in both jenkins and groovy, so if I had not disclosed any necessary information please notify me.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The error message: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation is a common message for C# based products
means that nunit tries to call the target test dll dynamically but it (dll) throws some exception that unfortunately you don't see.
check the nunit issue that is very close to yours https://github.com/nunit/nunit/issues/1509
there is suggestion to set following nunit parameters
--trace=Debug to see more information about error
--inprocess to run tests in a single process
there several log files should be created that could contain helpful information to understand why the error occurred.