I have a TFS 2017 instance running on windows server 2012 R2 with a test box running windows 10.
I am running into a very odd issue. Most of my automated CodedUI tests are running pretty well. However, I have noticed that code changes are not always picked up by TFS when it performs a new build, at least not in the testing code area.
The builds themselves work well, and new code always gets incorporated for those. However, when the latest build triggers a release containing CodedUI tests, those tests do not always grab the latest build.
I have noticed this primarily in my App.config file which contains connection strings that are not being updated. In one case I had three tests that ran apparently successfully, but then they ran again using the values from the old App.config file.
I also have found that changes to the [TestCategory()] attribute are not always picked up either. I use that category to specify which tests I want run in a particular release build. I use variations on the same word for my categories: CodedUI, CodedUIExtended, CodedUIStage. At first I thought the system was doing some sort of StartsWith and picking up the other names, but when I tell it to run CodedUI it is running both the CodedUI and CodedUIStage categories.
[TestCategory("CodedUI"), TestMethod]
public void UI_Login_AdminAuthenticate()
{
...
}
Because the CodedUIStage categories were recently changed and used to be CodedUI that has led me in the direction of suspecting some sort of caching being used in TFS.
Can anyone shed some light on why my category and app.config changes are not being picked up correctly? What is causing this, and could it be happening to the code itself as well when I attempt to deploy a fix/correction?
EDIT:
As suggested, I tried checking the clean option on my TFS build configuration, however it had no affect.
The release, which is triggered immediately upon build does show it is using the newly finished build number.
And looking at the artifacts, the test dll has the current date modified, so it looks like it was just created.
The test.dll.config seems to be the issue. In the artifacts it has a very old Date modified and is not the current version that is checked into TFS. Typically this would feel like a clean issue, however TFS always deletes and re-copies all destination files when doing a build or Release. I have verified that by watching the files being deleted and re-created on the file system during the process.
C:\agent_work\r6\a\ [artifact_name]\bin
EDIT2:
With a little more exploration, the build artifacts are correct. It is when the Release copies those artifacts into the release process that the problem happens.
A week ago I renamed the folder in TFS containing my test project inside the solution. The old folder name is showing up in the artifacts the Release copies into itself. The new folder name is also showing up, which means I now have two dlls, and that is causing problems.
I am not sure where the Release is finding this copy of the old folder. I explicitly deleted it from the Release's copy of the build artifacts and re-ran the build and release and it showed back up.
Thanks to the suggestions from Daniel, I eventually figured out that after creating the artifacts, my build process was then publishing those to a separate place on the file system.
Unfortunately, the Copy and Publish Build Artifacts task does not have a clean feature like the basic Copy Files task does.
As such, whenever files are removed from the build they still exist in that location when the Release process goes to try and grab what it thinks the artifacts are. And so it ends up grabbing extra files.
Manually deleting the old files from that secondary artifact destination location solved the issue.
I have created some custom CodeActivity-derived clases which:
successfully check an assembly info file, GlobalAssemblyInfo.cs,
changes the value of AssemblyFileVersion,
and then checks it back in, returning the change set value.
I based some of this work on Ewald Hofman's wonderful blog Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion
The Problem:
Later in the build, one of my projects in this solution uses the version number to create a subdirectory by getting the version number from the newly built assembly. The problem is the subdirectory always lags behind in the version number. I've noticed that when I test the build definition based on the BuildProcessTemplate, that my included change sets never include the GlobalAssemblyInfo from that build.
The build log tells me that steps 1, 2, and 3 all work. It also tells me that Associated Change Sets in the summary don't include the change set number in step 3. Does anyone know how I can work around this problem?
I found the answer to this question experimentally. As soon as a build is started, that point in the version tree is used for the associated change sets. Since I am checking out and checking in a file after that point, it is not part of the build. I got around this problem by calling my GetLatest activity after the Get All (specific), as seen in the DefaultTemplate. It's accomplishes the goal of getting my changed version number used in the assemblies.
I've been tasked with setting up a new Team Foundation/Build server at my company, with which we'll be starting a new project. Nobody here currently has experience with TFS, so I'm learning all of this on my own. Everything is working so far; The server's been set up, the Repository and Team Project has been created, the Build Server has been created, and I've created a simple hello world application to verify the source control and Continuous Integration builds (on the build server) run properly.
However, I'm having a problem setting up the automatic versioning. I've installed the TfsVersioning project, and it's working fine; I'm able to define a format for my assembly versions. I haven't yet decided what format I'll use; probably something like Major.Minor.Changeset.Revision (I'm aware of the potential problem regarding using the changeset number in the assembly version, so I may decide to switch to Major.Minor.Julian.Revision before we begin development).
The problem:
I don't want assemblies to have new file versions if their source code has NOT changed since the last build. With a continuous Integration build this isn't a problem, as the build server will only grab the source files that have changed, causing an incremental build which produces only updated modules; the existing unchanged modules won't be built, so their version will remain unchanged.
If I set up a nightly build, I'll want to clean the workspace and perform a Build-All. However, this means that ALL assemblies will have new version (assuming the Assembly File Version includes the build number).
A solution?
This has prompted me to consider using the latest changeset number in the Assembly File Version. This way, if nothing has been committed between two successive Build-Alls, the versions won't be incremented. However, this would mean that a change and commit to a single file would force a version increment on ALL assemblies.
I'm looking for one of two things:
A way to only increment Assembly Version Numbers if their source/dependencies have changed since the last build. Successive Build-Alls should not cause changes in version numbers.
OR
A way for testers and non-developers to be able to tell version W.X.Y.Z and version W.X.Y.Z+1 of assembly 'Foo' are identical, even though they have differing file versions.
I've probably read about 20 articles on the subject, and nobody (except this guy) seem to address the issue. If what I'm asking for isn't common practice in the Team Foundation ALM, how do I address the second bullet point above?
Thanks for your time!
This is something I did in the past. The solution has two critical points:
You must use an incremental build, i.e. Clean Workspace = None
The change to AssemblyInfo.cs must be computed at each project
This latter is the most complex and I will just draft the solution here.
In the custom MSBuild properties use CustomAfterMicrosoftCommonTargets to inject an hook in normal Visual Studio compile
/property:CustomAfterMicrosoftCommonTargets=custom.proj
Also forward a value for the version
/property:BuildNumber=1.2.3.4
In custom.proj redefine the target BeforeCompile to something similar
<Target Name="BeforeCompile"
Inputs="$(MSBuildAllProjects);
#(Compile);
#(_CoreCompileResourceInputs);
$(ApplicationIcon);
$(AssemblyOriginatorKeyFile);
#(ReferencePath);
#(CompiledLicenseFile);
#(EmbeddedDocumentation);
$(Win32Resource);
$(Win32Manifest);
#(CustomAdditionalCompileInputs)"
Outputs="#(DocFileItem);
#(IntermediateAssembly);
#(_DebugSymbolsIntermediatePath);
$(NonExistentFile);
#(CustomAdditionalCompileOutputs)"
Condition="'$(BuildNumber)'!=''">
<Message Text="*TRACE* BuildNumber: $(BuildNumber)"/>
<MyTasksThatReplaceAssemblyVersion
BuildNumber="$(BuildNumber)"
File="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs"/>
</Target>
You need to have a task for replacing the AssemblyFileVersion in the AssemblyInfo.cs source. MSBuild Extension Pack has an AssemblyInfo task for this purpose.
I posted the full details at my blog here, here and here.
I'm currently looking at a TFS build server setup & I was trying to set up a process whereby I can set up a build template to build to a folder based on the version number of a .NET assembly that's part of the build (As per the assemblyinfo.cs file). I've got it building to the standard looking folder ("Release_20130502.1"), but that's not exactly useful in 4 months time when we want to find the build for the v1.1.0 release.
Basically I want to make a special build template which will create a major release, and I'd like the folders it makes to be more noticable as versions rather than timestamps. I'm also hoping to automatically label the release as that version too. I know how to copy the files & make labels, but I'm not sure how to get at the version numbers.
I'd also love if I could get this into the Build Name recorded in TFS somehow but I suspect that might be a bit optimistic.
Does anyone have any idea how to do this (Or alternatively any other technique that'll get me easily recognizable release version builds)?
Take a look at build number format property for build definitions this is used to generate the build number and in turn the build folder during build and label in sourcecontrol if its enabled, you can modify this manualy to pass desired build number. The mentioned drop folder can be manually given as well. And you can always copy the folder after build by hand.
You can use revision variable to create something that works similiar to what you want, Revision number gets incremented if there is build with same name in system
Format: Release v1.$(Rev).0 - this would give you Release v1.1.0, Release v1.2.0, ... on each build
You will have to customize build definition with custom activity for your defined goal to work without manual interaction. However with details you have provided this approach has issues - each project has its own assembly info - which one do you use, what if they are different? This should get you started.
http://www.ewaldhofman.nl/post/2010/04/20/Customize-Team-Build-2010-e28093-Part-1-Introduction.aspx
You can take a look at these may find something useful
http://tfsbuildextensions.codeplex.com/
It all comes down how often do these build take place, if its week or more then doing it by hand is perfecly valid aproach in my book.
Why Why WHY doesn't TFS's get latest work consistently?
You would have thought that feature would have been tested thoroughly.
What I have to do is, get specific version, then check both overwrite writetable files + overwrite all files.
Is my local setup messed up or you do this also?
TFS redefined what "Get Latest" does. In TFS terms, Get Latest means get the latest version of the files, but ignore the ones that the server thinks is already in your workspace. Which to me and just about everyone else on the planet is wrong.
See this link: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/srlteam/archive/2009/04/13/how-get-latest-version-really-works.aspx
The only way to get it to do what you want is to Get Specific Version, then check both of the "Overwrite ..." boxes.
Sometimes Get specific version even checking both checkboxes won't get you the latest file. You've probably made a change to a file, and want to undo those changes by re-getting the latest version. Well... that's what Undo pending changes is for and not the purpose of Get specific version.
If in doubt:
undo pending check in on the file(s)
do a compare afterwards to make sure your file matches the expected version
run a recursive 'compare' on your whole project afterwards to see what else is different
keep an eye on pending changes window and sometimes you may need to check 'take server version' to resolve an incompatible pending change
And this one's my favorite that I just discovered :
keep an eye out in the the Output window for messages such as this :
Warning - Unable to refresh R:\TFS-PROJECTS\www.example.com\ExampleMVC\Example MVC\Example MVC.csproj because you have a pending edit.
This critical message appears in the output window. No other notifications!
Nothing in pending changes and no other dialog message telling you that the file you just requested explicitly was not retrieved! And yes - you resolve this by just running Undo pending changes and getting the file.
TFS, like some other source control providers, such as Perforce, do this, as the system knows what the last version you successfully got was, so get latest turns into "get changes since x". If you play by its rules and actually check things out before editing them, you don't confuse matters, and "get latest" really does as it says.
As you've seen, you can force it to reassess everything, which has a much greater bandwidth usage, but behaves closer to how SourceSafe used to.
It's hard to respond to a statement without examples of how it's not working, but it's crucial to understand that TFVC (in "Server Workspace" mode, which was the mechanism prior to TFS 2012) does not examine the state of your local filesystem. TFVC Server Workspaces are a "checkout-edit-checkin" type of system where this is by-design, an intentional decision made to massively reduce the amount of file I/O required to determine the state of your workspace. Instead, the workspace information is saved on the server.
This allows TFVC Server Workspaces to scale to very large codebases very efficiently. If you are in a multi-gigabyte code base (like Visual Studio or the Windows source tree) then your client does not need to scan your local filesystem, looking for files that may have changed, because the contract you have with TFS is that you will explicitly check a file out when you want to edit it.
You are expected to not mark a file as write-only and change it without explicitly checking it out first. If you go down this route, then the server does not know that you have made changes to your file, and performing a "Get Latest" operation will not update your local workspace, because you haven't told the server that you've made changes.
If you do subvert this mechanism then you can use the tfpt reconcile command to examine your local workspace for changes that you have made locally.
If you find yourself using "Get Specific Version" and selecting the "force" and "overwrite" options, then it is very likely that you are in the habit of bypassing all of the enforcements that TFS has implemented to keep you from hurting yourself, and you should probably consider TFVC Local Workspaces.
TFVC Local Workspaces provide an "edit-merge-commit" type of version control system, which means that you do not need to explicitly check files out before editing them and they are not read-only on-disk. Instead, you simply need to edit the file, and your client will scan the filesystem, notice the change, and present this as a pending change.
TFVC Local Workspaces are recommended for small projects that do not require fine-grained permissions control, since they present a much nicer workflow. You are not required to be online, and you do not have to explicitly check files out before editing them.
TFVC Local Workspaces are the default in TFS 2012, and if they are not enabled for you, then you should ask your server administrator. (Organizations with very large codebases or strict auditing requirements may disable TFVC Local Workspaces.)
Eric Sink's excellent book Version Control By Example outlines the differences between checkout-edit-checkin and edit-merge-commit systems and when one is more appropriate than the other.
The Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 book also provides excellent information about the differences between TFVC Server Workspaces and TFVC Local Workspaces. The MSDN documentation and blogs also provide detailed information:
Decide between using a local or a server workspace
Server workspaces vs. local workspaces
Team Foundation Server – Trying to understand Server versus Local Workspaces
Team Foundation Server (TFS) keeps track of its local copy in a hidden directory called $TF.When you issue the "get Latest Version", TFS looks into this folder and see weather I have the latest copy or not. If it does it will not download the latest copy. It does not matter if you have the original file or not. In fact you might have deleted the entire folder (as in my case) and TFS won't fetch the latest copy because it does not look into the actual file but the hidden directory where it records changes. The flaw with this design is, anything done outside the system will not be recorded in TFS. For example, you may go into Windows explorer, delete a folder or file and TFS wont recognize it. It will be totally blind. At least I would expect there Windows would not let you delete this file but it does!
One way to enforce the latest copy is to delete the hidden $TF folder manually. To do that, go to command prompt and navigate to the root folder where you project was checked out and issue this command
rd/s $tf // remove $TF folder and everything inside it
If you want to just check the hidden folder, you can do it using
dir /ah // display hidden files and folders
Note: If you do it, the tf will think you do not have any local copy even though you have it in files and it will sync up everything again.
Caution: Use this method at your own risk. Please do not use it on critical work.
"Get latest version" by default will only download the files that have changed on the server since the last time you ran "Get latest version". TFS keeps track of the files you download so it doesn't spend time downloading the same version of the files again. If you are modifying the files outside of Visual Studio, this can cause the consistency problems it sounds like you are seeing.
Unfortunately, there has to be one or more bugs in TFS 2008, since this problem regularly crop up on developer machines and build servers where I work as well.
I can do Get Latest, I can see in the history list of the project that there have been commits after I last did a Get Latest, I have not touched the files on disk in any way, but after the "Get Latest" function has completed, when I check the TFS tab, some of the files still says that they're not the latest version.
Obviously TFS is able to determine that I have old files locally, since the list says so. Yet, Get Latest fails to do that, get the latest version. If I do what you did, use the Get Specific version, and check the two checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog, then the files are retrieved.
We changed our build servers to always use the Get Specific version type of function instead, so this part now works, but since our build server (TeamCity) also relies on checking if there have been changes to the files in order to kick off a build, sometimes it lapses into a "nothing changed, nothing to see here, move along" mode and does nothing until we forcibly run the build configuration.
Note that I have experienced this problem on a machine that is never touched, except for get latest + build, both manually, so there's nothing tampering with the files. It's just TFS getting confused.
One time this cropped up I verified that the files on disk was indeed binary identical to the version previously retrieved, so no manual tampering had been done with the files.
Also, I fail to see how TFS can "know" whether files have changed on disk or not without actually looking at the contents. If one part of TFS can see that the files are indeed not the latest version, then the Get Latest version should absolutely be able to get the latest version. This in reference to comments to other answers here.
It might because you are login TFS as the same user, and the workspace name (based on machine name by default) is also the same, so TFS thinks your are on the same machine and same workspace, thus you already have the latest version of the files, so it wont get them for you.
try rename your machine, and create a new workspace as a new machine.
Go with right click: Advanced > Get Specific Version. Select "Letest Version" and now, important, mark two checks:
The checks are:
Overwrite writeable files that are not checked
Overwrite all files even if the local version matches the specified version
WHen I run into this problem with it not getting latest and version mismatches I first do a "Get Specific Version" set it to changeset and put in 1. This will then remove all the files from your local workspace (for that project, folder, file, etc) and it will also have TFS update so that it knows you now have NO VERSION DOWNLOADED. You can then do a "Get Latest" and viola, you will actually have the latest
I had the same issue with Visual Studio 2012. No matter what I did, it didn't get the code from TFS source control.
In my case, the cause was mappings a folder + subfolder from the source control separately but to the same tree in my local HD.
The solution was removing the subfolder mapping using the "manage workspaces" window.
Most of the issues I've seen with developers complaining that Get Latest doesn't do what they expect stem from the fact that they're performing a Get Latest from Solution Explorer rather than from Source Control Explorer. Solution Explorer only gets the files that are part of the solution and ignores anything that may be required by files within the solution, and therefore part of source control, whereas Source Control explorer compares your local workspace against the repository on the server to determine which files are needed.
It could happen when you use TFS from two different machines with the same account, if so you should compare to see changed files and check out them then get latest then undo pending changes to remove checkout
This worked for me:
1. Exit Visual Studio
2. Open a command window and navigate to the folder: "%localappdata%\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\"
3. Navigate to the sub folders for every version and delete the sub folder "cache" and its contents
4. Restart Visual Studio and connect to TFS.
5. Test the Get Latest Version.
In my case, Get specific version, even checking both check boxes and undoing all pending changes didn't work.
Checked the work spaces. Edit current workspace. Check all paths.
The solution path was incorrect and was pointing to a deleted folder.
Fixed the path and get latest worked fine.
Every time this happens to me (so far) is because I have local edits pending on the .csproj project file. That file seems to keep a list of all the files included in the project. Any new files added by somebody else are "not downloaded" because they are not in my locally edited (now stale) project file. To get all the files I first have to undo pending changes to the .csproj file first then "get all". I do not have to undo other changes I have made, but I may have to go back and include my new files again (and then the next guy gets the same problem when he tries to "get all"...)
It seems to me there is some fundamental kludginess when multiple people are adding new files at the same time.
(this is in .Net Framework projects, maybe the other frameworks like Core behave differently)
just want to add TFS MSBuild does not support special characters on folders i.e. "#"
i had experienced in the past where one of our project folders named as External#Project1
we created a TFS Build definition to run a custom msbuild file then the workspace folder is not getting any contents at the External#Project1 folder during workspace get latest. It seems that tfs get is failing but does not show any error.
after some trial and error and renaming the folder to _Project1. voila we got files on the the folder (_Project1).
Tool:
TFS Power Tools
Source:
http://dennymichael.net/2013/03/19/tfs-scorch/
Command:
tfpt scorch /recursive /deletes C:\LocationOfWorkspaceOrFolder
This will bring up a dialog box that will ask you to Delete or Download a list of files. Select or Unselect the files accordingly and press ok. Appearance in Grid (CheckBox, FileName, FileAction, FilePath)
Cause:
TFS will only compare against items in the workspace. If alterations were made outside of the workspace TFS will be unaware of them.
Hopefully someone finds this useful. I found this post after deleting a handful of folders in varying locations. Not remembering which folders I deleted excluded the usual Force Get/Replace option I would have used.
I encountered the same problem:
My development server was corrupted and restored, but the information restored was from a few days ago.
TFS was updated that all the files are up to date, but in practice my files were correct a few days ago!
Nothing I did helped. get latest did not get the latest version.
At the end I got specific varision from a month ago. my files were updated accordingly, and then I did get latest.
And it worked. the files have been updated.