This relates to question,
TFS checkin error - could not find file
"When checking in my project I get the error:
Could not find file 'C\blah blah blah'.
I have a feeling this might be a file from an old project I deleted.
I have tried deleting my TFS connection and workspaces.
The Solution was:
This will happen when TFS has some changes staged that no longer exist on the file system. For instance, if you add some files in Visual Studio (which adds them to the changes list), delete them directly from the file system, then attempt to check in the changes, it will complain that it could not find the file(s).
To remove these changes from the list, you can open Source Control Explorer (View > Other Windows > Source Control Explorer) and either Delete the nonexistent files or right-click on the offending files and Undo Pending Changes.
You can also undo these specific changes from the Pending Changes panel in Team Explorer.
Follow up Question:
So my question is,
how do I conduct the equivalent of this in the TFS Server? It continuously happens multiple times on our team.
This works on a person's desktop, but whats the equivalent commandline in the TFS server, and can I incorporate this in my build steps?
You delete files from TFS in the wrong way. the TFS server doesn't know your local file system, if you deleted a file from your local folder the file still exists on TFS.
This is the reason for the issues and errors. if a developer wants to delete a file and he deleted the file from the local folder and then got the error Could not find file and to solve it he does "Undo pending changes" so the file still exists on TFS and when another developer see the file in his system he also deleted it locally and he also will get the error in the check-in.
So, if a developer wants to delete a file from TFS he needs to right-click on the file and "Delete" and "check-in". if he already deleted it locally he can do the "delete nonexistent files" and "check-in". now each developer when he does "Get latest" not will get the file.
You can also delete files with a tf.exe command line in the delete command:
tf delete [/lock:(none|checkin|checkout)] [/recursive] [/login:username,[password]] itemspec
During the build, you can add a command line/Power Shell task and run the tf.exe.
You can undo another person's changes from the commandline using:
tf vc undo /workspace:workspacename;owner $/project/path/to/file
You can get this information by calling:
tf vc status $/project/path/to/file /user:*
This allows you to remove pending changes from the server, though it won't cause the files to be reverted on the workstation of the developer in question.
Both commands offer a /recursive option to undo multiple files under a specific path at once.
If you're using Visual Studio 2015 or earlier, then you can use the TFS Power Tools to add a "Find by status" option to the Visual Studio Source Control Explorer. This has unfortunately not made it into Visual Studio 2017 and there are no TFS Power Tools for Visual Studio 2017.
The TFS Sidekicks offer a Status Sidekick screen, which allows you to query all files currently checked out for edit in server workspaces and allow you to undo them centrally.
Preventing the issue altogether
To prevent the issue altogether you have a few options. You can switch to Local workspaces, instead of server workspaces. Those auto-detect local changes and don't register changes on the TFS server itself. Read more about local workspaces.
You can perform the deletes from the tf vc command line instead of using other tools to delete files and folders, for example:
tf vc delete $/project/path/to/file
The delete command also has a /recursive option. Using this command will not only update your local folder, but will also update the server workspace.
I am having and issue with TFS 2015 doing a continuous integration build. I have added 3 projects to my Questionnaires solution which are meant to be shared code between other solutions as well. Therefore those projects each have their own folder structures under TFS not under Questionnaires.
When I go to do a checkin, TFS is getting the path wrong to one of the projects and therefore won't build. The path it is looking for is-
C:\Builds\1\Questionnaires\Questionnaires\src\Source2\Questionnaires\Dev\Questionnaires\Questionnaires.sln.metaproj: The project file "C:\Builds\1\Questionnaires\Questionnaires\src\Source2\Questionnaires\Dev\Questionnaires......\Common\Main\Common\Common.Utilities\Common.Utilities.csproj" was not found.
That should be the correct path as that is the way it is in TFS under it's own folder.
Where the code is actually ending up is:
C:\Builds\1\Questionnaires\Questionnaires\src\Source2\Common
the \Main\Common folder is missing.
You need to correct your workspace mapping under the "source settings" tab. This sets the folders that will be downloaded from source control to your build server's working folder for the build.
I am currently unable to delete a TFVC workspace on my local Windows 10 machine. It's a private workspace that I created. The machine is not domain joined and I am an administrator on the machine. I'm getting the following error:
D:\Projects\Active\SPE-DEV>tf workspace /delete MYWORKSPACE
A deleted workspace cannot be recovered.
Workspace 'MYWORKSPACE' on server 'https://ourcompany.visualstudio.com/defaultcollection' has 0 pending change(s).
Are you sure you want to delete the workspace? (Yes/No) y
TF204017: The operation cannot be completed because the user (Greg Enslow) does not have one or more required permission
s (Administer) for workspace MYWORKSPACE;Greg Enslow.
I get the same message if I try to delete it from within the Visual Studio UI. I can manually delete all the files and folders in the workspace but TFS recreates a the root folder with a hidden $tf folder.
This morning I uninstalled Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise (only had a trial license) and installed Visual Studio 2015 Professional (my company has a license for this). I'm sure this is a factor but my VS Team Services permissions haven't changed at all.
You can first change that MYWORKSPACE to be a public workspace, then run the "tf workspace /delete MYWORKSPACE" command again.
To change the workspace to be a public workspace, please go to Manage Workspace dialog, select the workspace and click Advanced.
I want to add my project from Visual Studio 2012 to my TFS server, but it says the path is already mapped for workspace pc;administrator (this is a local workspace).
I have tried the command tool tf but it says that there are no workspaces, so I can't delete the workspace that is conflicting.
I'm running Windows 8 with Visual Studio 2012. TFS is on a windows server 2012.
The problem is that the current project location, the folder on your physical machine, is mapped to a different TFS server. To add it to source control you need to move it to a physical location not associated with a TFS server.
Edit
To remove the offending workspace:
1) Use the "Team" menu to connect to the TFS Server that you do NOT want to be mapped to
2) Use ctrl+q --> workspaces to access the workspaces menu
3) Remove the workspace
4) Change to the TFS Server you WANT to be mapped to using the "Team" menu again
5) ctrl+q --> workspaces
6) Add a new workspace
Try any of these steps out. Some of them may not be applicable to you.
To clear up "cached workspace" and remove workspace mapping.
On Control Panel > User > Credential Manager
Remove Windows Account and Generic Account that points to TFS.
How can I change the default credentials used to connect to Visual Studio Online (TFSPreview) when loading Visual Studio up?
On IE, remove cached password.
http://www.jayway.com/2012/12/17/changing-tfs-credentials-in-visual-studio-2012/
Remove stored username/password:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2012/08/29/clearing-the-credentials-for-connecting-to-a-team-foundation-server.aspx
rundll32.exe keymgr.dll,KRShowKeyMgr
Delete workspace. On VS2012 command line, run the following:
tf.exe workspace /delete workspacename;owner /server:serveraddress
http://mycomputeradventures.blogspot.com/2012/01/removing-tfs-workspaces-from-old-users.html
Clear Up cached workspace mapping. On VS2012 command line, run the following:
tf.exe workspaces /remove:* (or /s:http//oldserver:8080)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckh/archive/2006/09/12/path-is-already-mapped-in-workspace.aspx
if you use Visual studio 2012 go
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4.0\Cache
or if it is Visual studio 2013 go
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\5.0\Cache
Remove all things under it.
Simplest way to do this is to go to your AppData and delete the TFS cache (depending on the version 3.0 or 4.0)
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache
or
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4.0\Cache
First we will check the list of workspaces from VS 2015 Developer command prompt,
Ex - tf workspaces /owner:*
Now we will get the xml format from VS 2017 Developer command prompt which will have ‘owner id’ for the particular workspace,
Example 1 - tf.exe workspaces /owner:* /computer:ComputerName
/collection:https://YOUR-TFS-URL.visualstudio.com /format:xml
We can now delete the workspace for the particular user,
Example 1- Tf workspace /delete ComputerName;email#email.com
/server:"https://URL.visualstudio.com"
OR
Example 2 - Tf workspace /delete ComputerName;1e178c77-bb8b-6f05-bf99
/server:https://URL.visualstudio.com
(Where 1e178c77-bb8b-6f05-bf99 is ID of the workspace which you get from Step 2 XML
format)
Again we will check the list of workspaces from VS 2015 Developer command prompt,
Ex - tf workspaces /owner:*
Well I couldnt find my troublesome workspace, which prompted me to copy the local code folder into another name and I created a new workspace mapping that folder.
Next up I added the new solution to the TFS via VS 2012 using Add Source Control.
When creating a new build in Team Foundation Server, I get the following error when attempting to run the new build:
The path
C:\Build\ProductReleases\FullBuildv5.4.2x\Sources
is already mapped to workspace
BuildServer_23.
I am unable to see a workspace by that name in the workspaces dialog.
Use the command line utility TF - Team Foundation Version Control Tool (tf).
You can get a list of all workspaces by bringing up a Visual Studio Command Prompt then changing to your workspace folder and issuing the following commands:
C:\YourWorkspaceFolder>tf workspaces /owner:*
You should see your problem workspace in the list as well as it's owner.
You can delete the workspace with the following command:
C:\YourWorkspaceFolder>tf workspace /delete /server:BUILDSERVER WORKSPACENAME;OWNERNAME
Just delete the contents of the following folder(s):
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache
Where UserName is actual or current user, and 3.0 is the version number.
I had a similar issue and to remove the workspace that was causing me a problem, I logged into another machine with TFS client installed and performed the following:
On the File menu, point to Source Control, Advanced, and then click
Workspaces....
In the Manage Workspaces dialog box, tick the Show remote packages checkbox.
Under the Name column, select the workspace that you want to remove, and then click Remove.
In
the Confirmation dialog box, click OK.
I received this error, which was caused by having two build definitions that pointed to the same source. The issue was that I used a static build directory in the Build Agent.
This forum post describes my issue and resolution exactly:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsbuild/thread/60a4138a-9b28-4c46-bdf4-f9775ce43c3e/
We had the same problem but deleting the workspace's from the TFS server did not work.
(I should mention that I grabbed my colleagues VM that was already set up with his credentials.)
For me this worked:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckh/archive/2006/09/12/path-is-already-mapped-in-workspace.aspx
I just went into the : ...\Local Settings\Application Data\ made a search for VersionControl.config, opened up the folder that contained this file and deleted all of it's contents.
Previous to that I tried manually editing the file but it continued with the same error message.
I hope this helps.
For some reason I was having trouble deleting the workspace from the command-line utility. Luckily I found Team Foundation Sidekicks 2010 (from this post) which is free and provides a GUI for viewing and deleting TFS workspaces, and many more useful TFS features.
I had a similar problem with Visual Studio 2010 complaining about an already-mapped-workspace, but instead of deleting the entire workspace, I used the following from the Visual Studio Command Prompt: "tf workspace PROBLEM_WORKSPACE_NAME". This brought up an "Edit Workspace" dialog. From there I was able to remove the path in question from the "Working Folders" list, which got rid of the error.
the rest was fairly easy.
Simply go to this folder:
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4\Cache
and delete all that's in the folder.
I was getting an exception telling me that the file was already mapped in another workspace:
"The path {File Path} is already mapped in workspace {Workspace Name}."
This workspace was deleted beofre.
With the help of friend of mine I found out that TFS save workspace info under the user local settings dir. We found a file named:
VersionControl.config under {User Documents and Settings dir}\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Team Foundation\1.0\Cache.
This file contains all the local mapping of TFS. Probably when you use the Map method and don't use:
public void DeleteMapping(WorkingFolder mapping); before deleting the workspace the mapping information is not removed from this file which is used by TFS to check if you've alreay mapped a specific path.
To resolve this problem delete all the keys from the config file. Don't delete the file because you'll get it again from the server cache.
Here is what I did (well what I do):
Using TFS Sidekicks clear out the user and server filters so they are blank. This will let you get all workspaces.
Check the build error for the workspace name. In the OPs case it is BuildServer_23. It is different in my environment but basically just match up the error name with the one in the tfs sidekick list.
Click the red x to delete the workspace.
Viola!
If applicable, you can also clone the build definition and change its name. This workded for me.
I tried all the following solutions such as :
Use sidekicks to delete WS.
Use tf commands to delete remote server workspaces.
Delete the TFS cache folder.
The following worked for me:
tf workspaces /remove:*
If you don't have permissions on the server to delete other people's workspaces, you can just change the name of the build definition. TFS will create a new workspace and map it to "C:\Build\ProductReleases\new build name here\Sources".
While trying to 'Get latest version' of a project which I had previously mapped to a local directory and then deleted, I saw this same error message.
First I tried the SideKick tool and then the Visual Studio 2010 command prompt, both of which told me I had no workspaces mapped.
Next I searched for 'VersionControl.config' within c:/users/myuser/appdata, and deleted the 4 references it found.
I re-opened Visual Studio and I was able to re-map the project, no more error!
Simplest way to do this is to go to your AppData and delete the TFS cache (depending on the version 3.0 or 4.0)
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache
or
C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4.0\Cache
TDN's solution worked for me when I was having the same issue. The Build server created workspaces under my account. Checking this box allowed me to see and delete them.
I got same issue in Visual Studio 2017 and TFS 2017. DefaultCollection must be mapped first to you local path. Somehow this step was skipped and I got only MyFirstProject mapped.
All you need to do is:
- 1. Go to your TFS web page and remove the project from the server.
- 2. Remove the project from your local "Worksapces"
- 3. Go to "Manage Connections" which will refresh your Home page in TeamExplorer.
- 4. You will get Configuration page which will allow you to setup root path to your DefaultCollection.
- 5. You should get message that it been done successfully. Now you can create your project.
It's important to map root of your collection to your workspace first and then map a new project.
My issue was related to using multiple accounts. This is how I was able to switch accounts.
Open Team Explorer
From the big drop down menu near the top of the pane...
Navigate to:
Projects and my Teams>Manage Connections
Navigate to:
Manage Connections>Connect to Team Project
Use the "Switch User" link to switch accounts.
Now the workspace names will match the chosen account.
I couldn't get any other solution to work.
I had a new account created and the old account no longer had permissions (both on same machine).
I tried:
1) Deleting the workspace (couldn't see in VS with or without remote workspaces checked)
2) Deleting from the command line
3) New owner command
4) Deleting the cache
So I simply opened VS as admin and mapped to a different folder.
Deleting the workspace and cache was not sufficient for me.
I had to also restart the "Visual Studio Team Foundation Build Service Host" service.
Go to the Source Control Explorer
In the toolbar there is a dropdown list of Workspaces.
Click the dropdown and go to workspaces.
Remove the unwanted workspace.
Map to your local.
I changed
Build Definition -> Workspace -> Build Agent Folder
from
c:\some\path
to
$(SourceDir)
and it fixed the issue.
I had this issue with this with Azure DevOps automated builds in an on-prem TFS build agent. Removing the workspace using TFS Sidekicks did not work. And tf.exe could not even find the workspace to delete it.
This solution should work for TFS 2017, TFS 2018, Azure DevOps, and possibly other versions:
Take note of the workspace GUID in the error message.
On the machine where the build is taking place, navigate to: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\ (where %USERPROFILE% belongs to the user that triggered the build).
Search for and remove all instances of the workspace GUID under that directory. There will likely be a folder in a 'cache' directory, as well as entries in 'LocationServerMap.xml' and 'LocalItemExclusions.config'. Remove them all.
That worked in my circumstance.
Simply delete the workspace:
workspace /delete "the-workspace-name"