Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server - Version 16.131.28106.2
Agent.OS Windows_NT
Agent.OSVersion 6.3.9600
Agent.Version 2.136.1
My TFS build agent is not identifying Visual Studio 2017(Enterprise) as a capability while running as a service(under a service account on my primary domain). That same agent does identify Visual Studio 2015 as a capability while running as a service under the same account as above.
I've updated the agent, removed and reconfigured the build agent in question, restarted the agent-service, and restarted the OS. I did notice that when this agent is first configured, the capability is briefly identified while the agent runs under the individual running the configure script, but when the agent switches over to running under the service account, the VS2017 capabilities disappear.
After noticing this, I gave the service account in question read and execute privileges on the root Windows install dir, 'Program Files (x86), and all directories and files associated with the VS2017 install, but this didn't help.
If I run a different build agent interactively(same version as listed above), VS2017 is identified as a capability, so I'm assuming there is something I need to do in regards to the service account I'm attempting to use.
For good measure, within the Visual Studio build task, I tried using the 'latest' option and the 'Visual Studio 2017' options. I also tried adding '/p:VisualStudioVersion=15.0' to the MSBuild args for this task.
Update: I also tried explicitly specifying the capabilities directly in the 'User-Defined' section, and I tried adding the capabilities through the use of environment variables on the agent host.
Have you ensured that the service account user is added as the role service account on the pool the agent is running on?
Also ensure that the service account is able to do the following in these Local Security Policies: "logon as a service", "act as part of the operating system", "Manage auditing and security log"
I can't say that this will be able to solve your problem, but I just know that these are necessary in the setups I handle.
You could also for quick and easy test add you service account as an administrator on the machine and test if it finds VS 2017 then. If it does, then you know you need to set some specific groups and permissions.
I've installed the prerequisite (Team Explorer 2013) to the best of my knowledge, but when I try to set up a VCS root to connect to our TFS Version Control server, I continue to get this error message:
"No TFS assemblies were found on the system. Please make sure you have
Microsoft Team Explorer installed. Supported versions: 2015 2013 2012
2010 2008 2005"
The Team Explorer I downloaded from Microsoft just seemed to be a plugin for Visual Studio, which doesn't make much sense as a server-side component. Anyway, I configured a connection to our TFS box within Team Explorer/Visual Studio on my TeamCity server.
So I have two questions that seem to be undocumented by JetBrains:
What does it mean to set up and configure Team Explorer? How can I validate that I have set up and configured Team Explorer on my TeamCity server correctly?
How does TeamCity know how to find the Team Explorer assemblies? Is there some sort of configuration I am supposed to do? Where is this documented?
I guess I'm looking for a true step-by-step set of instructions that make no assumptions about my understanding of TFS or Team Explorer, or any assumptions about what I may have already installed on my TeamCity box.
I've read the two articles on the JetBrains site regarding how to set this up, and they don't cover actually installing and configuring the prerequisites or configuring TeamCity to discover the Team Explorer assemblies it needs.
Team Explorer is the client software that you use to access Visual Studio Team Foundation Server functionality from Visual Studio. You can simply launch Team Explorer on your TeamCity server to create a team project and check in a project, to validate whether it is installed correctly.
I couldn't find any documentation that mentioned how does TeamCity find Team Explorer assemblies. But, based on my understanding, there is no configuration needed to detect Team Explorer. Please make sure your TeamCity server is running under Windows.
If the issue that can't find Team Explorer persists, you can install VS Premium instead of Team Explorer.
Setting up Jetbrains TeamCity for CI with Team Foundation Server:
Install Jetbrains TeamCity
If you are planning on using IIS or TFS on the same server, configure Jetbrains TeamCity to run on a port other than 80 or 8080
Once TeamCity is up and running, you can begin configuring your TeamCity installation for CI Builds.
Log into TeamCity with your user name and password
Create a new TeamCity Project
Create a new build configuration
You will now see a series of build configuration settings that you will have to complete presented in a Wizard-style navigation view.
Enter General Settings
Enter VCS Settings
After entering VCS Settings, Create and attach new VCS Root
Enter the relevant information for your TFS instance
Create a Build Step using Visual Studio as your build runner. You can create as many build steps as you need and specify the order of the steps (similar to a TFS Build Workflow).
For setting up Continuous Integration builds, you will need to specify a Build Trigger. CI Builds will generally use a VCS Trigger that is triggered on each source control check-in.
If you need to pass any parameters to your build, you can configure these in your Build Parameters.
That is all! You can then either run your Builds manually by clicking on the Run button in TeamCity or simply verify that your builds are triggered by the next check-in into TFS.
I'm setting up a new build server using TFS 2015 and after I configured the agent, when I tried to queue a build I got this error:
No agent could be found with the following capabilities: msbuild, visualstudio, vstest
How can this be resolved?
Install Visual Studio on your build agent, then restart the build agent. Restarting the build agent will capture the added Capabilities.
Note: First of all, you can do all this with the community edition and TFS Express 2015 on your own server (for free up to five users) - so don't worry about needing to use the Visual Studio online version or paying for Visual Studio Professional.
It is very easy to misinterpret the error message provided and go off on a wild-goose chase trying to debug it.
Unfortunately the message itself is just badly worded and that's the real problem.
Here is what that error message really means:
"No agent could be found with the following capabilities: msbuild,
visualstudio, vstest.
In fact I didn't actually find ANY build agents configured for the selected build queue."
So you're thinking that doesn't apply to you because you just created a build agent?
Well, maybe you did, but here's what probably happened:
You created a new pool (for no reason other than you just thought you ought to).
You then created a queue under that pool.
You ran the PowerShell script to create an agent and you assumed it put it in the pool you just created....
But it didn't - it put it in the 'default' pool which you aren't even using...
Aha!
So here's what happens when you build:
You select a queue from the dropdown.
TFS tries to build by looking for the pool that corresponds to that queue and it doesn't find any agents AT ALL there, so you get a stupid useless red-herring error message.
When I finally realized what happened I just deleted my cutely named pool + queue and just reverted to using the default pool.
Next time I will try to pay more attention to this message during the PowerShell configuration:
Configure this agent against which agent pool? (default pool name is
'default')
You will have to create a queue under the pool, but then your agent should start working.
If you have a genuine with a certain capability being absent from your agent you can check what your agent supports via the 'capabilities' tab shown here. Of course msbuild, visualstudio and vstest are all here :-)
In my case, after installing MSBuild (https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/, search for "Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017"), I just had to add the path to MSBuild to the PATH environment variable. The agent wasn't detecting MSBuild until I did that.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\15.0\Bin
I did NOT have to install the full Visual Studio IDE. The selected answer for this question is just plain wrong...
By default, when using the new build system on VSO, it doesn't pick the hosted build option, which is how I ended up on this post in Stack Overflow. If you are used to using a VSO build server here's what you need to do:
Create a hosted build by going to the General tab and changing your Default Queue to hosted. More on the restrictions of that and how it works here: https://www.visualstudio.com/get-started/build/hosted-agent-pool
Add them as User-defined capabilities, e.g.:
visualstudio C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community
vstest C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow
I had initially installed the agent on a machine that did not have Visual Studio installed. However, after installing Visual Studio (and then Visual Studio Build Tools), restarting/recreating my agent, restarting my machine, etc., I could not get the agent to detect the new capabilities automatically, so I added them myself in Azure DevOps as User-defined capabilities.
I had this issue and it turned out being my release process had selected the "wrong" agent. Just edit the release and set the correct agent queue
I was using a Xcode build slave for building an Xcode project.
And the error message I ended up with in TFS 2015 was
"No agent could be found with the following capabilities: xcode"
I registered an OS X on-premise build slave.
In the "Register Agent" step, I named by build agent:
>> Register Agent:
Enter agent pool (press enter for default) > My-Xcode-Agent-Pool
So, I had to select the "My-Xcode-Agent-Pool" as Default queue in the build settings. Source: Microsoft-hosted agents
Although none of previous answers worked for me, the post by Simon_Weaver pointed me in the right direction.
He mentioned that vstest was in his list, but it wasn't in mine. I fixed it by adding a user-defined capability named "vstest" with the full path to vstest.console.exe under Visual Studio 2017.
What ended up working for me was to go to where I downloaded the agent and running:
./config.cmd remove then ./config.cmd to reinstall the agent from the command line inside the directory of my agent.
Download agent
per microsoft https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb399135(v=vs.94)
You must install on the build agent the version of Visual Studio that your team uses on its dev machines. See Installing Visual Studio. You must also install any other software and components that are installed on your dev machines and that are required to build your app.
In my case, after installing MSBuild, restart all Azure services (in windows service) and it worked. No need to install full Visual Studio
You have to install the correspondent Visual Studio version on the build machine (where you have installed your agent). This will add the required tools and capabilities to the server.
Visual Studio is required, because it installs all the build targets required to build your projects.
After being installed, you have to restart the agent Windows service so that it refreshes the list of capabilities.
Since you are using the Visual Studio installation on the build machine to build, that installation doesn't count as an additional license.
General solution for TFS:
The common way of resolving most of the issues on the build server is to install Visual Studio & all dependent packages on your build server.
Alternative solution in case of using VSTS
When you choose where to build, use "Hosted"
and then the build will work.
The guide how to make it work may be found here: Deploy an agent on Windows for TFS 2015
Check the agent section which will contain information about capabilities.
Updated:
Once you have the list of capabilities in vsts(azuredevops)
you might need to install the desired software on your build agent machine.
PS Be aware, you might have to license your sw, if required.
I have recently installed Installshield LE on my local PC for vs2010, built a package and now wanting it to be built on our build server. I have also installed it on our build server.
I am getting the error:
error : -7159: The product license has expired or has not yet been initialized.
I have logged onto the build server, started vs and entered in my licence code. However, this has has not resolved the error.
I have read about the stand alone version but that appears to be only available for premium edition. Anyone have any ideas?
if you are using the 2012 Spring edition of Installshield LE run the license activator on the build server at :
C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2012SpringLE\System\TSConfig.exe
The location may be different for other versions of Installshield LE.
You should be able to use the same activation code they sent you when you signed up for the Installshield LE, according to the license it allows for installation on more than one machine for automated build purposes.
InstallShield has online activation. You'll need to request multiple license keys and activate them on different machines.
Ran into this issue on our TeamCity build server. Initially I was able to run TSConfig.exe as the build server user and that worked. After a disaster recovery exercise, however, TeamCity reported the license was expired again, but running TSConfig.exe didn't do the trick.
I ended up launching VS 2015 as the build server user and opened a new InstallShield project. Instead of informing me the license was expired it said the license was corrupted and needed to be repaired. It performed the repair and I'm back on track.
I didn't know it was an option until after, but TSConfig /repair likely would have done the trick without opening Visual Studio.
When attempting to create a new TFS Team Project from VS2012 I received the following error after pressing finish.
TF30279: Plug-in with ID "Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Build" of type "Project Creation Plugins" could not be loaded
TFS and VS were both installed on a Windows 7 laptop for evaluation. When setting up TFS I configured the build server without error.
In attempting to get round the problem I uninstalled all 2012 components VS, TFS and Sql Server, then reinstalled them. I tried both TFS express and VS2012 for web express and full TFS trial and VS2012 premium trial (to rule out that it wasn't an issue with the express versions)
Each time the error would persist across re-installs.
Although I could not find why the problem has occurred I did eventually manage to fix the issue after reading up on process templates and understanding where the plugin models were sourced from.
1) I opened VS2012 command prompt and ran as admin
2) changed dir to %programfiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer
3) ran gacutil /i for each dll in the folder that looked like it was anything to do with build.