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’m using TFS 2012 Build and running into an error
Access to the path is denied
The solution being built contains about 15 projects of which a number are using the Castle.Components.Validator.2.5.0 assembly. I have seen other posts that talk about the TFS Build Access Denied errors, but they generally refer to having simultaneous builds running. In this case only one build runs at a time. Also, the error occurs when the server is restarted or the build has not run for some time.Once a build is run and fails, the next one succeeds and each one after that succeeds again until the build hasn’t been run for a while or the server is restarted. Although we can get around this, it is a manual headache. Here is the error:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets (3513): Unable to copy file "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Sources\packages\Castle.Components.Validator.2.5.0\lib\NET40\Castle.Components.Validator.dll" to "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Binaries\Castle.Components.Validator.dll". Access to the path 'D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Binaries\Castle.Components.Validator.dll' is denied.
When looking at the log file you can see that the build is trying to copy the file twice. Because the first one has a lock on the file, the second one fails and thus the build fails. Here is a snippet of the log file that shows what is happening:
2>_CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal:
Copying file from "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Sources\packages\Castle.Components.Validator.2.5.0\lib\NET40\Castle.Components.Validator.dll" to "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Binaries\Castle.Components.Validator.dll".
5>_CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal:
Copying file from "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Sources\packages\Castle.Components.Validator.2.5.0\lib\NET40\Castle.Components.Validator.dll" to "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Binaries\Castle.Components.Validator.dll".
2>_CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal:
Copying file from "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Sources\packages\MvcContrib.Mvc3.FluentHtml-ci.3.0.96.0\lib\MvcContrib.FluentHtml.dll" to "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Binaries\MvcContrib.FluentHtml.dll".
Copying file from "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Sources\packages\RhinoMocks.3.6\lib\Rhino.Mocks.dll" to "D:\Builds\12\Foo\Check-In Build\Binaries\Rhino.Mocks.dll".
Any help on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated.
As others mentioned, this happens when performing multithreaded builds with a common destination directory and the file copy task happens to encounter a simultaneous conflict with a copy task running for a different project.
Normally this should result in a "file used by another process" exception (which is handled and retried by the file copy task) but sometimes the file operation results in an "Access is denied" exception instead. (I'm still not sure why)
Some suggest that you should "solve the duplication", but I don't see that as being feasible for cases where all the projects need to directly reference a library like log4net.
Obviously one way to prevent the issue is to explicitly run msbuild with /p:BuildInParallel=false or /m:1 or /maxcpucount:1 (or omit the argument entirely) to force single-threaded mode.
However, in TFS 2013, the default build template automatically always passes /m (use all cores) to msbuild, which silently overrides any single-thread setting you can manually pass in. (Determined by my own experimentation and examining diagnostic logs)
Another workaround I attempted was to manually pass /p:AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions=none to msbuild, which prevents all pdb and xml files from being copied from referenced libraries. (Since for a while I only ever saw xml files having this issue.) But then I kept having problems with log4net.dll.
The ultimate workaround that I used was one I discovered by decompiling the source code for Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Copy:
if (hrForException == -2147024891)
{
if (!Copy.alwaysRetryCopy)
throw;
else
this.LogDiagnostic("Retrying on ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED because MSBUILDALWAYSRETRY = 1", new object[0]);
}
If error -2147024891 (0x80070005 access is denied) occurs, the Copy task will check a special variable to see if it should retry. That value is set via an environment variable:
Copy.alwaysRetryCopy = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("MSBUILDALWAYSRETRY") != null;
After setting the environment variable MSBUILDALWAYSRETRY = 1 (and restarting the build server), the problem went away. And I also periodically started seeing "Retrying on ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED..." as warnings in the build logs, proving that the setting was taking effect, (instead of the builds merely coincidentally succeeding).
(Note that this environment variable is not well documented, use as appropriate.)
Update: Apparently TFS 2015 no longer overrides your /m:1 with /m (even on legacy/XAML build definitions), which should make /m:1 a valid fix again.
It looks like there are two projects copying the same file. Depending on the timing, they sometimes happen at the same time, resulting in the failure. You have to trace the node id back to find the source project. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckh/archive/2012/01/21/a-tool-to-find-duplicate-copies-in-a-build.aspx for more details and code that may track it down for you.
As Buck Hodges and Nimblejoe have rightly said, this is mostly due to TFS running multiple MSBuild processes by default to build your projects.
You can override it in the build definition in Process -> 3. Advanced -> MSBuild Arguments by adding the MSBuild argument /p:BuildInParallel=false
This can also happen if you have a build agent's folder open.
I also had same problem. I got error messages that related to cannot copy since access to path denied. In my case all my dll's and xml files and so on are place at
D:\TFS\Example\Bin\Debug folder.
I right clicked on Bin folder and clicked Properties and saw that Read-only check box is checked under Attributes.
I un-checked Read only check box and cliked Apply and clicked OK on the new popup that is shown.
I went back to Visual Studio and build my solution which was giving me error messages.
Voilaa.. This time it build successfully without errors.
I donot know whether this is perfect but I did this to solve my issue.
To work around this problem I had to remove the "ReadOnly" flag on the source directory
Then in the build definition set Clean Workspace
to None
Like Ziggler, I solved this problem with building a project by removing the 'read only' property of the bin folder in my project. It is only happening to XML files stored in a /packages/ directory that is common to the solution that contains this project. The 'bin' folder is not checked into source control. I am still stumped as to the root cause of the problem.
I found the same problem which occurred after the build tried to overwrite files in the "Working Directory" it had created in a previous attempt to build. (set in the Agent)
I resolved this by manually deleting the output folder it created (in my case [Working Directory]\Binaries) before attempting the build.
This can be done automatically by changing the Build Definition. Under Process---2.Basic---Clean Workspace set this to the Outputs option
Here's a variation of this problem which I had to deal with:
I couldn't figure out why my build kept failing on an "Access to the path is denied" error, even though I had added things like /p:BuildInParallel=false and /p:OverwriteReadOnlyFiles=true to the MSBuild Arguments of my XAML build. The cause turned out to be a "Post-build event command line" in my Project's properties.
After changing
%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe[SNIP]
/P:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName);[SNIP]
;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false
to
%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe[SNIP]
/P:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName);[SNIP]
;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;OverwriteReadOnlyFiles=true
the error went away.
One possible cause is if you have the bin or obj folders for class libraries checked-in into TFS. Deleting the bin or obj folders of the projects from TFS will resolve this issue if that is the case.
I was having this problem and chose to ignore it because I didn't want to sacrifice build performance for the sake of getting rid of some benign error messages by NuGet. However, I seem to have stumbled across a solution while trying to solve another problem, and I think it is related. I think the order of fetching of NuGet packages is related to the build order of projects in the solution. So if this has somehow become disjointed, then NuGet may be the first casualty before you run into build errors where you start getting "Metadata file 'XXX.dll' could not be found" errors which annoyingly require you to build again until the build succeeds (as described here).
So, I believe the solution is to follow the steps described in the accepted answer to the aforementioned question. Or, follow the more comprehensive steps in one of the alternative answers. In other words, disable building of all projects, restart VS, then re-enable building of all projects. This will (normally) resolve build order. And that should hopefully resolve the NuGet issue. Please let me know if this fixes it for anyone.
I had this issue, with TFS 2015.
It turned out to be because the build Agent was running under the default (NETWORK SERVICE) credentials, which didn't have write permissions on the target folder.
Once I'd removed the Agent and reinstalled it with credentials it worked.
It did have me trawling through the logs for a while, checking and unchecking the multi-proc box and even restarting the build server in my hunt.
Check the obvious stuff first...
For me, it was that the build agent wasn't started in an administrator powershell.
MSBuild arguments:- /tv:14.0 /t:Rebuild /m:1 /p:RunCodeAnalysis=false /p:TreatWarningsAsErrors=false /p:OverwriteReadOnlyFiles=true /p:BuildInParallel=false /p:AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions=none
strong text
Set false to Clean workspace
Go to build agent and remove read only from mapped folder.
as a lot of people have already stated before, this happens when building projects in parallel. Project A and B both referencing 3rd Party Library C (Copy Local) will cause this when they are build at the same Time - side by side.
The real problem is, that TFS Build 2012 and below are configured that when building a solution, the whole output of the solution is copied to a single folder. Thats where the pains of parallel builds are having their origins.
Since TFS 2013 you can easily solve this by setting the "Output location" in the build definition to "PerProject". This forces the build services to behave like a local msbuild run where the setings regarding the output locations are read from the corresponding project files. So the output is written to the bin folders under each project.
For TFS 2012 and below this article (+linked articles) will help you getting the same result as with TFS 2013:
http://blog.stangroome.com/2012/05/10/override-the-tfs-team-build-outdir-property-net-4-5/
I resolved a very similar issue by closing all open instances of Visual Studio, re-opening the solution and building it again.
I've seen the question related to the error message you get from TFS when a workspace is already mapped. The accepted answer for removing the workspace is alright as a workaround, but it's already getting tedious to run a delete command each time this error occurs.
What do I need to change in order to get out of having to use this workaround? I've got two builds (continuous integration and nightly deploy), and need to add at least one more build type. I followed this URL to see if there was a possible resolution there, but I'm not sure I understand it completely.
I am not sure how this is accomplished in TFS 2010, as I have not gotten to work with Team Build in 2010, yet. In 2008, though, if you expand the Builds node in the Team Project and right-right click on either of the builds, you will see a "Manage Build Agents..." option. Click into that, and it will bring up a dialog. One of the things on that dialog is an option called "Working Directory". Do you have the same hard-coded path in both of them?
By default, when you create a new build definition, it provides a calculated folder for this value. This is where the build agent will do the checkout from TFS for the build attempt. The default value is, $(Temp)\$(BuildDefinitionPath), I believe (I am not connected to TFS at the moment).
The article you link to is basically saying that you should include either that $(BuildDefinitionPath) value or the $(BuildDefinitionID) value as part of that path in that dialog so that the two builds do not try to use the same workspace. Changing the working folder to include one of those values should resolve your issue, going forward.
I have a vcproj file that includes a simple pre-build event along the lines of:
Helpertask.exe $(ProjectDir)
This works fine on developer PCs, but when the solution is built on our TFS 2008 build server under MSBuild, $(ProjectDir) is either blank or points to an unrelated folder on the server!
So far the best workaround I have managed is to hard code the developer and server paths instead:
if exist C:\DeveloperCode\MyProject HelperTask.exe C:\DeveloperCode\MyProject
if exist D:\BuildServerCode\MyProject HelperTask.exe D:\BuildServerCode\MyProject
This hack works in post-build steps but it doesn't work for a pre-build step (the Pre-build task now does nothing at all under MSBuild!)
Do you have any ideas for a fix or workaround? I have very little hair left!
$(MSBuildProjectDirectory) worked for me
I think your problem may be related to how items are initalized. An items include attribute is evaluated at the begining of a build. So if you depend on files that are created in the build process you must declare these as dynamic items. Dynamic items are those defined inside of a target, or by using the CreateItem task. I've detailed this on my blog MSBuild: Item and Property Evaluation.
Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi
My Book: Inside the Microsoft Build Engine : Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build
I think the problem is that build server's workspace probably isn't initialized properly.
I just kept getting problems with this - I tried many different approaches but they all failed in mysterious ways.
Once $(ProjectDir) started behaving properly again, the pre-build step stopped executing the command (I added echo commands above and below it - they were both executed, but the program in between them was not. No errors or output of any kind were generated to indicate why it failed).
I don't know if this is a dodgy server of if MSBuild is having a laugh.
I've given up now. I gave the build server a big kick and have changed tack: We now run this tool offline (manually) and check in the results for the build server to use. So much for an automated build :-( If only MSBuild would run solutions in the same way as Visual Studio does - it's maddening that it sets up the environment completely differently (different paths coming out of the solution variables, ouptus redirected into different folders so you can't find them where they're supposed to be, etc)
I branched an existing project and $(ProjectDir) kept the old directory in the newly branched code. But that's because I had some compiling errors. Once every project in the solution compiled without errors, $(ProjectDir) changed to the correct path.
Carlos A Merighe
I have a Team Foundation Server 2008 Installation and a separate machine with the Team Build service.
I can create team builds and trigger them manually in Visual Studio or via the command line (where they complete successfully). However check ins to the source tree do not cause a build to trigger despite the option to build every check in being ticked on the build definition. Update: To be clear I had a fully working build definition with the CI option enabled.
The source tree is configured is a pretty straight forward manner with code either under a Main folder or under a Branch\branchName folder. Each branch of code (including main) has a standard Team Build definition relating to the solution file contained within. The only thing that is slightly changed from default settings is that the build server working folder; i.e. for main this is Server:"$\main" Local:"c:\build\main" due to path length.
The only thing I've been able to guess at (possible red herring) is that there might be some oddity with the developer workspaces. Currently each developer maps Server:"$\" to local:"c:\tfs\" so that there is only one workspace for all branches. This is mainly to avoid re-mapping problems that some of the developers had previously gotten themselves into. But I can't see how this would affect CI.
UPDATE: Ifound the answer indirectly; please read below
Ok I have found the answer myself after several dead ends. In the end I fixed this unintentionally while fixing another issue. Basically we had just turned on the automatic execution of unit tests for our builds. The test would run sucessfully but then immediately the build would bomb out with a message saying it was unable to report to the build drop folder.
What was happening was that while the Build service runs under one account and has a set of rights; some of the functionality is actually driven through the TFSService account. fter wading a heap of permissions I had my tests being reported. Then I noticed that builds had started to trigger on check-ins; I can't tell you exactly which permission fixed this but hopefully this answer will at least set people down the right path.
One other note a few of the builds started failing due to conflicting workspace mappings - this was a separate issue that I resolved by deleting some obsolete workspaces using the Attrice Sidekicks for Team Foundation tool.
Hope this helps somebody else.
Select your team project from team explorer, then right click on the Builds folder. Select a new build definition and then select the trigger tab. Move the radio button to "Build each check-in (more builds)"
More info can be found here
MSDN How to: Create a Build Definition
Are there any errors in the log on the TFS application server? Anything that indicates that it tried to fire but failed?