How to create Azure Cloud Service package from MsBuild in azure pipeline - msbuild

I have some cloud service projects , which i am trying to get it into CI/CD. When i right click on the project from Visual Studio and click Package it does what i want. I can see the ServiceConfiguration.cscfg and ServiceDefinition.csdef in the bin\Release folder after the package command is completed.
How can i achieve the same from an MSBuild command line ? I have tried
msbuild.exe
/p:DeployTarget=Package
/p:DeployOnBuild=true
/p:AutomatedBuild=True
/p:configuration=release
/p:outdir="D:\Pub"
/p:targetprofile="Cloud"
/target:Publish
/p:SolutionDir=$/src/mysln/ WorkerRole.ccproj
What i get is the command completes and i can see around 241 dll and the required files in the folder. Am i missing something in the command argument ? Please advice
Edit : Also refered the official docs , could'nt find anything
Edit 2 : Looks like i can get the packages generated. Now the problem is doing this in VSTS. The build is failing with " projectfile="*Undefined*Obfuscator\Maps\
Basically the solution path is becoming as undefined
Edit 3 : Here's the error message when i try to build only the CloudServiceProj
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(5165,5): Error MSB3073: The command "if "Release" == "Debug" goto :exit
"*Undefined*Obfuscator\Tool\CO" projectfile="*Undefined*Obfuscator\Maps
The undefined is working fine locally , since it has the $(SolutionDir) variable in VS. Not sure how do i handle it here
Update
Here's the msbuild that am using
Update 4
I tried building the solution directly as suggested, but it has some .NET CORE as well as .NET Framework projects and i am getting this error
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.2.105\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish\build\netstandard1.0\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.targets(163,11): Error MSB4006: There is a circular dependency in the target dependency graph involving target "Publish"..

What i get is the command completes and i can see around 241 dll and the required files in the folder. Am i missing something in the command argument ?
For this question, you can try to change the argument /p:outdir="D:\Pub" to /p:PublishDir="D:\Pub". That because the argument outdir is used to stored the output files not the publish files, it contains the build output of the projects (including the reference project). That the reason why there are around 241 dll and the required files in the folder.
As I test, if I change the argument to PublishDir, it works fine:
For the second question, I am not familiar with Azure Cloud Service, as I know about MSBuild/Visual Studio, we should build the "main" project instead of the reference project, so you can try to build the AzureCloudService.ccproj or build the solution file .sln.
Besides, when we build the project/solution, we do not need specify the solution folder, just specify the project file or solution directly:
msbuild.exe "TheRelativePathForYourSolutionInRepos.sln" /t:Publish /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:AutomatedBuild=True /p:configuration=release /p:TargetProfile=Cloud /p:PublishDir="D:\Pub"
If above not resolve your questions, please share your build error log in your question.
Update:
For the second part, I have a post build event which does some
obfuscation .
If you have use any Macros, like $(SolutionDir) in your build event, but build the project file, you will got that error. Because the project reference information exists in the solution information, we can't access it when we only build one project.
Try to replace all $(SolutionDir) with $(ProjectDir)..\
Update2:
Since you can build the .sln file on your local without any issue, you could also build the .sln file with Azure pipeline. As test, I could build the .sln file in the Azure pipeline:
Besides, if you have replace $(SolutionDir) with $(ProjectDir)..\, how do you still get the error Undefined? Try to double check you build event, or you can share it in the question.
Hope this helps.

Related

Visual Studio Extension build failing with Error VSSDK1077: Unable to locate the extensions directory. "Value cannot be null

I have configured a TFS(2017) build pipeline to compile a VS extension with debug mode for a specific requirement which require .pdb files.
The build solution task fails for "debug" configuration with below error, however same pipeline works for the release configuration.
I have tried the approach mentioned in the following discussion as well, howewer it doesn't resolve my issue.
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/fd220999-5761-475a-bf86-98dff6b35218/unable-to-compile-vsix-project-that-is-a-part-of-my-solution-using-amd64-msbuild-from-vs2015?forum=msbuild
Appreciate if someone can help me to resolve this issue.
Following is the build configuration used for the Build Solution task:
Following build variables are used to configure build parameters.
Build Error message:
packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\tools\VSSDK\Microsoft.VsSDK.targets
(633, 5)
packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\tools\VSSDK\Microsoft.VsSDK.targets(633,5):
Error VSSDK1077: Unable to locate the extensions directory. "Value
cannot be null. Parameter name: path1". Process 'msbuild.exe' exited
with code '1'.
Update your Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools NuGet package to latest version 15.9.3032, just in case it is a problem already solved.
Release configurations can also generate PDB files (Project properties, Build tab, Advanced...button, Output > Debugging information). So, if the Release configuration works for you, you can keep using it while also generating a pdb file with full debug information.
The error is happening when, once compiled correctly, the generated VSIX output file is going to be deployed to the folder for extensions of the experimental VS instance, which is a required step to debug the VSIX file. A possible explanation of the different behavior for Debug/Release configurations is that maybe your .csproj specifies <DeployExtension>False</DeployExtension> for the Release configuration. By default, if not set, that property is set to true in the Microsoft.VsSDK.targets file:
<DeployExtension Condition="'$(DeployExtension)' == ''">true</DeployExtension>
Since likely you don't need to deploy the VSIX to the VS experimental instance when building on a build server (because you are not going to debug it), you can set that property to False to skip the deployment. This can be done with a 3rd build configuration (ex: "DebugBuildServer"), for which you specify DeployExtension to False in the .csproj file, or sticking to two build configurations but passing the /p:DeployExtension=false in the MSBuild arguments of the Visual Studio Build task of your build pipeline.

Build using TeamCity: Failed to start MSBuild; please specify a nuspec or project file to use

I'm trying to build a website in Teamcity, but the first build step "starting MSBuild" is failing.It seems that the command is trying to install nuget, but it is complaining that there is no nuspec or project file specified.
I have a "nuget.targets" file and the code compiles fine outside of teamcity , so I think it must be a setting I am missing, and not a file I actually need to add but maybe I do need to add a nuspec or project file? Assuming I do, how would I go about doing that?
[Exec] C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\61cf1fbc18b86c6f\.nuget\NuGet.targets
(109, 9): Please specify a nuspec or project file to use.
I am completely new to Teamcity (~3hrs); how do I resolve this problem?
If a build fails or behaves differntly in TeamCity than locally, then it is recommended to run the build in the working folder on agent machine under the same user that the agent is running. Find more details here.

MSBUILD Error MSB4025 in TeamCity build step for Visual Studio

When I run my TeamCity build with the only build step being of runner type Visual Studio (sln), I get the following error:
C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\4978ec6ee0ade5b4\Test\Code\Test.sln(2, 1): error MSB4025: The project file could not be loaded. Data at the root level is invalid. Line 2, position 1.
This is on a dedicated CI server running TeamCity Professional 8.1.1 (build 29939). There are several other successfully-running builds on this server.
The odd bit is that the same build runs successfully on TeamCity on my dev machine. I followed an answer to a similar question, and copied the specified folders across, but that didn't help.
I'm sure the project/solution file isn't invalid because in addition to the build running on my dev box, I have opened the solution in Visual Studio and built it there with no problems.
Any suggestions?
I just fixed this.
Look inside the Test.sln file for Project or EndProject tags that aren't closed. For us, the EndProject was missing and it broke on teamcity, but no issues in Visual Studio.
It seems the TeamCity error message will occur for any number of root causes. In my case the problem occurred because a line inside the GlobalSection(NestedProjects) section was referring to a project Guid which didn't relate to any project defined in the Solution file.
As with the previous post I didn't have any issues building in Visual Studio. I only got a more helpful error message that allowed me to discover what the real problem was when I built using msbuild.
See https://therightjoin.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/msb4025-the-project-file-could-not-be-loaded-data-at-the-root-level-is-invalid-error-when-building-ssdt-project-in-teamcity for another example, and where using msbuild helped identify the true problem.
In our case, it was a duplicate project reference in the solution file (caused by near simultaneous commits and an automatic merge).
In our situation the problem was specifying a ToolsVersion that was not installed on that machine. (14 which VS2015 has but VS2017 does not have by default)
In my case, after merging, in .sln file, it was a mismatch of lines under
GlobalSection(NestedProjects) = preSolution
{6B971E15-6B61-4AA8-9B93-9639C23269C3} = {9A14E7EF-3FA1-4B9A-B413-C550B3E5AC62}
{54D14F01-D576-4DE6-9404-D21AD0DC4916} = {9A14E7EF-3FA1-4B9A-B413-C550B3E5AC62}
... (was some extra entry here )
...
EndGlobalSection
section. In clear words, there were some extra lines added after merging. So, If you have merged, please compare two solution files manually. You can start with total line numbers in both files.
In another Case
We had a blank lines - so make sure any blank lines are removed!
Hope this helps some else too!
I got this same error with Jenkins. It turns out the root Jenkins folder was set to C:\Program Files (x86)\ and it didn't have write access to bin and obj directories.
Error:
error MSB4025: The project file could not be loaded. Data at the root level is invalid.
I launched cmd as Administrator and ran this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Jenkins\workspace\BuildBI_1\Reports\Test\ReportsTests.sln" /t:Build /p:RunOctoPack=true
And that gave me clues about not being able to write to bin and obj.
This worked for me-
You can install Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017, make sure to select C++ tools, Windows 10 SDK and MSBuild and your set.
Use MSBuild to identify the underlying problem:
$> msbuild mysolution.sln
Gave me this beauty with the correct error line number:
If msbuild cannot be accessed like that from the command line / powershell, try to find the MSBuild.exe shipped with VisualStudio, e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\MSBuild.exe.
VisualStudio itself seems to be very "tolerant" against errors / inconsistencies in the solution file, so having it open in VS is no guarantee for the sln file being correct.
I fixed it by updating the solution file.
Another possible problem (and resolution): I had a stray unused solution file in my repo, pointing to who-knows-where, and the MSBUILD step in my Azure DevOps pipeline was set to **\*.sln.

MSBuild fails due to error APPX0002: Task 'GenerateAppxPackageRecipe' failed. Value cannot be null

I'm attempting to do a command line package deploy for our Windows Store Application.
My command line instructions are:
msbuild /m /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x86 /target:Build
I'm using VS2013 Professional with Windows 8.1
I get the following error:
C:\Program Files
(x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\AppxPackage\Microsoft.AppXPackage.Targets(1224,9):
error APPX0002: Task 'GenerateAppxPackageRecipe' failed. Value cannot
be null.\r [C:\Path\Project.csproj]
C:\Program Files
(x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\AppxPackage\Microsoft.AppXPackage.Targets(1224,9):
error APPX0002: Parameter name: source\r [C:\Path\Project.csproj]
How should I resolve this?
This error was resolved by using the correct version of msbuild.exe
On a clean build server with VS2013 installed, there are (at least) two copies of msbuild.exe installed. In our case the install locations were:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\Bin\msbuild.exe
and
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\msbuild.exe
The one in the .Net Framework folder was the one that gave us the errors. Using the version installed in the Program Files folder resolved the issue.
It's impossible to help you without having the code which can reproduce the error. I suspect some property does not resolve correctly when building outside VS(eg VisualStudioVersion) and needs to be passed from command line. VS also uses msbuild to build your projects, so comparing build logs from VS and CMD should help you track down the problem.
I suggest, that you set visual studio's build output verbosity to diagnostic, clean solution, than build and capture the build log.
Then clean solution and build from command line with verbosity set to diagnostic and /fl switch(log to file, because diagnostic build log is way too long to analyse in console window).
Compare command-line output to VS output. Look for the differences. With diagnostic level of verbosity, chances are, you'll find out what's missing (I had similar issues with database projects failing to build from cmd due to VisualStudioVersion variable not being resolved correctly, so I passed it from command line).
NB: diagnostic log is very verbose which makes analysis hard: I'd start from detailed verbosity level.
I have deleted all files/folders from "project"/bin folder, cleaned the solution and rebuild with success !
For those facing the issue on hybrid app (corodova in my case), delete the build folder manually and re-build from VS.
Standard clean solution didn't do the job.

MSBuild ResolveProjectReferences Error

My MSBuild build script executes fine on all the development machines, but fails to run on the build server, except for the Trunk build. Branches all fail with the following warnings indicating the source of the problem:
Target "ResolveProjectReferences":
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Common.targets (0,0):
warning : The referenced project '..\..\..\Class Library\
Company.BusinessModel\Company.BusinessModel.csproj' does not exist.
I can't understand why this error is even appearing - I have verified that (relative to the csproj being processed) the referenced project does exist. Copying (file copy) the checked out code to my local machine and running the script, the build completes as expected.
Is there anything obviously wrong here? Anything I can check to try and resolve this mystery?
EDIT:
I've tried running MSBuild against the project raising the build error in isolation, so it's not the rest of the solution which is the problem, just something about this specific .csproj file.
I actually found the problem. It's a bug in Visual Studio 2010 with path names totalling 259
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2516078
Have you run msbuild in diag mode. That should give you some hints about the current path, and the relative path that MSBuild is trying to search.
msbuild myproj.msbuild /v:diag