SpecsFor.Mvc Build failed - msbuild

Question

Attempting to test out SpecsFor.Mvc, unforunitly I'm getting this strange build error when I try to run a test.
Running in both my own project and the SpecsFor latest source I get a "Build failed." ApplicationException from the IISTestRunnerAction class. The following is from the log file but its beyond my understanding.
Using visual studio 2012 pro and IIS Express 8.0
The following is from the log file:
Using "VSMSDeploy" task from assembly "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll".
Task "VSMSDeploy"
Package/Publish task Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.VSMSDeploy load assembly Microsoft.Web.Deployment, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
Package/Publish task Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.VSMSDeploy load assembly Microsoft.Web.Delegation, Version=7.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
Starting Web deployment task from source: manifest(C:\Users\Chris\Desktop\SpecsFor-master\SpecsFor.Mvc.Demo\obj\Test\Package\SpecsFor.Mvc.Demo.SourceManifest.xml) to Destination: package(C:\Users\Chris\Desktop\SpecsFor-master\SpecsFor.Mvc.Demo\obj\Test\Package\SpecsFor.Mvc.Demo.zip).
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(4007,5): error : Web deployment task failed. (The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager' threw an exception.)
Package failed.
Done executing task "VSMSDeploy" -- FAILED.
UPDATE
Here is the AssemblyStartup
[SetUpFixture]
public class AssemblyStartup
{
private SpecsForIntegrationHost _host;
[SetUp]
public void SetupTestRun()
{
var config = new SpecsForMvcConfig();
//SpecsFor.Mvc can spin up an instance of IIS Express to host your app
//while the specs are executing.
config.UseIISExpress()
//To do that, it needs to know the name of the project to test...
.With(Project.Named("SpecsForTesting"))
//And optionally, it can apply Web.config transformations if you want
//it to.
.ApplyWebConfigTransformForConfig("Debug");
//In order to leverage the strongly-typed helpers in SpecsFor.Mvc,
//you need to tell it about your routes. Here we are just calling
//the infrastructure class from our MVC app that builds the RouteTable.
config.BuildRoutesUsing(r => SpecsForTesting.RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(r));
//SpecsFor.Mvc can use either Internet Explorer or Firefox. Support
//for Chrome is planned for a future release.
config.UseBrowser(BrowserDriver.Chrome);
//Does your application send E-mails? Well, SpecsFor.Mvc can intercept
//those while your specifications are executing, enabling you to write
//tests against the contents of sent messages.
config.InterceptEmailMessagesOnPort(13565);
//The host takes our configuration and performs all the magic. We
//need to keep a reference to it so we can shut it down after all
//the specifications have executed.
_host = new SpecsForIntegrationHost(config);
_host.Start();
}
//The TearDown method will be called once all the specs have executed.
//All we need to do is stop the integration host, and it will take
//care of shutting down the browser, IIS Express, etc.
[TearDown]
public void TearDownTestRun()
{
_host.Shutdown();
}
}

Answer 1

I had this error come up, and it turned out that I had added a new project to my solution. The new project did not include the same configurations i.e. the solution was running of "Test" but my new project only had the default ones of debug and release.
Go into the Configuration Manager and check that all the projects in your solution have the same configurations in place.

Answer 2

If you are looking for the build log, it is outputted to Console by default. Here is how to capture Console output:
var stringWriter = new StringWriter();
try
{
// Build log is sent to console, redirect output to StringWriter
Console.SetOut(stringWriter);
_host.Start();
}
catch (ApplicationException ex)
{
throw new Exception("Build failed. Output: " + stringWriter, ex);
}

Answer 3

It looks like the error is actually from MSDeploy, which SpecsFor.Mvc uses internally through MSBuild to publish your site for testing. Here's the same error directly from MSDeploy: Web deployment task failed. (The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Deployment.DeploymentManager' threw an exception.). Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a resolution.
Can you try deploying your site manually? This command line should do the trick:
msbuild /p:DeployOnBuild=true;DeployTarget=Package;_PackageTempDir=;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;Platform=AnyCPU
Let me know if that works or if it blows up with a similar error.

Answer 4

I had exactly the same issue trying to get SpecsForMvc working on a Bamboo remote build agent. Matt Honeycutt's answer pointed me in the right direction. I just had to install MS Web Deploy 3.5 on the VM running the agent to fix this error.
I also needed to install IIS Express 8 on the same VM to allow the SpecsForIntegrationHost to spin up a site in.
arni's answer helped me better diagnose the problem, but also caused me some issues later down the line, when I was having trouble with permissions trying to connect to a remote SQL Server from the tested app. These exceptions were not caught by the ApplicationException catch block as they were of class SystemException. They got handled by the global exception handler, bypassing the end of test cleanup which was supposed to shut down the integration host. This left the IIS Express instance for each test running in the background. (As I can't comment on arni's answer, I've added my amended code here)
var stringWriter = new StringWriter();
try
{
// Build log is sent to console, redirect output to StringWriter
Console.SetOut(stringWriter);
_host.Start();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
_integrationHost.Shutdown();
throw new Exception("Build failed. Output: " + stringWriter, ex);
}