msbuild “Unable to remove directory” - msbuild

Question

One of our CruiseControl.NET projects keeps intermittently failing because a msbuild task fails with
error MSB3231: Unable to remove directory "d:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin". The parameter is incorrect.
The corresponding msbuild script line is just
<RemoveDir Directories="$(DistributionDir)\Admin" Condition="Exists('$(DistributionDir)\Admin')" />
When I look at the state after the failed build, the directory contents was removed successfully, but the empty directory itself is left there. And the next build usually succeeds (having to remove just the empty directory). Note that the problem does not seem to be the usual “some other process (like antivirus) keeps locking the directory”, the error is not “access denied”, but a very strange “the parameter is incorrect”.
I monitored the build with SysInternals Process Monitor, and the result is strange – everything goes as expected, the contents of the directory is enumerated, deleted, and when the top-level directory enumeration finishes with “NO MORE FILES”, the directory is closed, and… nothing. No other operation gets to the process monitor:
10:04:09,9190557 MSBuild.exe 3516 QueryDirectory D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin NO MORE FILES
10:04:09,9190928 MSBuild.exe 3516 CloseFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS
The next (successful) build attempt is just a boring successful directory removal:
10:31:21,8616463 MSBuild.exe 1760 CreateFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS Desired Access: Read Data/List Directory, Synchronize, Disposition: Open, Options: Directory, Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a, OpenResult: Opened
10:31:21,8616861 MSBuild.exe 1760 QueryDirectory D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin\* SUCCESS Filter: *, 1: .
10:31:21,8617305 MSBuild.exe 1760 QueryDirectory D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS 0: ..
10:31:21,8617589 MSBuild.exe 1760 QueryDirectory D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin NO MORE FILES
10:31:21,8618209 MSBuild.exe 1760 CloseFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS
10:31:21,8621579 MSBuild.exe 1760 CreateFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS Desired Access: Read Attributes, Delete, Synchronize, Disposition: Open, Options: Directory, Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a, OpenResult: Opened
10:31:21,8622118 MSBuild.exe 1760 QueryAttributeTagFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS Attributes: D, ReparseTag: 0x0
10:31:21,8622408 MSBuild.exe 1760 SetDispositionInformationFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS Delete: True
10:31:21,8622676 MSBuild.exe 1760 CloseFile D:\Somewhere\Dir\Admin SUCCESS
It seems for some reason, MSBuild/Windows detects some kind of invalid parameter error before the directory removal is executed, but I have no idea where to look. (I have also tried to run chkdsk, nothing was found. I have also removed and recreated the parent D:\Somewhere\Dir directory, nothing changed.)
So – any idea where the problem could be or how should I investigate further?
(I am not sure where this question should have gone, it is kind of somewhere between SO, Progs SE, Server Fault, Superuser…)

Answer 1

I can't say why it is failing, but if the folder is the only thing left over can the build complete correctly? If so, a workaround would be to specify ContinueOnError="True".

Answer 2

Tried a lot of things, but I couldn't figure out why this sometimes fails when the directory isn't empty; in our case the directory contains symbolic links if that matters. Anyway I don't like using ContinueOnError since that means when there is an actual error you don't know it, or have to do an extra check like <Error Condition="Exists... after every RemoveDir. The solution we use now is to explicitely empty the directory, after which msbuild doesn't seem to have any problems removing it:
<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.FileSystem.Folder Condition="Exists( $(PathtoEmpty) )"
TaskAction="RemoveContent" Path="$(PathtoEmpty)" />
<RemoveDir Directories="$(PathtoEmpty)" />

Answer 3

I've just encountered this error myself, it turned out that I had the offending folder opened in a Windows Explorer and that prevented it from being properly deleted.

Answer 4

May be this comes a little late, but I found the same error and the problem appears to be in the Exists condition. It seems that the evaluation of the condition somehow doesn't release the directory properly conflicting with the execution of the task.
By removing the condition the directory will be removed if it exists but the statement won't fail if it doesn't exist:
<RemoveDir Directories="$(DistributionDir)\Admin" />

Answer 5

The selected answer seems to be a hack,as it stops you from getting the actual error which might be a critical error.
I could use remove content instead of removing the directory as below.
<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.FileSystem.Folder Condition="Exists( $(OutputPath) )" TaskAction="RemoveContent" Path="$(OutputPath)" />