I must put this program into production today, and I can't get it to run independently.
In the program, I have included NuGet package "Imports ClosedXML.Excel" and use it to create spreadsheets. When I build my executable, and try to run it from another computer, it cannot find the ClosedXML and Documentformat.OpenXml assemblies.
I checked in References that "Copy Local" was = True for ClosedXML and Documentformat.OpenXml, but it's not working. I found another website that mentioned Global Assembly Cache, and that if the dependency is in there, it will not be included in the Build .exe.
I am running Visual Studio Professional 2017. I am in over my head on this one, so if you have answer (and I hope you do), please try to provide it in elementary terms I can understand.
Sometimes issue is solved by individually adding application files inside the following menu
Go to Publish-->Application Files
Select Show all files
Under Publish Status
Set the files you need to Include [not include(auto)]
I have an automated build process set up to run from a build definition in TFS, which publishes a web application and generates/executes a database project script successfully via publish profiles that are passed as msbuild arguments in the build process definition. Everything is now running as expected except that several unnecessary files are being deployed to the target folder, including the .csproj file, all of the config transforms, and the properties folder which contains all of my publish profiles.
This is strange because 1. It's definitely not including ALL files/folders and mostly appears to be including ones used by the publish profile like transforms, while applying the transform correctly and excluding any explicitly excluded file (as defined in the pubxml), and 2. The process works perfectly if I do it by publishing from the project in Visual Studio 2013. I have the profile configured to only include files needed by the application, and I've confirmed in the csproj file that this property is there.
I tried excluding the properties folder from deployment in the pubxml file, but this causes the build to crash because it can't find the assembly file. What I've gathered is that the process is keeping all files it needs to complete the build, and dropping all of those files in my destination folder. FWIW, I'm using the "file system" method and I'm not sure yet if web deploy will make a difference. I haven't been able yet to connect to the target server with web deploy, but that's a separate problem to solve. Is there something in the build that I can configure so that my destination folder has only the files it needs to run the application, and not the files needed to BUILD the application?
FYI I also have not been using a drop folder, I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not but that might be the only thing I haven't tested as it doesn't seem necessary since I'm using a publishprofile and don't want to use the default tfs build configuration.
I found a solution that works well enough, after reading this: http://www.asp.net/web-forms/tutorials/deployment/advanced-enterprise-web-deployment/excluding-files-and-folders-from-deployment
This was a little uglier solution than I wanted, since it requires hard-coding the names of excluded files, but it does the trick and only requires identifying the files and folders in one location instead of altering a publish profile for each target environment. I created a wpp.targets file and used the ExcludeFromPackageFolders and ExcludeFromPackageFiles elements to identify the extra files. Ironically, if I don't also name the wpp.targets file in the exclude element, THAT file is included in my package. It's possible MSDeploy doesn't have the same issues with TFS as filesystem, but after spending half a day trying to work through a different set of issues and permissions workarounds, we decided that file system is a cleaner publishing method.
I have been searching around for an answer to this question, but I cannot find the documentation on it. I found a few similar questions asked here, but none that completely cover it?
Similar Question
What do all of the different files in the project directory do? I am trying to make my project open source and I don't want to have a ton of unnecessary files in my repository. What files are vital and what files will be generated when the user initially loads the project? Its important to note that this is a VB Form Application
Base Directory:
*.vb
*.Designer.vb
*.resx
*.vbproj
*.sln
*.vbproj.user
*.config
Any of the other folders in the base directory?
*/bin
*/Collection
*/My Project
*/obj
*/Resources
*.suo and *.user files can be ignored. They store user specific settings such as window arrangements, open files etc. Those files are generated by Visual Studio whenever a solution is opened.
*.vb files are somewhat important since they contain your source code...
*.sln and *.vbproj files tell Visual Studio which projects are in a solution and which files are in a project, respectively. They also contain project specific settings such as build plattforms, custom build events, target .NET Framework etc.
*.resx and app.config can be important, depending on your project. They should not be left out when you publish your project, however since they're part of the Visual Studio project. If they're truly not needed you can remove them from the project.
Edit
Folders bin and obj are where Visual Studio generates the compiled output so you should not include those when you publish the source code of your project. Any other folders are project specific so it depends on your project if they're needed or not.
As a rule of thumb, anything that is automatically generated should be excluded when you publish your source code.
Also, if you don't already, you should use a version control system such as Subversion or GIT to manage your sources. Any essential files / folders as explained above should go in there.
We have a ASP.NET MVC with 4-5 different build configurations. Whenever we change the build configuration, we need to delete the obj folder for the web project, since we get the 'allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' error. A pain, but we managed by deleting the folder in pre/post build events.
Now I need to configure our CI to build deployment packages. This means that I cannot delete the obj folder. Every time I compile e.g. with the following msbuild parameters
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=true /p:DeployOnBuild=true
I recieve the error:
web.config(123): error ASPCONFIG: It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.
As far as I understand, the problem is that there's multiple .config files in the project - In our case, there's not. I could really use some help to find an explanation and find a permanent (no- hack) fix.
Edit:
This question is marked as a duplicate, but the corresponding answers and cause(s) in the 2 threads, are clearly different from each other. Not sure what is intended with this tag - I've read that particular post before posting this question, as it didn't answer my question. There's multiple causes for this error message. It is 'similar', but definitely not a duplicate!
There is a similar question here on SO with some good solutions for this issue.
The problem is that building a deployment package creates a copy of the web.config in a subfolder of /obj. That will normally be be cleared out if you do a rebuild or a clean. However, if you build a deployment package in one configuration (e.g. Debug) and then switch to another confguration (e.g. Release) the obj/Debug folder is not cleared out and the web.config file there causes problems.
The quick solution is to clean all configurations and then do a (re)build. Alternatively you could delete the /obj folder in your project.
To permanently resolve the issue you can either move the intermediate output (/obj) out of your project folder or modify the project to force a clean of all configurations on rebuild.
I too was deleting the obj folder until I had a conflict with a build script which required it. Catch-22, I used the accepted answer on the following SO link to move the location of the Obj folder to C:\Temp\BUILD. You have to do it per csproj file, but it is a great solution.
Here is the link: VisualStudio: How to save the obj folder somewhere else
Note that I am using a variable for the project name.
R:\Temp\Build\Debug\$(MSBuildProjectName)
I have the above line in both debug and release sections for all my projects, including class projects. My build path is a ram drive for speed. See this SO for more info: How to access macro variables within csproj file?
I just answered a similar question here. To recap, I ran into this problem in one of our MVC projects, and it was due to having the MvcBuildViews property in the project file set to true. Setting the property to false fixed the problem.
<MvcBuildViews>false</MvcBuildViews>
I also found this answer which outlines an alternative that does not require turning off view building.
I don't know that there is an "official" fix as it just seemed to start on multiple projects of mine for no reason that I can find in Visual Studio Premium 2012 (never happened in previous versions of VS).
As a work around to automate the deletion of the obj directory as others have said, similar to an answer by user Casual in this post VisualStudio: How to save the obj folder somewhere else, where unfortunately just moving the location of the obj folder didn't always seem to work.
Instead I added a few commands under Build Events in the Pre-build event command line:
rd "$(ProjectDir)obj" /S /Q
md "$(ProjectDir)obj"
md "$(ProjectDir)obj\Debug"
md "$(ProjectDir)obj\Release"
You can change/add/remove subfolders to match your custom build configurations using the line where buildConfigName matches the name of the build configuration you are using:
md "$(ProjectDir)obj\buildConfigName"
Hope this helps!
That error indicates that you are trying to something specific to an application at an IIS tree level that isn't defined as an application. For example if you try to do app-level functions in a web.config in a virtual directory, you will get that error. You need to find the path you are deploying to and make sure that it is defined in IIS as an application vs a folder or vdir.
Cleaning the solution (Right click Solution in VS, clean), worked for me.
I had the same error but with a deployed page.. Then realized my webserver's clock was set back to 2010 for some reason. set it to the correct date fix my problem
Clean your project
Remove the /obj folder (probably using publish and deploy? - there is a bug in it)
Althoug the problem is explained and solved in one way in the accepted answer, I wanted to show a solution which can be better for other cases. This solution has been included in some version of VS, but I can only say that I had the problem in VS 2013 Update 5. (See the "Beware" below, it could be fixed in this version, but not working only in my particular case).
I borrowed the soltuion from Error: allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level on Visual Studio Connect.
The solution consist in including these lines to the web application project (.csproj file) which handle the deletion of the offedning intermediate files (which wans't a solution for the accepted answer, as he needed those intermediate files):
<!--Deal with http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/779737/error-allowdefinition-machinetoapplication-beyond-application-level,
we will need to clean up our temp folder before MVC project starts the pre-compile-->
<PropertyGroup>
<_EnableCleanOnBuildForMvcViews Condition=" '$(_EnableCleanOnBuildForMvcViews)'=='' ">true</_EnableCleanOnBuildForMvcViews>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CleanupForBuildMvcViews" Condition=" '$(_EnableCleanOnBuildForMvcViews)'=='true' and '$(MVCBuildViews)'=='true' " BeforeTargets="MvcBuildViews">
<ItemGroup>
<_PublishTempFolderNamesToCleanup Include="Database;TransformWebConfig;CSAutoParameterize;InsertAdditionalCS;ProfileTransformWebConfig;Package;AspnetCompileMerge" />
</ItemGroup>
<!--Force msbuild to expand all the wildcard characters so to get real file paths-->
<CreateItem Include="#(_PublishTempFolderNamesToCleanup->'$(BaseIntermediateOutputPath)**\%(identity)\**\*')">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_EvaluatedPublishTempFolderNamesToCleanup" />
</CreateItem>
<Delete Files="#(_EvaluatedPublishTempFolderNamesToCleanup)" />
</Target>
Beware: for some reason, probably because I included it myself in the project, my build target for building the views was named "BuildViews", instead of "MvcBuildViews", so I had to modify the BeforeTargets attribute accordingly.
This is not necessarily the exact same issue, and to be honest, probably down to pure lack of knowledge on my part, however I had this same error when:
I set up a standard asp.net new project actually just used for HTML5 stuff so nothing other than the usual project structure
I then (not thinking perhaps!) added a new WCF REST project (which actually was just another base asp.net project using very good examples from http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/128478/Consuming-WCF-REST-Services-Using-jQuery-AJAX-Call?fid=1597004&df=90&mpp=25&noise=3&prof=False&sort=Position&view=Quick&fr=26#xx0xx and http://geekswithblogs.net/michelotti/archive/2010/08/21/restful-wcf-services-with-no-svc-file-and-no-config.aspx
The problem was I added the WCF REST project (#2) as a SUB-DIRECTORY of the main project (#1) and then tried to build! even if I cleaned the project of course.. I also made both projects use IISexpress because I thought there was an issue using the same port or something.
Of course the build process saw the web.config from #1 and then a sub-dir with another web.config #2..
I realise this probably should be a very basic understood gotcha and it has caught me out a while ago, however sometimes it's the simplest of mistakes that are a real pain!
Might help others... who perhaps haven't had their morning coffee..
tip 1: clean & then rebuild.
tip 2: just close VS and open again.
tip 3: the downloaded project may be inside another sub folder... open the folder which has you .net files.
c:/demo1/demo/ (all files)
You should have to open demo from vs... not demo1.
I have a somewhat a similar problem, i had the main config as Copy Always so it copied the config to the bin directory. When i republished the main project, i got the MachineToApplication error. So my solution was to just change the config to Do Not Copy and remove the extra configuration in the bin folder.
Ok, so I've got a somewhat complicated problem with my build environment that I'm trying to deal with.
I have a solution file that contains multiple C# projects which is built by a NAnt script calling MSBuild - passing MSBuild the name of the solution file and a path to copy the binaries to. This is because I want my automated build environment (CruiseControl.Net) to create a folder named after the revision of each build - this way I can easily go back to previous binaries for any reason.
So idealy I have a folder layout like this
c:\build\nightly\rev1
c:\build\nightly\rev2
c:\build\nightly\rev3
...
c:\build\nightly\rev10
etc.
The problem that's arisen is I recently added the latest version of the Unity IoC container to my project, checking it directly out of MS's online SVN repository. What's happening is I have a Silverlight 3 project that references the Silverlight version of Unity but I also have other projects (namely my Unit testing project) that reference the standard (non-Silverlight) version of Unity.
So what happens is since MSBuild is dumping everything into one single folder the Silverlight version of the Unity assembly is overwriting the non-Silverlight version because they have the exact same assembly file name.
Then when CruistControl runs my unit tests they fail because they don't have the proper dependencies available anymore (they try to load the Silverlight specific Unity assembly which obviously doesn't work).
So what I want to do is:
keep my desired output directory
structure (folder\revision)
I don't want to have to manually edit
every single proj file I have as this
is error prone when adding new
projects to the solution
Idealy I would like MSBuild to put everything into a folder structure similar to this:
nightly\revision1\project1
nightly\revision1\project2
nightly\revision1\project3
...
nightly\revision2\project1
nightly\revision2\project2
nightly\revision2\project3
etc
I can't modify the Unity project to give it a different file name because it comes from another SVN repository I cannot commit changes to. I found a similar question posted here and the suggested solution was to use a "master" MSBuild file that used a custom task to extract all the project file names out of the solution then loop over each one building them. I tried that but it doesn't build them in the order of their dependencies, so it fails for my project.
Help?
Firstly I would always have the build server delete the old working copy and check out a fresh copy to avoid any problems with stale artifacts from the previous build.
Next I would have nant or msbuild build the solutions as before with the artifacts from each build going to their local working output folders.
After that I'd move the artifacts from their working paths to their output paths, this shouldn't require digging through the project files since you can just tell msbuild/nant to copy working\project1\bin\release\**\*.* to artifacts\project1\.
The script that does this should ideally be stored along with the source with the main file, e.g. build.nant or build.proj in top level of the trunk.
For third party libraries I would simple include the DLLs directory in your repository. Nothing worse than writing some code and having a third party dependency break your build because of changes on their end.
Simply document the versions of the libraries you are using, and if you must update them, you'll have a better sense of what breaks the build before you even check it in.
Also, doesn't CC.Net automatically handle the providing of releases based on revision? I'm using TeamCity and it keeps a copy of the artifacts of every build.
I highly recommend reading JP Boodhoo's Automating Builds with NAnt blog series. That's been my starting point and have made lots of changes for my own taste. I also highly recommend checking out the builds of many open sources projects for examples. I've learned a lot from the builds of the Castle/Nhibernate/Rhino-Tools stack.