I have a post-build event set in Visual Studio 2022 for a number of projects to copy the built assembly to a common library location. It was working just fine until I switched the TargetFramework to .Net6.0. After several trials and tests I've narrowed the problem down to the use of $(TargetName) in the xcopy statement:
xcopy /Y "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).*" "$(SolutionDir)\..\Common\"
I've had a pre-build event echo the values of $(TargetDir), $(TargetName) and $(SolutionDir) to the Output window to check their values -and all is well, they are correct. The only way I can get this xcopy to work right now is to drop $(TargetName) and replace it with the actual assembly name for each project:
xcopy /Y "$(TargetDir)MyAssemblyName.*" "$(SolutionDir)\..\Common\"
I really don't want to have to do this for every single project in the solution so has anyone seen or had this problem?
If I leave the xcopy statement as it was originally I get 0 files copied.
Related
We have several projects that have a "templates" folder that all get copied to the same "templates" folder in our shared bin directory. Intermittently we get xcopy failures.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(4429,5): error MSB3073: The command "xcopy /s /y /r "E:\Source\DotNet\Service Providers\ActionScheduler\Templates" "E:\Source\DotNet\bin\x64\Release\Service Providers..\Templates\"" exited with code 4
These are post build steps that are being run in devenv.
I'm wondering if anyone has a suggestion to reduce or remove these errors.
Perhaps there is an alternative to xcopy which is more robust?
All of the templates folders that get copied have a subfolder "EN" and some files under that directory.
Additional information:
<message>98> Sharing violation</message>
<message>98> 0 File(s) copied</message>
<message>98> Unable to create directory - E:\Source\DotNet\bin\x64\Release\Templates</message>
<message>98>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(4429,5): error MSB3073: The command "xcopy /s /y /r "E:\Source\DotNet\Service Providers\ActionScheduler\Templates" "E:\Source\DotNet\bin\x64\Release\Service Providers\..\Templates\"" exited with code 4.</message>
The error still occurred after adding /d. I also tried pre-creating the folder in a prebuild step of a project that would get build earlier. But I still got the following error:
98> Sharing violation
98> Unable to create directory - E:\Source\DotNet\bin\x64\Release\Templates
98> 0 File(s) copied
98>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(4429,5): error MSB3073: The command "xcopy /s /y /r /d "E:\Source\DotNet\Service Providers\ActionScheduler\Templates" "E:\Source\DotNet\bin\x64\Release\Service Providers\..\Templates\"" exited with code 4.
You'll need to look in the Output window for a diagnostic message from XCopy when this error occurs. "Intermittent" is pretty hard to explain without that diagnostic.
There is certainly a good way to greatly reduce the chances for this going wrong. You are copying these files over and over again for no good reason. Add the /D option, that only copies when a file does not yet exist or has changed. So you basically only copy these files once and about never again, can't fail that way :)
After edit: yeah, that sure looks like two post-builds trying to copy the same file at the same time. Unlucky timing, anti-malware has a knack for extending it too long while it scans the file. You need to fix that, one is enough. With very high odds that /D already fixes it.
Code 4 means:
"Initialization error occurred. There is not enough memory or disk space, or you entered an invalid drive name or invalid syntax on the command line."
Is E:\Source\DotNet\bin\x64\Release\Service Providers..\Templates\
OK? dotdot???
If you have several projects building the same output named support files you could try to turn off parallel builds. MSDN link for setting this option
However this looks like a system wide setting an not just for that project. As a last resort you could attempt to stop the copying of the files for all but one project by setting the "Copy to Output Directory" to "Do not copy".
I had a very similar issue, from the MSDN documentation here we added the following switches. Im my case the I switch seemed to do the trick.
Xcopy /Y /I /S
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771254.aspx
I have the following post build command in a VS project:
if '$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)' == 'true' (
xcopy /Y /R /C "$(TargetPath)" "$(SolutionDir)common\bin"
)
The problem that I have is that the project is referenced from two separate solutions (meaning that for one it is not valid). My impression was that this should work anyway, because of the /C but that seems to not be the case.
My question is: what are the possibilities for getting around this? Basically, I just want this to work when it works and do nothing when it doesn't.
If $(SolutionDir) does not work for you, your have to use a path relative to $(ProjectDir), like $(ProjectDir)....\common.
Another alternative is an environment variable that must be set on a per-machine basis.
A few projects in my client's solution have a post-build event: xcopy the build output to a specific folder. This works fine when building locally. However, in TeamCity, I occasionally get
xcopy [...] exited with code 2
If I use regular copy, it exits with code 1. I expect this has something to do with file locks, although the specific files being copied are not the same, so perhaps just locking on the shared destination directory. I use /y to not prompt on overwriting files.
Why this fails in TeamCity but not locally?
Even if you provide the /Y switch with xcopy, you'll still get an error when xcopy doesn't know if the thing you are copying is a file or a directory. This error will appear as "exited with code 2". When you run the same xcopy at a command prompt, you'll see that xcopy is asking for a response of file or directory.
To resolve this issue with an automated build, you can echo in a pre-defined response with a pipe.
To say the thing you are copying is a file, echo in F:
echo F|xcopy /y ...
To say the thing you are copying is a directory, echo in D:
echo D|xcopy /y ...
Sometimes the above can be resolved by simply using a copy command instead of xcopy:
copy /y ...
However, if there are non-existent directories leading up to the final file destination, then an "exited with code 1" will occur.
Remember: use the /C switch and xcopy with caution.
I fixed the error code 2 by adding a \ at the end of my path, without it, xcopy will think that it is a file instead of a folder.
If you are using xcopy in a post build event use the /Y switch in addition to the /C.
/C Continues copying even if errors occur.
/Y Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing file.
My fix for this issue was to go into the target bin folder, and ensure that the proper subfolder exists there. Once that subfolder was manually created, the build process completed successfully.
copy fixed it for me. xcopy with /c /y did not work. I was getting an exit 4 so I went with xcopy, but turned out I needed quotes around ($TargetPath).
My script:
if $(ConfigurationName) == Debug copy "$(TargetPath)" "$(SolutionDir)\Folder\bin\Debug\$(TargetFileName)"
Probably you using TeamCity with git. If yes, check that folders you want to copy are exists in git repository. Usually git aviod adding empty project folders to repository, so xcopy fails to find it and generates a error.
You can add some empty text file to empty folder, commit and see folder appears in repository.
I have a DLL project for Visual Studio 2005 that has "XML documetation file" turned on.
Whenever I do an incremental build, during post-build event execution there is no XML documentation file in the output directory.
If I pause the build during post-build event (using sleep utility from GnuWin32 CoreUtils), I can see the file in the output directory with a name like vs5BB5.tmp. But this file is not renamed to MyLib.xml until post-build event (and "AfterBuild" target, as I have some customizations there) are finished.
For a clean build in Studio and for MSBuild started from a command line everything works as expected - XML documentation file is created before post-build events.
Why this happens, and how do I fix incremental builds?
Was just having the same issue. This is a known problem with Visual Studio and incremental builds. See this post on microsoft connect.
I solved it with a conditional xcopy like the one below:
if exist "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).xml" xcopy $(TargetDir)$(TargetName).xml $(ProjectDir)......\bin\ /C /I /R /Y
SF
Just having this problem myself....
what I found is that the xml file is named a .tmp file, so you can copy this tmp file to where you want, its just a bit of a "messy" work around.
I'm also quite tempted to write myself a command line tool thats called something like :-
WaitForThenCopy <source path> <target path> <milliseconds to wait>
only problem is it would have to be non blocking and you wouldn't know if it worked or not.
I'm using a simple batch file to do the copying instead of the default copy command that detects the tmp file and copies/renames this instead.
REM There is a bug in VS where the xml documentation is written to a tmp file
REM during incremental builds, preventing access during post-build events.
REM See http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/470485/strange-file-not-found-error-xml-documentation-file-renamed-during-incremental-build
REM As a work around for following script tries to catch this situation and copys/remanes
REM this tmp-file instead.
REM .SYNOPSIS
REM CopyXmlDocumentation "X:\path\to\source.xml" "Y:\target\dir"
if exist "%~1%" (
REM if the file exists, copy it as-is
copy /Y "%~1" "%~2"
) else (
REM else we try to copy the .tmp file and rename it to the desired target name
REM we assume that the tmp file is named "vsXXXX.tmp" where XXXX is an arbitrary string
copy /Y "%~d1\%~p1\vs*.tmp" "%~2\%~n1%~x1"
)
I have a solution in VS2008 (C#) that contains multiple projects. I just retooled some of the .csproj files for our build process, and suddenly while coding Project B won't recognize references from Project A in the class code...think the red squiggly lines under a variable type I've created. However, building the solution generates no errors. Why's it behaving like this?
I would suggest that you clear your Visual Studio temp files - it can often get confused about project structures and require a fresh start.
First, quit out of VS completely and restart it. If the problem is still there, find your VS cache folder and delete it, and then do a rebuild.
For help finding your cache folder, check this post.
When VS starts acting strangely wonky, and I can't find a logical fix, I kill Visual Studio, and manually do a 'clean' by deleting all of the bin/obj folders.
I have a batch file that does this for me quicker than I could do it manually. I place this in my solution directory, and all my projects are found in subdirectories.
rem "%%~dpa" says: Give me the (d)drive and (p)path of the (a, %%a) file.
rem However, our dir /a:d will result in only listing folders...
rem The final "%%a" is just appending the 'file' (diretory name) to the
rem drive-and-path string
for /f %%a in ('dir /b /a:d *.*') do call :process "%%~dpa%%a"
pause
goto :eof
:process
echo Looking in %1
cd "%1"
if EXIST "%1\bin" (
echo Found 'bin' - it's gone now.
rd /s /q "%1\bin"
)
if EXIST "%1\obj" (
echo Found 'obj' - it's gone now.
rd /s /q "%1\obj"
)
cd ..
Another solution
If the other answers regarding clearing Visual Studio cache, .NET Cache, and
ensuring references are valid don't work, try this one.
Based on the source, and trying this solution, I've had success.
Deleting the visual studio solution cache folder
Close out of all instances of visual studio
Locate the .vs hidden folder within your solution.
Delete the entire hidden .vs folder.
Rebuild the solution
-- Source
In your Project Properties from B, make sure Project A is checked under dependencies.
Make sure both projects are being built in the Configuration Manager
(right click on the solution and then click “Configuration Manager”)
You might also hover over the redline or just build again to see if you get anymore details. C# and VB are both pretty good at telling you why they not happy.
I've removed the reference from the project which classes were not recognized and re-added this reference. Everything got fixed.
Double check that you made the classes you are referencing public. Visual Studio doesn't do it automatically when you make a new class and I sometimes forget.