We recently updated our build servers to using Visual Studio 16.8.1 and Xamarin.iOS 14.4.1.3 and have hit an issue with the previous MSBuild command that used to run.
For the record we are build a Xamarin Forms solution and targeting iOS here.
The command is:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\msbuild" MySolution.sln /p:Configuration="AppStore" /p:Platform="iPhone" /p:ServerAddress="" /p:ServerUser=""
I have tried searching for the specific error message that it is reporting (below) however I haven't been able to find anything useful so far.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Xamarin\iOS\Xamarin.Shared.targets(230,3): error MSB4044: The "GetMinimumOSVersion" task was not given a value for the required parameter "SdkVersion".
Update
Upon further digging I believe I have traced the source of the error back to these lines not being set in Xamarin.Shared.props.
<!-- SdkVersion -->
<_SdkVersion Condition="'$(_PlatformName)' == 'macOS'">$(MacOSXSdkVersion)</_SdkVersion>
<_SdkVersion Condition="'$(_PlatformName)' != 'macOS'">$(MtouchSdkVersion)</_SdkVersion>
I haven't been able to find out what sets MtouchSdkVersion and therefore why it isn't being set. A comment from just above the quoted section above states:
Sometimes we've used different variable names for the same thing for Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Mac projects. Here we try to unify those variables
Could it be that this unification has changed the behaviour of something that used to work?
This has reared it's head again in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8.3. Looks like they've moved the problem to:
<VS Install path>\MSBuild\Xamarin\iOS\Xamarin.Messaging.targets I was able to get my builds running again by removing the _SayGoodbye dependency on line 52 for the _DisconnectAfterClean target.
<Target Name="_DisconnectAfterClean" Condition="'$(IsRebuild)' != 'true'" DependsOnTargets="" />
This is certainly not a permanent solution to the problem but a workaround has been supplied by the Xamarin team. For reference the response is on GitHub
we're investigating it, but it looks like the build process is getting disconnected after running the clean targets, so if you run Build instead of Rebuild you shouldn't face this.
In the meantime, a potential workaround to unblock Rebuilds would be to edit <VS Install path>\MSBuild\Xamarin\iOS\Xamarin.iOS.Windows.After.targets and remove the _SayGoodbye entry from the CleanDependsOn property group.
I can confirm that this has allowed our CI builds to operate again.
It should go without saying but I want to make it clear you should backup a copy of the Xamarin.iOS.Windows.After.targets file before doing this.
Related
I've had a problem with my Windows 7 after an update, neither Safe Mode nor Recovery Mode could resolve the problem. I was forced to reinstall Windows completely. To develop on my projects I need Visual Studio 2010.
I always had ReSharper installed and got used to its features, so I installed it aswell.
Everything setup I tried building my solution but encountered a problem ...
(The underlined file can be found here: https://up.zone/aj)
After hours of trying to resolve the problems, I figgured out that ReSharper was the problem. I can build the solution perfectly fine without ReSharper installed. Having it installed, even if all features are turned off and the services are suspended, causes these errors in the picture above to show on build.
I managed to resolve two out of three errors by following the instructions of this Reddit user on his post: https://up.zone/ag
Now I am left with one more exception I cannot figgure out how to resolve. I couldn't really find anything helpful googling, which means you guys are my last hope. I really do not want to go back to developing without ReSharper.
This is the one:
Any idea?
Thank you!
Update 1
I figgured out that the problem must be in the NuGet.targets file, located in the .nuget folder in our solution.
I managed to find a workaround following the suggestion of this post, I am now able to build the solution without any errors.
To summarize, remove this line out of your *.csproj file
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" />
Although this works, I don't think this can be the solution. This line is there for a reason I assume. Anybody with a deep understanding of NuGet who might know how to properly resolve this problem?
Update 2
I found out that as soon as you reload your solution/project, the line gets added once again. Also, if you have certain dependencies nuget should download for you - it won't, because the line which makes that call and handles this got removed.
I'm now at a point where I know where the problem is but not why it is caused.
Does ReSharper change anything in the way NuGet behaves? As far as I can tell, nothing gets added or removed to or from the NuGet.targets file due to ReSharper.
There were one more report on this topic, at https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-462271 .
The best guess so far is that this is caused by two things happening at once: (a) using MSBuild tasks in C# source code form inside MSBuild XML files rather than DLLs and (b) having some of the MSBuild opensource DLLs shipped with the latest version of ReSharper for its own project file handling needs.
The source code gets compiled into a task DLL during an MSBuild run (not a much common thing to have; Roslyn would do this rather than ship a DLL? seriously?). When building from within Visual Studio (rather than with msbuild.exe), the in-process MSBuild instance is used, and it would run in the same appdomain as ReSharper, so it uses the common assembly reference resoluiton. If it's not too accurate, then it might accidentally pick the wrong DLL version by the short name, which would break the task compilation (that's a separate error, maybe cached away) and then result in the task-not-found error later at runtime (SetEnvironmentVariable task not found in here case).
I've tested on sample solutions with source code based tasks and could not get it broken. So trivial cases are OK. Never heard back from the original issue reporter, so there was no further progress.
Now I've got a hint that this is Visual Studio 10 (any other VS versions installed on that machine?) and maaaaybe it's Roslyn tasks. We might know for sure if you run MSBuild with more detailed logs (by setting the logging options at Tools | Options | Projects and Solutions | Build and Run | MSBuild project build output verbosity to at least Detailed) and building just the faulty project.
I'll also try this out with VS10 and update this reply with new data.
I'm compiling a solution with many projects inside using VS2013's MSBuild. I want the build to stop if one of the projects fails to compile and that the error code of msbuild will be non-zero to indicate something has failed. Can it be done?
I am running this command to start compiling:
%MS_BUILD_PATH% "%workarea%\WindowsSolution.sln" /p:Configuration=Release /p:ContinueOnError=false /p:StopOnFirstFailure=true
but it doesn't work as I want it. Any suggestions?
If anyone is still looking for this feature in Visual Studio, there is a free extension called [VSColorOutput] (here), which has an option to stop the build on first build error. Once you have installed the extension, the options is located at: Tools.Options.VSColorOutput.Build Actions.Stop Build On First Error
The official documentation says StopOnFirstFailure: If true, when one of the projects fails to build, no more projects will be built. Currently this is not supported when building in parallel (with multiple processors).
Can you try setting BuildInParallel=false and see if that helps?
Edit: Found an old blog post that says this might be easy to do if you're building a single .sln with multiple projects http://blogs.msdn.com/b/manishagarwal/archive/2006/05/09/593392.aspx
I'm using StopOnFirstBuildError
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=EinarEgilsson.StopOnFirstBuildError
It stops the build when the any project building fails. I'm using on 2015. The linked page says it works with Visual Studio 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017.
I am trying to build MSIs in a TFS Build by shelling out to DEVENV.exe (since MSBUILD does not support VSPROJs). In any case, my first installer project builds fine, the second one fails. If I reverse the order, same thing happends (i.e. the error does not follow the project). Looking at the output, I get the following errors:
Deserializing the project state for project '[MyProject].dbproj'
[MyProject].dbproj : error : Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component.
Also, I get:
Package 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.TestCaseManagement.QualityToolsPackage, Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.TestCaseManagement, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' failed to load
It looks as though the first build tries to serialize the DB project (and it says it succeeds, but there is no DBML file anywhere). Then the second build tries to deserialize the DB project and fails.
I've tried resetting env settings (using the /resetusersettings flag) as well as using the /resetskippkgs flag. Nothing works.
Any ideas?
When you shell out to DevEnv, are you building that specific project (.vdproj file), or are you building the solution? It sounds like VS is trying to open the solution on the build machine and the database and test project systems aren't present.
Have you considered porting your setup project to WiX?
Start simple. Unless you're well versed in the problem you're trying to solve it's usually best to try it "by hand" before getting it running as part of a TFS build. RDP into the build server and try running the necessary commands at the command line and see what happens. You can even go simpler than that and RDP into the build machine and load Visual Studio and build it.
Bottom line is that if you can't get it to build within Visual Studio or at the command line by calling devenv.exe it won't work as part of the team build.
I am using the below Exec task to do precisely what you are doing as part of a TFS build. So I know this works. Your platform and configuration may vary depending on what you're building. The nice thing about this is that you'll have a log file at C:\Temp\MSIBuildOutputLog.txt that you can analyze for additional errors and information.
<Exec Command=""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" "$(PathToSolution)\solution.sln" /Build "Release|Mixed Platforms" /out "C:\Temp\MSIBuildOutputLog.txt"" />
One important thing to note... There is a bug in VS2010 which causes MSI generation to fail when you try to run it at the command line using devenv.exe. This took me days to find and figure out, but you need this hotfix. Worked like a charm...
http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/KB2286556
Actually it's the deployment projects that don't support msbuild. FWIW, this is all deprecated in the next release of Visual Studio so you might want to start looking at InstallShield Limited Edition and/or Windows Installer XML now before spending too much time on dead end, broken technology. Both of these alternatives have proper MSBuild support aswell as many other improvements.
It would be perhaps better and quicker to adopt WIX (Windows Installer XML) which is the technology MS now recommends to use within VS/MSBuild/TFSBuild environment to crate MSIs.
It is relatively easy to setup and integrate within your VS Solutions. It uses XML based files to describe your MSIs and uses these files to create your MSIs when you compile.
I would start by downloading Wix from http://wix.codeplex.com/
Once installed you would be able to use the VS2010 integration of Wix based projects to create MSIs. To get started quickly simply add a new Wix project to your solution and reference the projects whose output you wish to combine into an MSI. Next you can run a tool called "Heat" which is included with Wix toolkit to generate the XML files by scanning your projects.
Once you have these XML files, add them to your Wix project and compile.
Visual Studio sometimes decides to rebuild my entire huge project because of one small change. I turned build logging up to Diagnostic to see what was the problem, and here's what I'm seeing:
< Bunch of spam >
Outputs for C:\<snip>\PRECOMPILEDHEADERS.CPP:
C:\<snip>\PRECOMPILEDHEADERS.OBJ
All outputs are up-to-date.
Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line
... and then it rebuilds my precompiled headers, then everything else.
This happens when I change a single .cpp or .h file inside the project. I'm not changing anything in the project settings. It also doesn't happen all the time for the same change; it's random.
Any ideas on what's going on here? Where can I get more information? I tried enabling debugging via the description in http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsproject/archive/2009/07/21/enable-c-project-system-logging.aspx but it didn't give any more information. I can't figure out where this "Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line" is coming from. It's not in any of the factory MSBuild files.
Some other info: it's a C++/CLI dll project that links a lot of other projects, including C#, native c++, and other C++/CLI dll's. I tried removing all the C# projects from the dependencies since those tend to cause problems, but that didn't change it. I've googled that specific string, but my situation doesn't match that of any of the other people reporting it. (One was using Intel C++, another was MSBuild from the command line and changing the case. I'm hitting build solution from within Visual Studio itself).
Edit to explain common fixes I've tried:
I've tried building only the project. Does the same thing.
I'm not including any .h files that don't exist.
I've deleted the bin/object folders and rebuilt from scratch. This usually makes it go away for a couple builds, but then it comes right back.
Edit #2:
Found something suspicious earlier in the log:
3>Using "ResolveNonMSBuildProjectOutput" task from assembly "Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".
3>Task "ResolveNonMSBuildProjectOutput"
3> Resolving project reference "..\..\..\..\CommonCore\VS2010\Project1\Project1.vcxproj".
3> Project reference "..\..\..\..\CommonCore\VS2010\Project1\Project1.vcxproj" has not been resolved.
This is repeated for several of my projects... I'm gonna chase that down and see if maybe it's a problem with the project reference hint paths.
Ok, it's an old thread, but I encountered the same problem recently.
My solution was to disable the precompiled headers - now a simple change in one sourcefile won't lead into a "rebuild" any more.
I have had the same problem with Visual Studio 2012 recently. I'm on Windows 7 with Visual Studio 2012 Professional (2012.2) building C++ projects. It's worth noting that I recently migrated the solution from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2012.
One of the C++ projects (an executable with a DLL project as a reference) was rebuilding every time one of its compilation units was changed, e.g. simply saving main.cpp would cause all compilation units (including the pre-compiled header) to rebuild. I spotted the the following message in the build logs:
Forcing rebuild of all source files due to a change in the command line since the last build.
I turned build log file verbosity to Diagnostic (Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > Build and Run) and compared the log files from a clean build and a build after one compilation unit has been changed (which forced a full rebuild). I noticed that:
"Path" had changed from one build to the next (";C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\VsGraphics" seems to have been tacked on the end)
there was a difference in TaskTracker.exe command lines to do with CancelEvents
there was a warning about OutputPath not being set
I pulled my hair out.
I eventually resorted to recreating the offending project from scratch rather than relying on the project that was automatically generated during the migration process from 2008 to 2012. It seems to be behaving as expected now.
I did three things, and the problem seems to have gone away. I'm trying to narrow it down a little but I figured I'd go ahead and post them:
Deleted and re-added all the references and project references
Fixed one of my projects that wasn't setting the .NET framework target to 3.5 to match the rest of my solution (I was getting away with it because the project didn't use .NET anyway)
Set "Copy Local Satellite Assemblies" to false for all references including System ones.
Beware that some or all of this stuff might be voodoo...
I recently create a couple of VSPackages for some Visual Studio extensions (menu bar/command). I compiled them correctly yesterday, checked into TFS (i'm the only one touching this project, FYI). I had already installed these extensions and were working fine. Today it doesn't compile! I get the following error:
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
This doesn't tell me anything, so i fired up Visual Studio with the following command:
devenv.exe /Rebuild > out.log
In my out.log, I see the following:
C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\VSSDK\Microsoft.VsSDK.targets(420,5): error : Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
I have been stuck on this for hours and can no longer build these VSPackages. Anyone? This is really frustrating. I have already tried cleaning project/rebuilding/build using Visual Studio itself (not command line)
I've experienced this issue several times in both vs2010 and vs2012, and manually deleting the "bin" and "obj" folders from the project then doing a "rebuild" normally does the trick.
Further to the answer provided by the OP, I will provide it here for completeness instead of relying on the external link remaining live:
Quoted directly from the MSDN forum answer:
Do you happen to have these extensions installed to the AllUsers
location (i.e. %VSInstallDir%\Common7\IDE\Extensions)?
You mentioned in your initial post that "I had already installed these
extensions and were working fine."
The task that's failing (based on the line number in the targets file)
is the UninstallExtension task. The only reason I'm thinking this task
would execute and fail in your situation is if you're building an
extension that's already installed to the Common7\IDE\Extensions
directory.
Regards, Aaron
I find myself on this question because of exactly the same build issue of a VSIX Installer Project for our project templates. This solved my issue.
Indeed, I uninstalled the prior version of our templates and the build occurs without issue.
Have you double checked that all of your projects are using compatible framework versions?
As in you can't use a .Net 4.0 assembly in a .Net 3.5 project.
Is the project linked with source control like TFS? If so then take latest from TFS and try again.
Are you running Visual Studio as Administrator?
Maybe you have insufficient rights for some file (copy/move/delete) especially in bin or obj folders.