Adding PublishProfile to tfsbuild msbuild arguments makes the drop folder empty (except for log files)

Question

Build Server: TFS 2012 with Update 4.

I am using chained configurations to apply web.config transformations. I have two solution configurations, Debug and Release.

I have three publish profiles for my web application, DEV, UAT and PROD.

In my buid server, I have set it to use the "Release" configuration and added the following to the MSBuild arguments:

/p:DeployOnBuild=true;PublishProfile=UAT

The build completes without any failures, but it never copies any output to the drop folder. The drop folder should contain a _PublishedWebsites folder, but instead it only contains a log folder with the log files in it.

When comparing the log files for the builds that were working before with the non-working builds, I see that all the logs where it copies files are completely missing.

My publish profiles are set to use "file system" publish, not web deploy. Not sure if that makes a difference or not. I have tried changing the publish profiles to use the same directory that is the drop folder on the build server but all that happens is that it ends up erasing that folder and all of its contents.

I'd like to point out that if I remove the "PublishProfile=UAT" from the msbuild arguments, it works as expected and both logs and the _PublishedWebsites folder are copied to the drop folder.

In addition, I know that it is doing the things from the publish profile because I can see these actions in the log file. It's just not doing the extra step where it copies all the files to the drop folder.

Ideas?

Answer 1

• Did you set Copy Output to Drop Folder to true and entered a path for This build copies output files to a drop folder?
• Did you set Solution Specific Build Outputs to false?
• Does it work with the default platform and configuration (remove the Release)?
• Try a diagnostic build (Verbosity=Diagnostic) and check the outputs of Copy Files to Drop Location sequence in the build log.