No package generated in VSTS build (for ASP.net project), so that release failed, why?

Question

I'm using Microsoft team foundation server 2018's build task to build the Asp.net project and then deploy it to Microsoft Azure Website.

The following MsBuild command should publish the website to a publishing package in the build agent's artifact directory:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild.exe" 
"C:\agent\_work\8\s\Altoro.sln" /nologo /nr:false /dl:CentralLogger,"C:\agent\_work\_tasks\VSBuild_71a9a2d3-a98a-4caa-96ab-affca411ecda\1.119.0\ps_modules\MSBuildHelpers\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.DistributedTask.MSBuild.Logger.dll";"RootDetailId=9ac05cfe-e8e9-42b6-a469-24e84f79ebe9|SolutionDir=C:\agent\_work\8\s"*ForwardingLogger,"C:\agent\_work\_tasks\VSBuild_71a9a2d3-a98a-4caa-96ab-affca411ecda\1.119.0\ps_modules\MSBuildHelpers\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.DistributedTask.MSBuild.Logger.dll" 
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true 
/p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="C:\agent\_work\8\a\\" 
/p:platform="any cpu" /p:configuration="release" /p:VisualStudioVersion="15.0" 
/p:_MSDeployUserAgent="TFS_2386aba1-5b25-4025-ba06-4677ece9a429_build_8_125"

The build succeeded, however, there is no package generated, so the next release job failed with

'2017-12-02T07:36:56.2618898Z ##[warning]Folder “C:\agent_work\8\a”is empty。no content will be added to drop folder。

Answer 1

To build ASP.NET website project, you should build *.publishproj instead of *.sln in Visual Studio build task

In your build definition -> unlink **\*.sln for Visual Studio build task -> specify the path to *.publishproj file -> save and build again.