Can't get TFS2010 Build to run with new FinalBuilder Workflow

FinalBuilder Discussion
1

Hi all/FB Support,

I'm sure I'm just missing something totally obvious, but I just can't get this to work. Essentially, I'm using Team Foundation Server 2010 with Team Foundation Build and am attempting to use it with FinalBuilder - specifically we have set up our build process template to be FinalBuilderPostBuild.xaml.

When attempting to distribute the build out to the build agent, we keep getting this:

TF215097: An error occurred while initializing a build for build definition %OurProject%: Cannot create unknown type '{clr-namespace:VSoftTechnologies.FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow;assembly=FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow}FinalBuilder'.

This is the only error we get, even when setting logging to Diagnostic.

I've followed the instructions here:

[invalid link removed]

And I continue to get the error (in fact I just rebooted the agent to be sure). I currently have FinalBuilder 7.0 installed on the Build Agent (Windows Server 2003) and the Build Controller (Windows Server 2008).

Is there anything specific I should try, any log file to look at to see where it is getting hung up?

The one thing I DID do was I modified the FinalBuilderPostBuild.xaml slightly - in the "Run MSBuild for Project" action, I deleted outputDirectory from the OutDir argument; I don't believe this is required for MSBuild to run; I'm trying to prevent it from ultimately moving everything to the Binaries directory after the build is complete. But I don't think that should affect the build from even starting, but maybe it is... not sure.

Thanks!

Chris

2

Hi Chris,
The first thing to check is that the FB/TFS integration assemblies have been GAC-installed correctly. Please go to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL and make sure that FinalBuilder.FBCmd and FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow exist.

The second thing is to check your modified version of FInalBuilderPostBuild.xaml. Sometimes, in its great wisdom, Visual Studio strips our references to custom assemblies. Can you please make sure that Activity element has the following attribute:

xmlns:vftw="clr-namespace:VSoftTechnologies.FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow;assembly=FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow"



Note that it's usually the "assembly=FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow" part that gets removed.

Cheers,

Ben

3

I knew it would be something simple ; I needed to restart the TFS service on the actual build controller, not just the agent. So I guess you would need to do BOTH, restart the agent service and the controller service. This fixed it. Thanks for your suggestions.

4

I have restarted the TFS service on the build controller, and the agent. The reference you note above is in my xaml file. But I cannot find the FinalBuilder.FBCmd and FinalBuilder.TFS.Workflow in the GAC_MSIL directory. How does one go about getting those?

5

Hi Thompson,
The assemblies are GAC-installed by the FinalBuilder installer, if it detects that the TFS assemblies are installed. If you installed TFS after you installed FinalBuilder, try re-running the FinalBuilder installer.

Please let me know if that doesn’t solve things for you.

Cheers,

Ben